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livingdebI found this fiction book by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows on the library's for-sale rack. The title looked interesting and the back cover promised a "smart and delightful novel" with "characters so utterly wonderful that I kept forgetting they weren't my actual friends and neighbors." So I picked it up and started reading.
It's (almost) entirely a collection of letters. The writing is quite fun and made me laugh. From page 7:
"Dear Sophie,
"Of course I'd adore to see you, but I am a soul-less, will-less automaton. I have been ordered by Sidney to Bath, Colchester, Leeds, and several other garden spots I can't recall at the moment, and I can't just slither off to Scotland instead. Sidney's brow would lower--his eyes would narrow--he would stalk. You know how nerve-racking it is when Sidney stalks."
It's also a celebration of books and reading. From page 9:
"Dear Miss Ashton,
"My name is Dawsey Adams, and I live on my farm in St. Martin's Parish on Guernsey[, an island in the English Channel]. I know of you because I have an old book that once belonged to you--the Selected Essays of Elia, by an author whose name in real life was Charles Lamb. Your name and address were written inside the front cover.
"I will speak plain--I love Charles Lamb. My own book says Selected, so I wondered if that meant he had written other things to choose from? These are the pieces I want to read, and though the Germans are gone now, there aren't any bookshops left on Guernsey.
"I want to ask a kindness of you. Could you send me the name and address of a bookshop in London? I would like to order more of Charles Lamb's writing by post. ...
"Charles Lamb made me laugh during the German Occupation, especially when he wrote about the roast pig. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society came into being because of a roast pig we had to keep secret from the German soldiers, so I feel a kinship to Mr. Lamb."
And that is how I got sucked into a book about World War II. It's set just after WWII, so there's hope in the world again. All in all, it makes me laugh more than cry.
The book is also a romance. I know who I want the protagonist to like, and I am sure long before she is, which is annoying.
After reading half the book, I bought it, brought it home, and finished reading it. I'm not yet sure if I'll want to read it over and over again--it got into more serious issues in the second third of the book. Then the very end was the romance taking too long, but that was interspersed with a bunch of plot twists, so it wasn't just frustrating.
One interesting part is how different people respond to being thrust into a book club. For most people it's a good thing; for some, not. I hadn't actually read most of the works discussed; if I read this multiple times, I may end up checking out some of those very old works.
As an older best-seller, it's widely available in libraries--Deb-Bob says, "Check it out!" (Literally, even.)
Warning: apparently the main author wrote only this one book before she died (the second author finished it up after the first one got sick), so if you love it, this is not also an invitation to an additional pile of books to check out.
**
In job hunting news, today I was asked to give permission for a background check and to provide a salary history back through my job with the Registrar's Office, which turned out to be four salaries plus one salary range.
It's (almost) entirely a collection of letters. The writing is quite fun and made me laugh. From page 7:
"Dear Sophie,
"Of course I'd adore to see you, but I am a soul-less, will-less automaton. I have been ordered by Sidney to Bath, Colchester, Leeds, and several other garden spots I can't recall at the moment, and I can't just slither off to Scotland instead. Sidney's brow would lower--his eyes would narrow--he would stalk. You know how nerve-racking it is when Sidney stalks."
It's also a celebration of books and reading. From page 9:
"Dear Miss Ashton,
"My name is Dawsey Adams, and I live on my farm in St. Martin's Parish on Guernsey[, an island in the English Channel]. I know of you because I have an old book that once belonged to you--the Selected Essays of Elia, by an author whose name in real life was Charles Lamb. Your name and address were written inside the front cover.
"I will speak plain--I love Charles Lamb. My own book says Selected, so I wondered if that meant he had written other things to choose from? These are the pieces I want to read, and though the Germans are gone now, there aren't any bookshops left on Guernsey.
"I want to ask a kindness of you. Could you send me the name and address of a bookshop in London? I would like to order more of Charles Lamb's writing by post. ...
"Charles Lamb made me laugh during the German Occupation, especially when he wrote about the roast pig. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society came into being because of a roast pig we had to keep secret from the German soldiers, so I feel a kinship to Mr. Lamb."
And that is how I got sucked into a book about World War II. It's set just after WWII, so there's hope in the world again. All in all, it makes me laugh more than cry.
The book is also a romance. I know who I want the protagonist to like, and I am sure long before she is, which is annoying.
After reading half the book, I bought it, brought it home, and finished reading it. I'm not yet sure if I'll want to read it over and over again--it got into more serious issues in the second third of the book. Then the very end was the romance taking too long, but that was interspersed with a bunch of plot twists, so it wasn't just frustrating.
One interesting part is how different people respond to being thrust into a book club. For most people it's a good thing; for some, not. I hadn't actually read most of the works discussed; if I read this multiple times, I may end up checking out some of those very old works.
As an older best-seller, it's widely available in libraries--Deb-Bob says, "Check it out!" (Literally, even.)
Warning: apparently the main author wrote only this one book before she died (the second author finished it up after the first one got sick), so if you love it, this is not also an invitation to an additional pile of books to check out.
**
In job hunting news, today I was asked to give permission for a background check and to provide a salary history back through my job with the Registrar's Office, which turned out to be four salaries plus one salary range.