What a beautiful book. This is a completely heartwarming story, and you don't want to miss it.

Told in a series of letters, this story highlights the joys and hardships of the people living on the island of Guernsey during the German Occupation of WWII. Witty and heartbreaking, this novel is not only educational, but complete in every way. No lose ends are left, making the bow on the cover seem that much more perfect.

I will admit that I like Part I more than Part II. In Part I author Juliet Ashton (the main character, so to speak) is looking for a subject for her new book when she receives an unexpected letter from a man in Guernsey who bought a book that had once belonged to her. It's here that we meet the islanders and learn how the Society began (and how it got such a silly name). I loved this part, because it was full of discovery. Part II was good, of course, but it was written with more of a third-person feel. We still learn more about the characters, but we're really learning about events that have just happened, rather than getting first-hand accounts of events or personalities. I hope that made sense.

4 out of 5 stars. I would have preferred the entire book be more like Part I, but I realize that wouldn't have worked as well given the situation of the characters (it's so hard to explain this without giving anything away!). However, this is such a good story; perfect for uplifting the spirit and closing the book with a sigh and a smile. ( )

It was very interesting reading about the life in Guernsey during the Nazi Occupation and short after it. Including all the suffering that the people on this island had to go through. And how they managed to survive it. (or not) .
I liked writing the whole book in letters, even it breaks a constant flow, but it makes the reading interesting.
I thought the person Juliet was a little bit oversweet, especially at the end. That made the book into a sugar cookie. A bad thing,- I don`t know. Too much for my taste. ( )

a must read book. Wanted to go back to guernsey to soak up the atmosphere the book created. easy read. ( )

Fantastic Book!! Memorable Quotes as follows:

- Page 4 - "PS I am reading the collected correspondence of Mrs. Montagu. D you know what the dismale woman wrote to Jane Carlyle? 'My dear little Jane, everybody is born with a vocation, and yours is to write charming little notes.' I hope Jane spat on her."
"PS You write charming little notes."

- Page 64 - "'Is it so small a thing to have enjoyed the sun, to have lived light in the spring, to have loved, to have thought, to have done, to have advanced true friends?' It isn't. I hope, wherever she is, she has that in her mind.

- Page 87 - "I missed six months, and lo and behold, he learned how to talk! Now he talks to himself, which I find terribly endearing, since I do, too. ( )

Very good approach. The characters are at times lacking common sense, especially the main male characters. ( )

So gentle and lovely to read. And what a satisfying ending! ( )

I got this book not knowing a single thing about it. It was the title that put it on my must read list. I loved the format, as it was done as letters and telegrams. It was such an insightful, and entertaining book. ( )

Het verhaal
Voor de kust van Frankrijk, op het Engelse eiland Guernsey, heeft een groepje bewoners de oorlog doorstaan door geregeld samen te komen en onder het genot van een eenvoudige aardappelschiltaart te praten over Hamlet, Jane Eyre en andere grote werken uit de wereldliteratuur. Wanneer zij per toeval in contact komen met Juliet, een schrijfster uit Londen die op zoek is naar een onderwerp voor haar nieuwe boek, ontspint er zich een uiterst levendige correspondentie. Middelpunt van de eilanders is een jonge vrouw die is afgevoerd door de Duitsers. De grote onbekende heeft een ongelooflijke aantrekkingskracht op Juliet en ze besluit haar boek over deze mysterieuze vrouw te schrijven.

Het literaire Aardappelschiltaart Genootschap van Guernsey bestaat voor het grootste gedeelte uit brieven en dat was wel even wennen bij het lezen er van. Eenmaal aan deze vorm gewend leverde het juist variërende perspectieven op.
De Kanaaleilanden werden door de Duitsers bezet op weg naar Engeland. De eilanden waren helemaal afgesloten van de buitenwereld en wisten dus niet wat er in de rest van de wereld gebeurde.
Er wordt verteld hoe de eilandbewoners de WO II hebben meegemaakt waardoor je een aardig beeld krijgt van hoe het leven tijdens de bezetting op Guernsey moet zijn geweest. Ook als de wederopbouw is begonnen, is de pijn en het verdriet om de strijd met de Duitsers nog lang niet vergeven en vergeten.
Een mooi verhaal zonder dramatisch of sentimenteel te worden.

