Authors: Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Burrows
Review by: Susie Sparks, Calgary Reads Volunteer Tutor
Okay, okay, I confess. Like Lola, I have my favourites, too, and this one’s right up there in my Top 100 List. But I’ve learned to give my favourites away – as very special gifts to very special friends. Since a friend loaned me a copy last summer, I bet I’ve bought five or six copies to send to friends who I know will love the quirky humor and absolutely delightful characters of people in this book as much as I do.
It’s a collection of letters written between a London newspaper columnist and the members of the Literary and Potato Peel Society during the German occupation of Guernsey in 1946. It seems that the quasi-literary society came into being to provide a cover story for a certain stolen pig, and the odd collection of villagers that assembled for the ‘meetings’ were quite willing to correspond with the London writer, even encouraging her to visit their little island.
I laughed out loud – frequently frightening my fellow C-Train passengers, I’m afraid, and of course grew to love every wildly eccentric character on the island. And yes, before the story ends, you’ll shed tears, as well. But you will, I promise, leave the last page with sure and certain hope that the goodness of humankind will triumph over mean-spirited tyrants every time.
Great questions to ask at your book club:
- If you were writing a book based on letters between historical figures, who would you choose as your characters, and why?
- If you were casting this movie, who would you choose to play your favourite characters?
- Some of my best laughs came from the letters written by Adelaide Addison (Miss). What is it about her that makes her so funny – even though she has no idea that she is!
- What did you think about Remy being introduced as a character – what does she provide to the story line?
- Is Elizabeth too good to be true? Why do you think that?
- And for that matter, is Juliette too good to be true? Can you imagine yourself making the choices she did?
- Do you think that a person’s literary choices reveal their character?
