Fun summer book

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I'm stuck. My turn to choose a book for book club, and I got nothin'.

We've had a series of depressing ones ("Never Let Me Go" was the most recent one, it was actually pretty impressive but man, SO depressing), everyone's in the mood for something light and beachy.

Lots of 'em like mysteries.

I'd like to read something at least somewhat literary/ good.

The last book I chose that hit the sweet spot (I didn't feel like it was a colossal waste of time and most of the other book club people liked it) was "The Ladies' No.1 Detective Agency."

Something published in the last 2-3 years is ideal, to minimize the chance that someone has read it already (10 people in the club) while also making it likely it's at the library/ paperback.

Thanks!

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View best answer, chosen by sozobe

@sozobe,

i haven't read this, but it looks interesting (want to get around to it some day)
The Guernsey Literary And Potato Peel Pie Society: A Novel
by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows

http://dynamic.images.indigo.ca/books/0385341008.jpg?lang=en&width=210&sale=24&quality=85

January 1946: writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a stranger, a founding member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. And so begins a remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German occupation, and of a society as extraordinary as its name.

The Guernsay Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. What kind of a book title is this? And how can I quite describe this book whose main character is a writer, where the story is told by way of a series of juicy and intimate letters to and from the main character and her friends, and that is part history lesson and part an unlikely series of events?

I can say it is brilliantly fresh in style, at times so humorous you can't help but laugh out loud, poignant, life affirming and so filled with humanity you don't want the story to end.

The lead character, Juliet Ashton, is a young and single published writer who rose to fame writing a series of war-time columns which eventually became a book entitiled Izzy Bickerstaff Goes to War. The columns and the book were so adored by all of England that her publisher, one Sidney Stark, is now encouraging her to write another book.

Through a strange confluence of conditions, Juliet finds her story in Guernsey, the one tiny part of Britain that was occupied by the Nazis in World War 2. The people we come to know in Guernsey are "characters" to say the least including the town puritan and another who adds quite a romantic twist to the story.

I think the joy of this book is best summed by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love who said of this story, "I can't remember the last time I discovered a novel as smart and delightful as this one, a world so vivid that I kept forgetting this was a work of fiction, populated with characters so utterly wonderful that I kept forgetting there weren't my actual friends and neighbors. Treat yourself to this book, please - I can't recommend it highly enough"

And I do so agree. You will savour this and pass it on to every friend you have.

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@djjd62,

OMG I LOVE YOU!

Yes, I saw that at some point and made a mental note of it as being a good one for book club, unfortunately my mental notes are fairly elusive things these days and I didn't make an actual, traceable paper note.

Well that was quick!

You rock, and by extension A2K rocks.

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@sozobe,

nice, it's one of those books i keep filed away to get around to some day, maybe now is the day

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I think every book club should read And Ladies of the Club, particularly a book club that meets in Ohio. This book was published in the 80s but, depending on the age of your club members, many may not have read it. It's long (1100+ pgs) and slow to start because you have to meet all of the club members, but it's a good read that was a huge success when it came out.

http://www.amazon.com/Ladies-Club-Helen-Hooven-Santmyer/dp/0425174409

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@JPB,

Xenia, that's not far! (First Amazon review says the town in the book is modeled on Xenia.)

I think this group would really balk at the length, but I'll keep it in my back pocket, thanks!

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"Room" is disturbing and unusual and a great, quick summer read.

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Quote:

Guernsey, the one tiny part of Britain that was occupied by the Nazis in World War 2.

1. Guernsey is not "part of Britain".

2. The people of Jersey, Alderney, Sark, Herm, Jethou, Brecqhou and Lihou will be interested to know that only Guernsey was occupied.

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@boomerang,

"Room" does look good, that's on my own personal list. I don't think the book club gals would like it though.

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@sozobe,

sozobe wrote:

I'd like to read something at least somewhat literary/ good.

Daniel Woodrell's Winter's Bone would fit this. As far as being literary, it seems like the type of work Mark Twain would be writing if he were alive today. It is also, at least partly, a thriller. It is only about 150 pages, but parts of it are disturbing. (And, of course, people may have heard of it because of the Oscar nominated film adapted from the novel.)

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@djjd62,

Love the title! Sitting here in shock that the library actually had an available copy. I've already downloaded it lol. Thanks.

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@sozobe,

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley is a very charming English murder mystery.