Als je Eten, bidden en beminnen van Elizabeth Gilbert met plezier hebt gelezen dan is dit boek ook iets voor jou!

pleasantly reminiscent of Helene Hanff’s 84 Charing Cross Road, which was clearly an influence. It’s an epistolary novel, with author Juliet Ashton as its fulcrum. Juliet has recently had a collection of her WWII humor columns published. While she in on the exhausting book tour, she meets up with a handsome American suitor, Markham V. Reynolds, Jr. and receives an odd letter from a man who lives on the isle of Guernsey, which had been recently occupied by the Germans. Dawsey Adams writes Juliet that he’s come into a copy of a book she used to own, Selected Essays of Elia by Charles Lamb, and wonders if she can help him find more by its author.

Her fascination with the islanders and with the history of the German occupation grows so she eventuallly goes to visit the island, in an attempt to find a new topic to write on.

The book borders on twee, sometimes precariously so, but manages, I thought, to stay on the side of emotional truth. There are things that are sweet and wonderful, but they are balanced by as many of cruelty and hardship. In the end, the authors have created a group of people I was happy to spend time with, and would be glad to be in conversation about books with. And the details of Guernsey’s occupation were a new window into many familiar facts of WWII.

In the end, this is a cheering, uplifting book, easy to read, but with enough emotional and historical heft to make it more than a mere confection. ( )

This was a great story about the German occupation of the channel isle of Guernsey told through a series of letters. I was a little weary of a book told through a series of letters as you only receive bits and pieces of everything. I still feel like it was a bit choppy and would have liked more detail in the every day lives of the correspondants. Once you get into this book you really become captivated with the little isle and lives and stories of the people there. I think this will make a fantastic film. ( )

I can't suggest that this book was anything other than a predictable love story (I mean come on, we all knew that Juliet and Dawsey were going to get together in the end, and we all knew that it would take the whole book to get there) written in an unusual style (series of letters between the characters).... and yet it was the backdrop, the back STORY, the setting, and the characters that makes this a wonderful book. I freely admit to being a sentimental sap, I'll cry over episodes of favorite television shows that I've seen dozens of times. My wife thought there was something seriously wrong with me when we went and saw The Lord of the Rings and I literally sobbed (to my credit I wasn't the only one...). This book did the same thing to me. I teared up at least a dozen times, so much so that I thought maybe it had something to do with cold medication I was taking. So I took a nap, and came back later to finish it. No. It really is a wonderful story that tells a much more important story. The Nazi occupation of the Guernsey Islands is just one more story of a brutal occupation by ordinary men (some good and some bad). Enough has been written and said about the evils of that regime, that I need not repeat it... and yet I am always surprised anew each time I am exposed to it. An easy read and highly recommended, ( )

I bought this as a gift for a friend last Christmas....one of those purchases where you really want it for yourself. Finally it turned up for me at the library. I was struggling with other books and picked this up for a bit of a relief...and didn't put it down. Very quickly I was whisked into the world of the narrator and her fellow characters. It is quite difficult to describe this book without making it sound conventional mush. And it is definitely NOT that. It hooked me with the story of someone finding a book in a second hand book store, reading it and then writing a thank you note to the person who had previously owned it. So for those of us who believe in serendipity, cosmic consciousness or whatever you want to call it and who fiercely love books, you will probably be hooked too. The book is also about journeys - interior and exterior - and about healing. Best of all the edition I read was delightfully small and not hugely thick and came with a red ribbon bookmark. I do like being able to hold a small book in my bed confident in the knowledge that I will finish it - that my arms aren't breaking under the weight of it - that when my eyelids begin to close that I can deftly whip the bookmark in before I fall into a deep peaceful slumber. ( )

refreshingly simple and tranquil in this time of immediate satisfaction communication. Pity of the unnecessary intrigues at the end.
The description of the simple life of the islanders reminded me of the book "Mevrouw Verona daalt de heuvel af" by Dimitri Verhulst. ( )

