Wednesday, November 24, 2010

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

I have been listening to this lovely book called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, about a group of people on an English island and how they kept each other company and sane during WWII. A few years later, Juliet, a woman on the main land catches wind of the group, begins to do research to write a book, and ultimately goes and visits the people she's been corresponding with on the island. She describes this one moment where two characters, a man and a little girl, sit quietly watching a bird pull a worm from the ground. I loved the simplicity of it. The intrigue that came from watching nature. There is a lot of colorful, beautiful description in this book, and it reminded me that joy can come from witnessing simple moments. I'm not much of a nature girl, but that doesn't change the fact that the writing brings the world of Guernsey to life in my mind. I can see what the people look like, how the sky was at sunset.

In the process of Juliet collecting information to write a book about the Society, she also learned about their struggles during the war. The book brings stories of the war that I hadn't heard before. How people handled certain situations; the children being sent away until the end of the war, for example.

Such an interesting contrast of the beauty and hospitality of the people of the Society, and the ugliness of the war.

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