In the BYOB Party in July 2016, there were two books on books and the solace these provided during the World War II period in Germany.

Chetan talked about the well-received book The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. The story is set during the Holocaust and the focus is on a foster girl who steals what all us readers love most—books. She not only steals books but she shares them too. The book throws light on the ordinary lives of the people in Germany and how Nazism failed to swallow the humanity of some.  In this context, Jaya mentioned a book called Fatherland, an alternate history book that deals with the question—what happened if Nazism never left the world?

Gayatri took just about a day and a half to finish The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a lovely book by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, probably the only famous book by an aunt-niece duo.

This is Mary Ann Shaffer’s only book; she was encouraged to write the book by those who who knew her at a book club. Though the book is remarkably ‘English’ as in British English in its tone, the authors are American. The story starts with an author who is struggling to write not her first but her second book. She receives a letter from Dawsey Adams from Guernsey, a town under German occupation. Her correspondence with a member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society leaves her intrigued and asking for more. The letters hold the stories of the German occupation and the remarkable courage that individuals display in times of moral
ineptitude.

More books coming up in Part 3.