Pandemic Book Club: Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Hello readers!

The Pandemic Book Club discussion on The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society will begin at 4:00 pm EST today -- Saturday, March 28th.   In order to provide a little background and set the table for discussion I offer the following and will see you back here this afternoon at 4 pm EST.

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Mary Ann Shaffer was born in Martinsburg, West Virginia, in 1934.  Having grown up from the very beginning facing the threats of the Great Depression, growing fascism in Europe and eventually the difficulties and devastations of World War II, you would think that this is what shaped her decision to write about the island of Guernsey and the German occupation of it during the war.  But it was a whim that brought her to the subject of her novel:

She became interested in Guernsey while visiting London in 1976. On a whim, she decided to fly to Guernsey but became stranded there when a thick fog descended and all boats and planes were forbidden to leave the island. As she waited for the fog to lift, warming herself by the heat of the hand-dryer in the men’s restroom, she read all the books in the Guernsey airport bookstore, including Jersey under the Jack-Boot. Thus began her fascination with the German Occupation of the Channel Islands.

Over the course of her lifetime, Mary Ann worked as a book store clerk, a librarian and even as an editor for a small press publisher.  She was an avid participant in a book club of local friends, who met regularly to discuss favorite books they had been reading and to debate which book of the moment they should read next.  She folded her own experiences and her deep love of a good book into The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which you can see throughout the book, which her book club was instrumental in getting her to write:

Pandemic Book Club -- 3/28 at 4:00 pm EST

Hello readers!

To make this Pandemic Book Club most accessible to as many of you as possible, I did a bit of time zone calculation and tried to find a day and time that might work for the most broad range of readers. What I am proposing is this:

March 28th -- next Saturday -- at 4:00 pm EST

My friend Tracy -- waves to Tracy! -- is in Italy, so her time zone was the paramount one that I was trying to work with for this.  Some of you are as far West as California, so that's a time difference going backward a few hours.  Afternoon on the East Coast seemed the most reasonable way to go, and a weekend maximizes the potential to participate for any of the folks who may be working in essential industries at the moment.

Sorry to any of you who are medical folks -- I doubt there will be much down time for the foreseeable future, but know that you are in my prayers and that we are all sending you lots of love and thanks, and we'll hopefully have a lively chat thread for you to read when you have the time to get there.

We can chat in the comments on this blog, we can chat on Facebook and we can also chat with sound and video on Zoom.  It feels like we could all use a little contact and laughter with each other, so those of you who have downloaded the Zoom app, I'm happy to set up a chat room so we can gab in person about the book and life in general.

As the week moves forward, I'm going to share a few recipes that I think work well with the book, and that also might be ingredients you are likely to have in a pandemic pantry of shelf stable foodstuffs, and we can perhaps set the mood with something yummy to snack on together while we discuss the book.

Does that sound good for everyone?

Introducing the Pandemic Book Club

Hello Dear Readers,

In response to my friend Tracy, who is under strict quarantine rules in Italy at the moment (waves to Tracy!), and the need for a lot of my friends and family for a fun escape from the chaos of toilet paper foraging, this Pandemic Book Club was born.

After batting around several book ideas, a friend pointed out that we were talking about it on Pi day, and so The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society was selected as our first book club read.

We need to pick a date and time for the book club discussion, which we'll do through the comments and also maybe on Facebook?   Could everyone be done reading the book by March 24th?  That would be next Tuesday -- it's a great read, and one that goes quickly because you don't want to put it down.

Thoughts?  Share in the comments below.

(The link above - and at the side of the blog - goes to my blog's Amazon Associates account.  If you purchase though that link, then I get a small percentage of the sale.  I use any proceeds for classroom purchases for my high school history classes.  Thank you!)

Avoiding Pandemic Panic? Reach Out and Lift Up

Pull up a chair.

This past week has been a blur of "what next?!?"  One thing after another in the national and international news, horrible medical statistics and news being flung around, personal stories of tragedy and isolation coming in from friends in infection clusters and cancellations everywhere I look.  It's been the most difficult and emotional last few weeks for everyone I know, and it won't be getting any better on that front any time soon if the medical numbers we have all been seeing continue to grow.

So what are we to do?

As I told my students yesterday as we were packing up textbooks and school work to most likely complete the school year from home, we keep moving forward.  We show up for work.  We make good choices.  Most of all, we find ways to reach out, to lift up, and to be the light -- for our family, for our friends, for someone in need that we meet along the way.

Because that is what decent people do.

We are desperately in need of decency in this time of chaos and crisis.  When I started this blog, it was on the back end of my work in politics what feels like eons ago at this point.  I wanted a respite from the constant chaos and anger of our nation's political fray, and a place to continue to celebrate the little things in life that I think are truly the big things we most need for each other and with each other at the end of the day.

As my teaching schedule has gotten broader and more jam packed, this little blog has gotten a little lost int he weeds of my day to day.  But it feels like the right thing to do to revive it, as a way for me to share how we are coping and thriving in spite of the pandemic and to help in some small way with how all my friends and family to get through this mess together.

Two things have sprung to mind that I plan to begin this week:

1) A pandemic book club.  Not reading books about pandemics and infectious diseases -- no thanks, I can get that in the news every day.  What I mean is reading some good books as a diversionary escape from the pandemic, and then discussing them as we go in the comments once a week.