The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Barrows

shafferI could have sworn I had blogged this already, but I must have dreamt it.

This book is a bit of a gem. I’m sure I’m not the first to say so. I picked it up in London this summer, with a title like that I was hardly likely to pass it up.

Epistolary novels are delightful when they work and excessively tiresome when they don’t. Luckily, this is an example of an epistolary novel that works.

I laughed and I cried, both quite literally, it doesn’t get much better. How it’s all going to end becomes obvious quite early on, but that’s part of the charm. This is a feelgood book of the highest order. Better than chicken soup.

Mary Ann Shaffer sadly died in 2008, so no hope for more gems from her, unfortunately.

84 Charing Cross Road – Helene Hanff

In the meantime, 84 Charing Cross Road popped up in two quite unrelated discussions during the last week. So guess what I reread yesterday? My paperback copy has The Dutchess of Bloomsbury Street in the same volume, so that’ll be my reading for tonight. After that, it’s back to the search for the perfect book about Scotland. Only eleven days to go before I will be there myself.