Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Ann Barrows

My adult book club recently read this book and found it to be delightful. It's told completely in letters from one person to another and takes place during and after WW II. The island of Guernsey, off the shore of England, was occupied by the Nazis during that war. Under the cover of monthly "literary" meetings, the islanders do their best to help each other survive a dreadful experience. A saucy reporter begins a dialogue of letters between herself and the islanders who survived that experience, which sounds like it might be heavy material, but it is quite a light hearted book. The letters are full of humor and the engaging eccentricties of individual characters. Part of the draw for me was the reaction the non-readers had to the books they choose to read for their fake book club. One fisherman tries his hand at Shakespeare, with this result: "Mind you, I cannot always make sense of what he says, but it will come. It seems to me the less he said, the more beauty he made. Do you know what sentence of his I admire the most? It is 'The bright day is done, and we are for the dark.' " Lovely. Worth reading. (submitted by JS, librarian)