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I should be packing right now. Goodness knows that I have plenty to do before the family Christmas festivities. Still, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was silently calling to me from atop the large stack of "Must Read" books on my nightstand. End of semesters are notoriously hard on everyone - instructors possibly even moreso than the students, if you're willing to believe it. But with all the papers read, and the grades nicely saved into the system, I just don't want to do more work. Plus, the Northeast is supposed to be hit with a humungo snow storm, and snowy winter nights are synonymous to cozzying up with a good book.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is a good book. In fact, it's better than good. It's hopeful, and lovely, and a little tragic, and beautiful. Best of all, it has a happy ending, but nothing cliche and nothing ridiculous. In one word, it's amazing. It's true to form, and exactly as we would have the characters we come to love live their lives. 

I won't even go into a summary about it. I feel that I would mess it up, demean it somehow. Instead, I'll provide you with some of my favorite lines. Maybe these snippets will tantalize you to go off and buy a copy - either for yourself or as a gift. "Thirty percent of all book sales are as gifts." ;)

Here goes:

• To hell with docile.
• I believe Juliet to have been adequate to that daytime task - causing no catastrophe among the teacups.
• Her strength did not fail her, nor her mind, not ever - she just saw one cruelty too many.
• They let a man named Yeats make the choosing. They shouldn't have. Who is he - and what does he know about verse?

I have just realized that if I go on writing all my favorite lines, I will have plagarized the entire book. So time for a new tactic: telling you why I loved it. That's an odd thing to do with this book, because it's like trying to say why you fell in love with your significant other, or why your best friend is your best friend. Well, for one, my best friend recommended me this book, and once you read it, you'll know why we're best friends. But I digress...It's easy to say how the relationship betweeen you + fill-in-the-blank developed, but it's a feat as to why.

Hows are facts, whys are feelings. And that's what The Potato Peel Pie Society is - a collection of feelings slowly developed and understood through a string of correspondences. It really is a  masterpiece, without being heavy, pretentious, or didactic. Of all the books I have read in probably the enitre year, it is the most human. And that's what I love best about it.

There were points in the book that made me look at my grandmother and great-aunts in a whole new light. This book takes place mostly in the British Channel Island of Guernsey. But sometimes my mind would wonder to an island further to the south, Sicily. It too was under brutal Nazi Occupation during WWII. Over the years I have heard a few stories from my relatives, who lived the horrors of that Occupation. Maybe it is because it was too traumatic for them, or because it was too close to me, but I never fully grasped everything they were telling me. Those memories, they are more real to me now.

For those who have no WWII connection, this is still breathtaking. If you love literature, and the power that Art brings to the soul, then this book is a must. And even if you are intimidated by that, but feel that there is still something good and beautiful in humanity, in the world we are creating for ourselves (which I am a firm believer that there still is plenty of Beauty and Goodness on this planet), then pick up The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

You'll fall in love. Love is a happy thing to feel at Christmas. Here's to snowy winter evenings!