"The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Before I got my real estate license, I traveled as a business consultant.  Those of you who fly regularly can attest to the many travel delays as of late.  I can handle a baggage fee or flights without snacks, but travel delays irk me.  It was during one of these delays that I finished the book I had been reading and had nothing to occupy my time.  I visited the airport Barnes and Noble and checked the Bestseller Wall.  It had the Twilight books that I'd already read, some Jodi Picoult that I had finished, and a few thrillers that I can't read because I'm a chicken.  Then I saw a little book with a name that stuck out...

I'm not sure if all families are like this, but mine is very into genealogy.  I know that my first ancestor on my father's side to come to America came from the Isle of Guernsey in 1633 and landed in what is now Southern Maine.  He married a sheep farmer's daughter and our clan has lived happily in Southern Maine ever since... until my immediate family moved south in 1993.  Anyway, the Isle of Guernsey always sounded weird to me.  I thought of a hospital gurney.  When I saw it in the title of a book, I knew I had to read it.

 Little did I know what a great read it would be.  It didn't need to be, it was just to pass the hours until I finally got home from my trip, but I'm thankful that it was.  Here's the "Publishers Weekly" description:

"The letters comprising this small charming novel begin in 1946, when single, 30-something author Juliet Ashton (nom de plume Izzy Bickerstaff) writes to her publisher to say she is tired of covering the sunny side of war and its aftermath. When Guernsey farmer Dawsey Adams finds Juliet's name in a used book and invites articulate—and not-so-articulate—neighbors to write Juliet with their stories, the book's epistolary circle widens, putting Juliet back in the path of war stories. The occasionally contrived letters jump from incident to incident—including the formation of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society while Guernsey was under German occupation—and person to person in a manner that feels disjointed. But Juliet's quips are so clever, the Guernsey inhabitants so enchanting and the small acts of heroism so vivid and moving that one forgives the authors (Shaffer died earlier this year) for not being able to settle on a single person or plot. Juliet finds in the letters not just inspiration for her next work, but also for her life—as will readers." (Aug.)
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