Month: December 2021

*If you are new here, WELCOME! For The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, I provide your book club with a brief summary, food ideas, and discussion questions in that order!

Have you ever read an epistolary novel? Epistolary novels are stories told entirely through a series of letters. The form originated in 1740 when Samuel Richardson revolutionized story telling with Pamela.

Considered to be one of the first novel-type works, Pamela led a long trend of epistolary novels. But today the form is rare. You might recall that The Color Purple was an epistolary novel.

Other novels follow a similar format and use journal entries or other forms of correspondence to tell the story, but the use of letters alone is unusual these days.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is an epistolary novel in its truest form. Told through letters between, not just two or three, but at least a dozen correspondents, it is truly a fascinating work.

I’m amazed that Shaffer and Barrows were able to include so many voices and still create a seamless story. The cast of characters is what really makes the novel an unforgettable and thoroughly enjoyable work.

The novel’s central character is a young writer, Juliet Ashton, who is searching for her next story in post-WWII England. When she receives a letter from the isolated island of Guernsey asking her to send a book, that simple request changes the course of her life and ultimately brings her to the island. There she finds a group of diverse literary lovers and the community she’s always longed for.

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*If you are new here, WELCOME! For The Jane Austen Society, I provide your book club with a brief summary, food ideas, and discussion questions in that order!

If you love British novels, especially feel-good ones, then The Jane Austen Society is just your type of book. Set in post WWII England, the book takes place in the small village of Chawton.

You might recognize Chawton as it was one of the places Jane Austen lived during her lifetime.

The book fictionalizes the attempt to secure Jane Austen’s cottage in Chawton along with some of her things for historical purposes. Which by the way, is a real place. You can check it out HERE!

If you are a fan of Jane Austen, you’ll love that the characters in this novel are too and her works are referenced throughout the novel. In fact, you might catch a few similarities between the characters in this novel and those of Miss Austen.

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