Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with readers of Daily Kos who aren’t throwing pies at one another. Drop by and tell us about your weather, your garden, or what you cooked for supper. Newcomers may notice that many who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but we welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
When was the last time you couldn’t go to sleep until you finished a book? For me, it was Wednesday. I had picked up the Kindle version of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (by Mary Ann Shaffer and her niece, Annie Barrows) on a Daily Deal earlier this summer but had only just got around to reading it. I had read another novel by Annie Barrows that I had liked very much so I thought I might like this.
I couldn’t put this book down.
Set just after WWII, the book is written in epistolary form, a series of letters and telegrams between a young English writer, her publisher and his sister, and a group of people on the Channel island of Guernsey, recently liberated from German occupation. The connection to Guernsey happened quite by chance — a book she had once owned and inscribed with her name and address had fallen into the hands of a Guernsey man . He wrote to her to tell her how much the book had meant to him and the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Now that was a conversation starter — just what was this group and what on earth was a Potato Peel Pie? Well, the society had its start with a bald faced lie told to the Germans when a group of friends were challenged after curfew while returning from an illicit pig roast dinner. To cover the lie, they had to start holding actual weekly book club meetings. Much later, the brave and feisty woman who had told the initial lie was later arrested and sent to a concentration camp because of yet another run-in she had had with the German soldiers. All her friends were hoping she would be found and make her way home.
There are big themes within the book — love, loss, friendship, and how a close-knit circle of people survived the horrors of fascism, occupation, privation and the injuries of war.
When I bought it, the book was probably on a deal because it is being made into a film. I was skeptical about this would work because the book is extremely literary, being composed entirely of letters in different voices. But the trailer looks intriguing. I am really looking forward to this movie.
It is an important story to come out at this time, too. The Nazi regime was evil, a truly dark time in human history. It is appalling and incredible how many people have forgotten that.
The weekend begins now. Come in, be comfortable, and share your day, your weekend plans, your menus! This is an open thread.