The Guernsey Literary Society and Potato Peel Pie

Last night I finished reading The Guernsey Literary Society and Potato Peel Pie, by Mary Anne Shaffer and Annie Barrows and even though I am behind in my book reviews, I am going to try to get caught up somehow.

    A book like this reminds me of how much I enjoy good fiction. Set mostly on the island of Guernsey in the English Channel following the German's Occupation during World War II, the story opened up a brand new world for me.  I didn't know about the Channel islands at all, much less the German occupation of them.  It seems that we will never finish discovering the horrors of that war and the utter disregard for human life that pervaded the Nazi regime.  And while this book does describe many of these crimes, it still manages to lift the reader up, rather than press one in the mire of despair.
    While the story takes place in this dark time, it is really about what bibliophiles want to read:
            friendship and books
             and how friendship enhances books
               and books bring friends together.
     The authors have taken a difficult age and depicted the survival of a group of people through their literary society. The best part about the Society is that it never mattered what book you read to share with the group.  It only mattered that you came.  Maybe you read and shared whatever you wished, and maybe you just listened.  But all were welcome.   The meetings only began the relationships, they weren't the end.  The members came together as family through the worst of the war and through their journey back to normalcy again having seen the tests of one another's characters in trial.
     The book is written in an epistolary style, letters written between and about the characters.  This is such an effective way to offer different points of view without an omniscient narrator, and I easily fell into the rhythm of the communication after a couple of letters.
    (I wrote a short story in the epistolary style in graduate school.  While my professor told me I was brave to try it, it was a pretty lousy story on the whole.)
    This book was a fun read. With characters that are easy to root for, it was witty, engaging, slightly predictable, but in that comfortably familiar kind of way.  I would read it again.

    I know it has been wildly popular and on best-seller lists, and while I don't read lots of best-sellers, this one was fun.  If you've read it, I'd love to know what you think, too!

Interesting Reading about the Economy?

  My husband is very interested in finance, the economy and the market, and he reads extensively on these topics.  Occasionally, he will read a book and say, "You should really read this book.  I think you would really find it useful and a pretty fun read."  My usual response is something like, "Mm...hmm. Ok.  Sounds great."  I usually have MANY more books in my queue to be read before something about financial things would make it to the top of my list.  (Which is funny since I used to have a stockbroker's license.  Yes, my attention is other places now!)  But, a few weeks ago, I found out that one of the major topics at a conference I was attending would be economics.  Not wanting to feel completely in the dark about the topic, I asked my husband for a reading suggestion, and he gave me How the Economy Grows and Why it Crashes by Peter Schiff.

No, kidding, this book was really EASY! And INTERESTING!  For starters, it is filled with cartoons.  Oh, yes, it is!.  I can relate to some cartoons! Then, it is the story of the economy of a people told in allegory.  

      In the beginning, three people are on an island where fish is the only food.  They can live on one fish per day, but it takes an entire day to catch one fish.  Until, one day, one person decides to take a risk, and go without food for a day and build a net to catch more fish.  Then he has the choice to loan out his net or loan a fish so that the other men could also build nets.  

     As the allegory builds, Schiff creates a credit system on the island, develops island infrastructure, and businesses on the island besides catching fish, a banking system, and foreign trade with other islands.  Through the description of the economic development of this island, I learned about the American creation of a fiat currency, our dependence on foreign funds to support our way of life, and even the recent housing, credit, and banking crises.

      Schiff even uses silly fish-related names to stand for real people who have shaped our economy.  For example: Ben Barnacle is Schiff's allegorical character for the real-life fed chairman, Ben Bernanke.

    If all-things-financial intimidate you, but you would like to start understanding more, I would really recommend this as an easy place to start!