Quote:

Nancy Drew drives her own blue roadster. Harriet the Spy travels in a chauffeured limousine. Emma Graham, Martha Grimes’s 12-year-old sleuth, takes taxis and trains. Flavia de Luce, the 11-year-old heroine of Alan Bradley’s first mystery, THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE (Delacorte, $23), goes her way on a beat-up bicycle she calls Gladys, more independent and demonstrably naughtier than her literary sister-sleuths.

The neglected youngest daughter of a widower who never looks up from his precious stamp collection, Flavia takes refuge from her loneliness in the magnificent Victorian chemistry laboratory an ancestor installed at the family’s estate in the English countryside. With “An Elementary Study of Chemistry” as her bible, the precocious child has become an expert in poisons — a nasty skill that gets her in trouble when she melts down a sister’s pearls, but serves her well when a stranger turns up dead in the cucumber patch and her father is arrested for murder. Impressive as a sleuth and enchanting as a mad scientist (“What a jolly poison could be extracted from the jonquil”), Flavia is most endearing as a little girl who has learned how to amuse herself in a big lonely house.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/books/review/Crime-t.html?scp=1&sq=sweetness%20at%20the%20bottom%20of%20the%20pie&st=cse

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@sozobe,

Hi soz

I listened to this one (Her Fearful Symmetry) recently on audio book & loved it. I think you might like it too, if you haven't read it yet.

I wouldn't worry too much to references to the supernatural & ghosts if you're interested .... it's a novel about people. I was engrossed from beginning to end! Fascinating.

Quote:

Amazon Best of the Month, September 2009: Following her breakout bestseller, The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger returns with Her Fearful Symmetry, a haunting tale about the complications of love, identity, and sibling rivalry.
The novel opens with the death of Elspeth Noblin, who bequeaths her London flat and its contents to the twin daughters of her estranged twin sister back in Chicago. These 20-year-old dilettantes, Julie and Valentina, move to London, eager to try on a new experience like one of their obsessively matched outfits.
Historic Highgate Cemetery, which borders Elspeth's home, serves as an inspired setting as the twins become entwined in the lives of their neighbors: Elspeth's former lover, Robert; Martin, an agoraphobic crossword-puzzle creator; and the ethereal Elspeth herself, struggling to adjust to the afterlife. Niffenegger brings these quirky, troubled characters to marvelous life, but readers may need their own supernatural suspension of disbelief as the story winds to its twisty conclusion. --Brad Thomas Parsons

http://www.amazon.com/Her-Fearful-Symmetry-Audrey-Niffenegger/dp/1439165394

1 Reply

@msolga,

msolga wrote:

The novel opens with the death of Elspeth Noblin, who bequeaths her London flat and its contents to the twin daughters of her estranged twin sister back in Chicago. These 20-year-old dilettantes, Julie and Valentina, move to London

Sounds a bit unrealistic - how did they get visas? The UK Border Agency has a constant problem with Americans (mostly females as it happens!) who think they can just "move to London".

1 Reply

@contrex,

The twins' mother & her sister (Elspeth) were both English-born. (They were twins.)
And the twins were born in England, too.
They moved to the US when one of the sisters married an America.
Gosh you're picky, without knowing any of the details! Wink

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Hi everyone!

It's not really summer (though it sure seems like it, 70's and even 80's this week), but I'm back for more of the same.

"Potato Peel Pie" was a hit, now I'm stuck again.

Some of the books I thought of were "Hunger Games" (just read it, and a rule for book club is recommending a book you haven't read) and "The Help" (too many people have already read it).

Our last book was "Wonderstruck," I think we can deal with something a little heavier this time.

But the tastes of this group definitely run to sweet and inspirational (with a bit of romance or mystery), so not too heavy.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

1 Reply

@sozobe,

I liked "The Irresistible Henry House".

1 Reply

@boomerang,

Thank you, I read reviews of it when it came out and thought it looked interesting!

I'm going to try to come up with three and see whether people have read them. That'll be the first one.

1 Reply

@sozobe,

Sue Monk Kidds´s book
The secret life of bees.
No it is not the secret life of birds and bees.
It is about a girl who runs away from home and end up with three sisters and one who takes of bees. There are feelings, interesting developement of the characters and the secreet of bees and the past.
I find the book very nice and read it a couple of times.
I also really liked the books about potato pie and the island of Jersey.
I have read the books about the Botswana First lady detective and I think they nice and entertaining, but not for a bookclub. There is very little to discuss.

1 Reply

@saab,

I second The Secret Life of Bees!

1 Reply

Fun summer book

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