The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was a charming and touching novel. The book is written in the form of letters by a colorful and likeable cast of characters. It was interesting to learn a little bit about life on the British Island of Guernsey during its German occupation of WWII.

London columnist Juliet Ashton is tired of the material she has been producing, and shortly after the end of WWII is trying to find a different direction for her writing. She receives a letter from a man who lives on Guernsey who bought a book of Charles Lamb works that she had sold. He wrote to the address he found in the book, which was destroyed during a bombing, but his letter is forwarded to Juliet's current location. As they begin a correspondence, Dawsey Adams tells Juliet about the Guernsey literary society which began one evening when several residents disobeyed German laws, roasting a hidden pig, and then were caught breaking curfew. A literary society meeting was the spur of the moment excuse one of the violators offered to the Germans. After this, those involved had to show evidence of being a literary society, which quickly became a reality. When Juliet expresses interest in Guernsey and the experiences of the literary society during the years of German occuation, Dawsey puts her in touch with other members of the society. Juliet soon reads about a young woman, Elizabeth McKenna, who seems to bond the society members together. Elizabeth was arrested and sent to concentration camp during the war, and she has not been heard from since. While awaiting her return, the society members have taken care of her young daughter, who is now four years of age. This young child, Kit, has become the center of their lives. Through the letters, Juliet becomes very fascinated by Guernsey and its residents and believes that she might like to write about them. She decides to pay a visit to Guernsey, and her time there will change not only the course of her own life, but also that of the literary society members.

I enjoyed this book very much, but thought that it started out rather slowly. It took awhile to read enough about the characters in the letters to feel involved with them. Once I began to care about the characters, I liked the book and its pace much more. Since it is written in an epistolary form, the book does not have chapters, but the letters are not long so the book has many breaking points. This was a touching, sometimes poignant book that is much different from anything else I have ever read.