Want to learn the ideas in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society better than ever? Read the world’s #1 book summary of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows here.
Read a brief 1-Page Summary or watch video summaries curated by our expert team. Note: this book guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the publisher or author, and we always encourage you to purchase and read the full book.
Video Summaries of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
We’ve scoured the Internet for the very best videos on The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, from high-quality videos summaries to interviews or commentary by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows.
1-Page Summary of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Overall Summary
Juliet is an author who writes under the pseudonym Izzy Bickerstaff. She lost interest in that book and no longer wants to write as Izzy, but she’s being forced by her publisher to promote it on a tour anyway. While on the tour she has a run-in with Gilly Gilbert, a journalist who publishes only gossip about celebrities. He tries to get Juliet to say bad things about her ex-fiancé Rob Dartry, and when he doesn’t succeed he throws tea at her face instead of leaving peacefully. Later Juliet tells Sidney that she broke off her engagement with Rob because he tried moving some books from their library into his trophy room and replacing them with sports memorabilia. Her publisher calls her back home early since The Times newspaper wants three articles written about reading for them.
A man named Dawsey Adams writes to a woman named Juliet and tells her about a literary group called the Guernsey Literary & Potato Peel Pie Society, which began with an illegal roast pig during the German occupation. He also asks for help finding books by Charles Lamb. The author of this book was intrigued so she helped him find some more books by Lamb and asked him for more details on how the society started. After he told her what happened, she asked if she could write about it in one of her articles since that would be very interesting to readers.
Juliet is worried that she won’t be accepted into the Society because of her sister, but Amelia asks two friends to provide character references. Juliet then talks more about the Society and Isola writes to Juliet as well. Juliet wants to tell Sidney about her new pen pals, but she finds out he went away for a while after their friend Piers was shot down over Burma in 1943. While Sidney’s gone, Juliet starts dating Mark, who’s handsome and rich and American—but he’s also a bully.
Juliet receives letters from a few other members of the Society. One, Eben, writes about how he wasn’t very interested in reading until it was suggested by his buddy Mr. Shakespeare (author known for writing plays). He also mentions his grandson Eli and says all of Guernsey’s children were evacuated before the Germans invaded. Another person Clovis claims that after discovering poetry, he was able to court and marry his wife Widow Hubert. The last story is by someone called Booker who reads only Seneca’s Letters and states that the society saved him from being an alcoholic as well as getting him off scraps of paper on which he used to write down everything that entered his head continuously throughout the day
Through these letters, Juliet learns more about Elizabeth McKenna. She came to Guernsey as a girl and befriended Eben’s daughter Jane. She returned before the invasion to close up her employer Sir Ambrose’s house and stayed on the island because Jane was pregnant and bed-ridden. Both of them were killed in an air raid by Germans. Elizabeth became a nurse, helped one of the Todt workers escape, fell in love with Christian Hellman who worked for Lord Tobias (who is actually Booker), but Christian died before they could marry or have children together. Now she has four-year old Kit whose father is Christian Hellman but nobody knows where Elizabeth went after 1944 when she was imprisoned for helping one of the Todt workers escape from Guernsey Island.
Juliet continues to write her friends in Guernsey, and she also goes out with Mark every night. She begs Susan to come home, but Susan wants Sidney to return first. Dawsey tells Juliet about his friendship with Christian and how they both love reading. Amelia writes Juliet about the bunkers built by slave laborers during World War II; the Germans starved them and made them work without pay.
