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Showing posts with the label Mary Ann Shaffer

Blogging Anniversary - 10 years

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A while ago I checked when I did my first blog post, in order to celebrate with an anniversary post. Well, that day came and went without any reaction from me. Better late than never, so here a reminder of my very first blog post from 24 October 2012.  The book was New Finnish Grammar  by Diego Marani. Marani is an Italian novelist, translator and newspaper columnist. While working as a translator for the European Union he invented a language ‘Europanto’ which is a mixture of languages and based on the common practice of word-borrowing usage of many EU languages. It was a suitable book to start with, being a book about letters, languages and memories. With a beautiful prose, the novel went directly to my heart.  "One night at Trieste in September 1943 a seriously wounded soldier is found on the quay. The doctor, of a newly arrived German hospital ship, Pietri Friari gives the unconscious soldier medical assistance. His new patient has no documents or anything that can ide...
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The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

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This book has been on my wish list for some time. Mainly I think because of the title! But also because of the story. While staying in the guest flat where my parents live, and checking the small book shelf they have there (people who stay leave books behind) I found this one to my surprise. I grabbed it immediately, and started to read. It starts in January 1946 in London, just after the end of the Second World War. Juliet Ashton is a well-known writer who wrote column under the pseudonym Izzy Bickerstaff during the war years. Her friend and publisher, Sidney Stark, published them as a book, and she sets of for a promotion tour. However, now she is looking for something else to bite into. By pure chance she receives a letter from a man namned Dawsey Adams on the island of Guernsey. One of the Channel Islands it was occupied during the war and life is very harsh. The islanders stick together and form a rather close community. Dawsey, who is a avid reader, comes across Juliet's na...
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