I think I feel like starting this personal and totally unprofessional review of “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Poe Society” by a scattering of biographic notes on the author, Mary Ann Shaffer, whose name I had never heard of before reading this book and there is a good explanation for that, even though I’m aware there are other millions of writers I have never heard of.

This book is the first one written by Mary Ann Shaffer and also the last one, since she died even before seeing it published.

The genesis of the book is a bit strange actually: it’s a book based on daily life of English people during World War II and immediately after it and was written by an American, who, by chance, got interested in Guernsey- one of the Channel Islands belonging to the UK.

She was in London for a visit and on a whim she decided to fly to the Channel Islands where she remained blocked in Guernsey airport because of a heavy fog which had made all departures by plane and by boat impossible.
She spent her time reading all the books on Guernsey she could find in the airport bookshop.

Many years later when she decided to realize her dream of a lifetime and to write her first novel, she thought of Guernsey and she imagined this touching and intriguing plot with all its well described and nuanced characters.

My colleague and co-owner of this virtual Book Club – Grinning Cat 1 - has already described in a very effective and interesting way the content of the book, so please see her review, deposited in her part of the Club, clicking on the little librarian black cat .
As for me I’d like simply to add that this delicate, humorous and tender epistolary novel opens in front of our eyes a window over the past, allowing us to imagine what life might be like on a small island put in a strategic place during the German occupation at the time of WW II.

The daily fight of the inhabitants of the island against difficulties and risks, their will to keep a positive outlook on the future, the feelings and the secrets of a little community: these are all is described by Mary Ann Shaffer with a sober and well delineated prose style and a great attention to the details and the features of every character.

At the end of the book we feel sorry to leave that little world and we feel as if we had met all of them personally too.

I think this fact is fundamental to prove the value of a novel.

Maybe this book will not remain in the world of literature as a fundamental milestone, but it is a gracious novel, well written and with a delicate feeling of gentle melancholy mixed with witty and clever humour and it is definitely a good read.