The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Annie Barrows, Mary Ann Shaffer
Language: English
Pages: 290
ISBN: 0385341008
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
“I wonder how the book got to Guernsey? Perhaps there is some sort of secret homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.” January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb….
As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all.
Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.
Written with warmth and humor as a series of letters, this novel is a celebration of the written word in all its guises, and of finding connection in the most surprising ways.
From the Hardcover edition.
French Tanks of World War II (1): Infantry and Battle Tanks (New Vanguard, Volume 209)
To Hope and Back: The Journey of the St. Louis (Holocaust Remembrance Series)
The D.L.I. at War: The History of the Durham Light Infantry 1939-1945
hope you will write to me again. Yours, Juliet Ashton From Eben Ramsey to Juliet 28th February, 1946 Dear Miss Ashton, I am a Guernsey man and my name is Eben Ramsey. My fathers before me were tombstone-cutters and carvers—lambs a specialty. These are the things I like to do of an evening, but for my livelihood, I fish. Mrs. Maugery said you would like to have letters about our reading during the Occupation. I was never going to talk—or think, if I could help it—about those days, but
will reconsider when you learn that their founder, Elizabeth McKenna, is not even an Islander. Despite her fine airs, she is merely a jumped-up servant from the London home of Sir Ambrose Ivers, R.A. (Royal Academy). Surely, you know of him. He is a portrait painter of some note, though I’ve never understood why. His portrait of the Countess of Lambeth as Boadicea, lashing her horses, was unforgivable. In any event, Elizabeth McKenna was the daughter of his housekeeper, if you please. While
I could never put it into words for myself. Well, after that, I thought there might be something to this poetry after all. I began to go to meetings, and I’m glad I did, else how would I have read the works of William Wordsworth—he would have stayed unknown to me. I learned many of his poems by heart. Anyway, I did win the hand of the Widow Hubert—my Nancy. I got her to go for a walk along the cliffs one evening, and I said, “Lookie there, Nancy. The gentleness of Heaven broods o’er the
too am a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—but I never wrote to you about my books, because I only read two—kiddies’ tales about dogs, loyal, brave, and true. Isola says you are coming to maybe write about the Occupation, and I think you should know the truth of what our States did to animals! Our own government, mind, not the dirty Germans! They would be ashamed to tell of it, but I am not. I don’t much care for people—never have, never will. I got my reasons. I never
think I’d mind looking like a fool, if it didn’t make Rob look a worse one. But it would—and of course, he wasn’t a fool at all. But he’d sound that way. I’d much prefer to say nothing and look like a feckless, flighty, cold-hearted bitch. But I’d like you to know why—I’d have told you before, but you were off with the Navy in 1942, and you never met Rob. Even Sophie never met him—she was up at Bedford that fall—and I swore her to secrecy afterwards. The longer I put off saying anything, the
