100 books like The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

An abiding theme within my own book is that love and friendship can supplant racial and cultural differences, and this book, set in a village in France during the 2nd World War, highlights a growing and reluctant friendship between an occupier and the occupied.

The hatred that invasion induces causes any fraternisation to be labelled ‘collaboration.’ Sometimes it is. Sometimes, it is just people caught out of context seeking comfort and normality.

It is easy for those whose countries have never been occupied to scoff at the behaviour of those who had to live in the atmosphere and the reality of a hostile invasion. Let’s hope we never have to find out firsthand.

What I loved about this book is that it is the true story of an American woman living in Nazi-occupied France, where she organised and ran resistance groups and led them in action.

The book, though factual, reads like a fictional novel, and her exploits and shear "daring do" almost beggar belief. She only had one leg, a fact that many who met her were completely unaware of, yet she crossed the Pyrenees on foot in winter!

It didn’t surprise me to find out that the men who "ran" the operations from London and Washington denigrated her achievements and consigned her to obscurity, describing her in the words of the book’s title. But she was a truly amazing heroine, and I would have loved to have met her.

I have been so impressed at the risks ordinary people took to save their Jewish friends and neighbors during WWII. This is one such story.

I love books set in two time periods, and this one takes us from the present to the time of war, with the heroine, now an old woman, who was a forger in Nazi Europe coming across a book of codes, revealing the true names of escaping Jewish children. 

I read this book quickly. Its historically informative and inspirational quality caught my interest immediately. From the first chapters, the author brings us into World War II France, which will become a tangled web of occupation by the Nazis.

I discovered in this powerful story a relationship between two sisters that weaves secrets of the heart and key decisions. The characters are caught in a difficult situation: a predicament that reflects the struggle experienced by many people in France during the war years. The story stimulates a sense of empathy and curiosity about what will come next.

The historical setting is drawn colorfully. This novel is valuable both for gaining a broader historical sense and for the sheer you-are-there experience. The narrative skill with which the author weaves this tale and its inherent drama should sustain the reader’s interest, as it did mine. This story touches the core of human… show more.

I loved this book because it’s a World War II story (my favorite time period), which I can’t get enough of, and its protagonist, Marie-Laure, is a young blind girl. By the time she’s twelve, she has learned to navigate Nazi-occupied Paris from a miniature of the city her father has built for her.

This is a girl with many fears, her blindness being just one, but she pushes through them all in order to help her country overcome its worst nightmare. Her bravery is off the charts!

I love this book because it’s a triumph of storytelling—and by that, I mean both the way that the story is narrated, as the audiobook frequently gave me chills, and the way that the story is told by the author. I love this book because it’s realistic enough to draw me in, unusual enough to keep me guessing, and rewarding enough for every single second I spent listening to it to pay off in the end.

I was inspired by this book in the very best way: when an author presents characters with realistic, messy lives and then provides them with happy endings, it’s easy for me as a reader to believe that joy is out there waiting in the mess for me as well.

If you are a kindred spirit, you know immediately why I’m recommending this book! I first picked this book up without knowing anything about it when I was a teenager. I immediately fell in love with Anne, Gilbert, Marilla, Matthew, and everyone in Avonlea. I can read this book anywhere and at any time. 

Anne Shirley is an orphan who winds up at Green Gables and is given a trial basis to prove to Marilla Cuthbert why she should keep Anne, who is not a boy. Imaginative, romantic, and funny, this book (and its sequels) kept me laughing and crying, sometimes at the same time. Most of all, it reminds me that every morning is the start of a new day with no mistakes in it. 

I have known for a long time that the persecution of the Jews in Nazi-occupied France was not the sole prerogative of the Germans and that much of the French establishment enthusiastically involved itself in the betrayal, detection, removal, and elimination of Jewish citizens, including children.

What I found out, through this book is that amidst the prevailing anti-Semitism, there were those willing to put their own lives at risk in order to save those of others. 

This book is the true story of almost an entire community in an isolated village who sheltered Jewish children until they could be shepherded across the border and into Switzerland, despite the fact that the Swiss made every attempt to thwart them!

Well, I couldn’t leave out one of the greatest historical romances ever written! 

Yes, the book does have battles and American politics but they are part of the storyline and only enhance the conflicted relationship between Scarlett and Rhett. In no way do they overpower the romance.

Lolita isn’t usually thought of as a crime novel but it is.

Thirty-seven-year-old Humbert Humbert stalks 12-year-old Lolita, then breaks all kinds of laws, moral, ethical, and legal, as he transports her across state lines.

The first time I read Lolita, I was dazzled by Nabokov’s stunning use of language—and remember, English was not his native tongue—word-play, and his ability to create full-blooded characters that leap off the page.

Nabokov pulls off this morally compromised tale with wit and humor, while dealing with the serious topic of pedophilia.

Reading Lolita gave me license to create morally challenged characters like Francis Hoyt, one of the protagonists in my novels.

Nabokov proved you don’t have to like, admire, or even feel a kinship with a character, so long as that character is interesting and compelling enough that readers are fascinated about him or her without being turned off.