This book was so long on the ten best sellers list that I was curious about it. I didn't have any idea what it was about. One day at the library on their for sale table this book was offered for $l.00. I bought it just to see what a book with this title was like. When I realized it was letters back and forth between several people I was disappointed, however, not for long. It was a most ineresting book and I enjoyed reading it. I learned a lot about the effects of the war on this island and the people living there (I knew nothing about this). I have passed this book on to several friends and they all thought it was interesting. ( )

This whole story is told by means of letters between the characters. This style can go horribly wrong or add a beautiful atmosphere to the story. In this case it was the latter. The letters are exchanged mostly between Juliet and various people on Guernsey Island. Juliet is a writer without something to write about and at first she is intrigued by their stories about surviving the German Occupation during World War 2 and then by the people and the island itself. It's hard to say more about the plot without giving away pieces of the story.
This was such an entertaining story, yet it's hard to describe. Juliet's voice is hysterically funny, and the various people she corresponds with are both likeably eccentric or irritatingly high handed. Ms Shaffer did a fantastic job evoking the atmosphere of a world and people recovering from a World War. There are some stories that touch on the graphic nature of events during the war, but they were handled with a very deft touch, and convey the horror of what happened without making the story dark and heavy. But overall it's the characters that drive this story. I just fell in love with them by means of the words they write or how Juliet writes about them. ( )

This was a light and dark story. It seemed to be written by two people and so it was and they had a different vision of what the story would be. I think we lost a better story by the failing health of the original author. That is my opinion. ( )

A British author in search of a topic for her next book strikes up a correspondence with a group of book-loving friends on the island of Guernsey.

I love epistolary novels. I love the way they give us these beautiful, tantalizing fragments of the characters' lives. I love the way they layer piece upon piece, slowly but surely revealing the full story. I love how they allow us to fill in the gaps for ourselves. I love what they leave unsaid. And, most of all, I love the way they surprise us. There may be hints of what's to come, just as there are in real life, but the best epistolary novels don't really foreshadow. They let us live the story along with the characters. We encounter each new twist just as they do. Their reactions become our own.

THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY is a very good epistolary novel. You know those British indie films about tight-knit small towns filled with eccentric yet loveable villagers? The ones where the characters all know each other so well that all their experiences are wound together into a tight little knot? This is one of those films, except for the part where it's a book. It's a celebration of people, of words, and of the endurance of the human spirit (if you'll forgive me a cliche or two). It warmed the cockles of my heart, and I don't doubt it'll do the same with yours.

That's not to say that it's an entirely pleasant novel. This is a post-war story, and the Society members did not emerge from the conflict unscathed. They've spent five years in isolation, and they've lost friends and family to the German occupation. I found many of their stories heartwrenching, and I shed more than a few tears before the novel was done.

I highly recommend this to anyone with an interest in this period in history or a fondness for epistolary novels.

(A slightly different version of this review originally appeared on my blog, Stella Matutina). ( )

I borrowed this from my mother, who didn't like it, who borrowed it from her mother, who also didn't like it. It has no subtlety, and while the story isn't bad, the factual historical detail are stuck into the book like wads of gum, and the characters have no life, no drive, and no passion. I hope to forget this within the week. ( )

This is one of the best audio books I have ever listened to. The story is fascinating, the characters interesting. The reading, by varied actors, is well done. Highly recommend. ( )

http://books.moonsoar.com/archives/20... ( )

