The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Mary Ann Shaffer only discovered that the Germans occupied Guernsey during WWII while researching for another book in England. On a whim during this trip she made a visit to Guernsey and was fascinated by her brief glimpse and gave her the impetus to write this novel albeit it many years later. Sadly ill health meant she was never able to finish the book , but her niece Annie Barrows herself an author stepped in and finished the project, for which Mary Ann gives special thanks in her acknowledgements.
In her own words her intentions in writing this story were “If nothing else, I hope these characters and their story shed some light on the sufferings and strength of the people of the Channel Islands during the German Occupation. I hope, too, that my book will illuminate my belief that love of art-be it poetry, storytelling, painting, sculpture, or music-enables people to transcend any barrier man has yet devised”.

I think she has succeeded with her intentions and shown us what an impact the occupation had on the inhabitants of the Channel Islands. I was especially interested as I have a brother in law who was born in Guernsey just a few years after the end of WWII.

The novel is written in the form of letters from and to the protagonist Juliet Ashton, starting with her publisher and her best friend then by sheer chance a Guernsey islander, Dawsey Adams. They exchange letters and through a love of reading forge a friendship. Juliet is researching a subject for her next publication at this time and it is through Dawsey and other islanders he puts her in touch with that her ideas start to form. Eventually very much against the wishes of her beau Markham V. Reynolds she heads off to visit the island and her new found friends.

The society of the title came into being as a literary society due to a group of neighbours being caught out after curfew by the occupying German soldiers during WWII. They had been enjoying a forbidden roast pig together and it was only quick thinking by one of the group that saved them from being arrested. On the spot she invented the literary society and invited the soldiers to drop in any time to discuss literature! The Potato Peel Pie part came about due to one of the group saying that if he had now had to attend society meetings regularly there needed to be refreshments provided. With a scant shortage of ingredients available Potato Peel Pie was invented, became a favourite and was added to the society’s name.

Recommended, but do not forget it is fiction!

These Foolish Things by Deborah Moggach

This novel was just what I needed a good laugh, not because I was miserable but the last novel I finished although excellent had very serious undertones. I needed a complete change of pace which this certainly supplied.

Ravi Kapoor a doctor in London is fed up with his somewhat repulsive and difficult father-in-law whom is currently living with him and his wife Pauline. He is living with them as he keeps getting thrown out of old peoples homes! No one wants him and Ravi wishes he was somewhere far away and therefore not his and his wife’s problem. When his cousin Sonny an entrepreneurial business man from Bangalore, India is in London on business he and Ravi come up with what they see as a brilliant plan. They set up a retirement home currently a run down guest house into a home for the more discerning customer. Of course Norman is the first customer to move in when the plans reach realisation and he is joined by the most wonderful cast of characters, other retirees, their grown up children, the staff of both ‘Dunroamin’ and a local call centre where some of the residents make friends with young Indians trying to pretend they live in England! We are gradually told the tales and secrets of the characters in classic Debroah Moggach style; somehow both funny and touching at the same time, the highs and lows of not just retiring to a residential home but one that is abroad.

In fact most of these elderly residents seem to get a new lease of life by making this bold move and one even reads that one of them considers seventy to be the new forty. Now that is something to look forward too!

The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway

The Siege of Sarajevo is a very real event in modern history, lasting for just under four years, April 1992 to the end of February 1996. Sarajevo was at that time a city of some half a million people and it is estimated that around ten thousand were died due to the siege and a further fifty-six thousand wounded. Ten thousand homes were completely destroyed and an incredible hundred thousand suffered damage.
Steven Galloway has based this very moving and harrowing novel on an event that actually happened during the siege when mortar shells struck people queuing to buy bread. Many people were injured and twenty two people died. A well known local cellist played the same piece of music at the site of this atrocity for twenty two consecutive days following the event in remembrance of those that died.
Although the cellist was the inspiration for the novel none of the protagonists’ characters are based on real people but all from the author’s imagination.
The siege is made horribly realistic for the reader by the protagonists as they live through The Siege of Sarajevo, firstly the Cellist, then a young female counter sniper chosen to protect him who hides her real identity behind a pseudonym Arrow. Kenan, looking old but not yet forty, struggles to keep his wife and three young children supplied with water by traversing the dangerous city streets for supplies every few days. Then there is Dragan who has worked at the city bakery for nearly forty years and were it not for the war would probably be contemplating retirement. Having managed to get his wife and son out of the country before the war started, he now lives unhappily with a sister and her family the bread he provides making him indispensable.

I now feel I have thanks to this powerful novel a better understanding of exactly what the inhabitants of Sarajevo had to endure during this conflict.

It's the Little Things by Erica James

I have enjoyed reading the novels written by Erica James since her first one ‘A Breath of Fresh Air’ was published in 1996. With the exception of a couple (Gardens of Delight and Hidden Talents) that are still sitting on my bookshelf, plus Love and Devotion which I still have not obtained a copy of, I have now read all her novels. I regard her work as a thoroughly good read where you can immerse yourself in the story, not great literature but so much better than some of the novels regarded as ‘chick lit’ or ‘romantic women’s fiction’.

It was interesting to read at the end of the novel Erica James notes as to why she had written this novel. Her starting point was the Boxing Day Tsunami of 2004 an event she herself witnessed and survived. She always felt that one day she would use this experience in one of her novels, not writing about the actual event but a story of how lives could be changed as the result of surviving such an ordeal.

I think she has succeeded and written a very readable novel around this theme.
In her words “We humans have an incredible ability for surviving the seemingly insurmountable, but it’s always the little things – the daily irritations of every day life – that prove more challenging”
It is three years since four friends, Dan and Sally Oliver, Chloe Hennessey and her boyfriend Paul survived the Boxing Day Tsunami. We catch up with the lives they are now all living in the countryside not far from Manchester, Sally a successful Lawyer in Manchester, Dan a stay at home father and Chloe a local GP. Dan and Sally appear to have a happy marriage and a child, two major things Chloe lacks and desires in her life having broken up with her boyfriend Paul. Chloe thinks she may have found the ideal man when she meets Seth Hawthorne, but it is complicated!
As the story line is a realistic one it is easy to become immersed in the lives of the protagonists and find oneself feeling emotions regarding their behaviour. For example Sally Oliver is a most irritating and thoroughly unpleasant young woman, why did her husband Dan stupidly put up with her behaviour for so long. Even the other main protagonists Chloe Hennessey and Seth Hawthorne I felt I wanted to shake more than once!
I suspect that these were just the sort of reactions to these characters that Erica James wanted us to have.
Anyway in my opinion she has produced yet another delightful realistic novel of romance, duplicity and misconceptions in the 21st century.