Suggested Reading for Fiction Lovers
(Note: RC = Recorded Books; BR = Braille; DB = Digital Books)
Back to Guernsey Resources
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Set in Guernsey Island
The Book of Ebenezer le Page by G.B. Edwards
Ebenezer le Page recounts his life on Guernsey Island – he says he must be the oldest man alive there - from the late 19th century through the 1960’s in this fictional autobiography. The author was a native of Guernsey.
Living with the Enemy by Tim Binding
(British title: Island Madness) In 1943 Nazi occupiers and Guernsey Island collaborators socialize while hundreds of slave laborers, or “foreigns,” die working on a massive German construction project. When the daughter of an island contractor who is helping the Germans is murdered, everyone is a suspect.
A Place of Hiding by Elizabeth George
In this mystery a forensic scientist and his photographer wife agree to deliver architectural drawings for a museum on Guernsey Island to honor those who resisted the World War II German occupation. Then the philanthropist planning the project is found dead under suspicious circumstances…
Toilers of the Sea by Victor Hugo
A reclusive fisherman, Gilliatt, tries to salvage a steamship wrecked on a dangerous reef off Guernsey Island, having been promised the daughter of the steamship’s owner in marriage. Set in the 1820’s, first published in 1866, the novel reflects Hugo’s knowledge of Guernsey from having lived there for fifteen years.
Living Under Occupation
The Calligrapher’s Daughter by Eugenia Kim
Najin, born in Korea to an aristocratic family, is caught in the collision of cultures, the traditional Korean, its steps toward modernity, and the laws imposed on the Koreans by their Japanese conquerors. Covering the period from 1915 to 1945, the novel explores a changing nation and the effects of the Japanese occupation on a brilliant young woman.
Smile of the Lamb by David Grossman
A young Israeli solder, Uri, is part of an army unit sent to the Palestinian village of Andal in the West Bank. There, amid hostage-taking, killings, and struggles with personal relationships, he must look at the violent effects of the occupation on both the occupied and the occupier.
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Written from 1940 to 1942, but not published until 2004 in French and 2006 in English, this novel shows the responses of families and individuals to the invasion and occupation of France by the Germans. It illuminates the complexity of relationships between captor and captive, and although unfinished (the author died in Auchwitz in 1942), the reader can construct a possible ending from the notes included in Appendix 1.
The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman
With Poland under Nazi occupation, Jan Zabinski, the director of the Warsaw Zoo, and his wife Antonina hide 300 Jews as well as Polish resisters in their villa and in the animal cages and sheds. Their experiences and reflections make this almost a memoir.
Epistolary Novels
84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
This novel is a collection of correspondence spanning twenty years between the author, living in New York and unable to find specific books she sought, and Frank Doel, a London bookseller to whom she wrote. Their letters, and notes from other employees at Marks & Co., both address events of the day and reveal the personalities of the writers.
Last Days of Summer by Steve Kluger
It’s the early 1940’s, in Brooklyn, and baseball fanatic Joey needs a hero and a friend. He begins writing to a NY Giants player named Charlie Banks and their developing relationship, as well as other aspects of the plot, are revealed through letters, news clippings, report cards and other documents – including an invitation to Joey’s Bar Mitzvah.
Nothing But the Truth by Avi
When ninth grader Philip Malloy continues to hum during the playing of the national anthem, against school policy, he is sent to the office. The ensuing escalation of events, involving media coverage and school committee politics, is told through letters, memos and announcements, whose format will be familiar to anyone who has ever attended high school in the US.
The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters by Elisabeth Robinson
In this one-sided epistolary novel Olivia Hunt, a film producer in Los Angeles, learns that her sister Maddie has cancer. As she travels back and forth between LA and Ohio, where Maddie lives, she writes letters to her parents, her best friend, her ex-boyfriend and to Maddie herself.
The summaries were taken from NoveList, an EBSCO Research Database …available at your local library.
Resource Archive for past RARI selections