A Book to Make Friends With

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a 5 in my view. What a great book. I would take just about every character in this book as a friend in my real world. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is the name of a book club that was created to protect its members from arrest by the Germans. As a result, people who were not readers were "forced" to begin to read books and talk about them with their neighbors. The main character, Juliet, finds out about this club through a correspondence she begins with one of it's members. It is an engaging and charming book, the kind that you savor as you read it, and, for me anyway, one that is worth re-reading. These non-readers meet authors that they learn from, and some begin on a journey of reading that was never part of their life before. In her correspondance Juliet says "That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's all geometrically progressive--all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than enjoyment." I couldn't have said it better myself. Isola, a member of the society says: "I didn't like Wuthering Heights at first, but the minute that specter, Cathy, scrabbled her bony fingers on the window glass--I was grasped by the throat and could not let go." I'm so glad that I wasn't an adult when I first was "grabbed by the throat" by a book. As Juliet carries on her correspondence with the society, each one shares with her the book they read, and their thoughts on it. In this way you feel you get to know them intimately, and long to know more about them. Their thoughts about their island home being occupied by Germans provoke you to consider how you treat all people, not just the ones you like. Even in hard situations, even when a whole people seems evil, there are some that stand out as decent human beings. In short, I find nothing not to like in this book. It would be a great present for a friend, or an addition to a library.