BOOK GROUP

When I wrote about friends, I included my book group. We meet every Tuesday night for at least 2 hours and discuss a mystery book. We take breaks during the summer, around mystery conventions, and religious and other holidays. We only read mysteries, every kind you can think of. Spy, thrillers, cozies, classics, police procedural, capers, books that are classified as novels but are mysteries, and mysteries that really aren't. But only mysteries. Until last night.

I was over my Monday bug and went to book. It was our last meeting until after the holidays. And it was a pot luck. No way was I missing food. Yes, queasy is gone. But the book we read is not a mystery. Never said it was, never tried to be. It is just a lovely book. Some had read it already, we all had heard of it. It has had incredible reviews. We decided we wanted to read it and discuss together and we did.

Even if you only read a book a decade, or horrors of horrors never read a book, you MUST read this book: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. It is by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. The is written as letters between people on Guernsey, Juliet an author and her friends just after WWII. Guernsey was occupied by the Germans for several years. The book tells of their surviving the war, hence potato peel pie. It is an amazing book. I knew it was fiction, but I kept reading it and feeling it as real letters. The writing is superb, the characters are true, time and space spot on. I laughed and cried.

In the San Francisco area the book is #2 on the Best Seller's list. And if you want to borrow it from the library, prepare to wait. The line is about 40 deep, at 3 weeks a person.

The web site for the book gives you flavor of the book. And the history of the authors. Ms. Shaffer did not live to see the success of her book.

http://www.guernseyliterary.com/