My summer is... well, honestly, it never really happened. I'm two weeks out from classes starting up again and I've barely had time to breathe this summer. I've had to fight to get the fun in, and that's why this trip to DC is so important to me. I finally have details settled and I'm headed out in the next couple of days.
But crossing things off my packing list made me remember this blog and I'd like to put up one of the posts I'd meant to write on before life sidetracked me.
So, this isn't about travel, per se, well, at least not about physical travel. If you've read some of the previous posts, you might have noticed that I love books. I read more than a librarian, honest to goodness. And I'm omnivorous. Romance, fantasy, women's fiction, epics, paranormal, historical, nonfiction, action, adventure, teen/kids books, science fiction, if it's out there, I'll probably read it (though I'll admit it took me a while to warm up to science fiction). And one of my favorite parts of a book, a well written book, at least, is that it transports you. It takes you somewhere else, to another world, inside another person's head. You can tell when a book wasn't quite done as well as it could have been because you keep find yourself, sometimes rather rudely, back in your world, inside your own head. The best books make you forget that all you hold are some bits of paper with squiggles on them, because all you can see is the story, the action, the romance, the world of the book in front of you.
Because of this, I count books as travel. I read so much (though, admittedly, not so much lately) that I'd like to share the best ones with the nonexistent readers I have. :) (Hi, Mom!)
I love funny books. I think there tends to be enough sadness in our world that we don't need to read about it in our spare time. I'm not saying that we should ignore that there is sadness in the world, only that sometimes we need to be reminded that there is happiness, too.
That's probably why I was a bit reluctant to read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. I am generally wary of New York Times Bestsellers; too often they are heavy literature about how bad someone's life is. But I am so glad I picked this one up. It is written as a series of letters, telegrams, and journal entries, between a varied cast of characters in post-WWII Britain. The main character, Juliet, wrote a column during the war meant to keep morale up and is finishing up a book tour of the collected columns when the book starts. Her problem now? Her editor (also her best friend's brother) wants another book. So what's a girl to do? Well, through a strange series of events, she winds up in contact with an entire island in the Channel that was occupied during the war, namely, Guernsey.
I laughed at Juliet's (and the entire island's) antics and thoroughly enjoyed this book. It doesn't treat the war lightly, but it does remind you that life goes on. Being American, it is difficult for me to grasp the rebuilding that Britain, and the rest of Europe, went through after WWII. This will give you a picture of what it was like under the occupation and how lines are never as clear as you thought they were.
Alright, recommendation done. If you have some of your own (or, you know, you're actually reading this and just want me to feel less lonely) post in the comments.
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a book, it's too dark to read." --Groucho Marx
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