This epistolary novel provided me with much entertainment on the day after my eye surgery. The story tells, after the fact, of the occupation by German troops of The Channel Islands, especially Guernsey and we do get a lot of insight into the difficulties they faced and of some of the atrocities that happened there and also in France and Germany. There are tears in this story along with the joy. But the story mainly concerns the time directly after the war learning about life on the island and how they are coping with rebuilding their lives as well as the damaged property. The characters are delightful (except the undelightful ones!) and there is also a love story. I got the feeling that there had been quite a bit of research which made the tale more compelling than it would have been without those darker elements, but I would still classify it as entertainment. However I do highly recommend it! We all need some fun in our reading and this one has elements that makes if a cut above “fluff.” ( )

I was told by someone whose opinion I normally trust that this was a piece of fluff, and so I was a little reluctant to waste my time reading it; however it is a book club selection for next week, so I started it this morning and finished it this evening. Yes, it’s a little fluffy (or I wouldn’t have been able to read it so quickly), but it’s also a very good story. It’s set in England and on the Channel Island of Guernsey immediately after World War II. It tells the story through letters, and some telegrams and diary entries. In the beginning, the primary letter writer is Juliet, who is a writer searching for a story. She begins a correspondence with someone in Guernsey about a book he found with her name and address in the flyleaf.

The stories of the islanders’ struggles and heroism during the Nazi occupation of Guernsey are heartbreaking. I love historical fiction where I learn something new, and this had a lot of facts I hadn’t known before. Interspersed throughout the book are the character’s reactions to works they’ve read in the course of their membership in the Literary Society of the title. Juliet eventually travels to Guernsey and falls in love with it and the people. In spite of the essential sadness of the story, some judicial use of humor by the author lightens the tone.

Normally, I’m not a fan of epistolary novels, since I usually think an author chooses this style to opt out of good plot and character development. In this case, though, the book ends up being a real page-turner (which for me means the plot is good), and I fell in love with many of the characters, especially Elizabeth, whom we only see through others’ eyes.

The book was well written for a first (and, unfortunately, only novel). I did have the conclusion figured out well before the end, but it’s such a quick read, I didn’t have time to get annoyed with the author for building in artificial suspense. Although it isn’t as great a novel, it reminded me a little of [The Book Thief] by [[Markus Zusak]].

All in all, a nice day spent reading an enjoyable book. I’m giving it 3½ stars. ( )

I loved this book. Very few books have made me laugh aloud on one page and then sob reading the next episode; this one did. Shaffer's writing can be simultaneously hilarious and heartbreakingly sad. Although this is not a great book, one that will become a classic, it is a very, very good book. Not only was I caught up in the plot, the characters, and the islands themselves but I also learned a great deal about WW II. Generally I do not like letter writing as a genre, but this book soon made me forget I was reading letters. As the book progressed, the stories seemed to be told by a shifting omniscient author, someone the reader knew could be trusted to distinguish truth from falsehood, courage from cowardice, honor from shame, true character from superficial appearances. The main character, Juliet, and her literary twin, Elisabeth, have always followed an unerring inner moral compass. Each of them possesses extraordinary courage and the energy, knowledge, and strength to change their world. What is almost as tragic to the reader as the story itself is the knowledge that this is Shaffer's first and last novel. She has left us a truly wonderful gift. Our book club is going to mimic the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by annually having a "choose your own book and share it with the rest of us" meeting. ( )

Cartes plenes amunt i avall

M'ha enganxat totalment per l'argument i per la forma, per totes les històries que recull, i per la història que té al darrera. Un bon company que m'ha portat a una illa seductora en la postguerra més dura d'Europa. ( )

J'ai adoré Le cercle littéraire des amateurs d'épluchures de patates de Mary Ann Shaffer : Guernsey pendant et après la guerre, ça parle d'amitié, de solidarité, d'amour aussi, sur un mode épistolaire.

Quel plaisir de trouver un espace de fraîcheur ! Un bouquin spécial et unique. ( )