September Book Choices

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society,
by Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows

January 1946: London is emerging from the shadow of the Second World War, and writer Juliet Ashton is looking for her next book subject. Who could imagine that she would find it in a letter from a man she’s never met, a native of the island of Guernsey, who has come across her name written inside a book by Charles Lamb…. As Juliet and her new correspondent exchange letters, Juliet is drawn into the world of this man and his friends—and what a wonderfully eccentric world it is. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society—born as a spur-of-the-moment alibi when its members were discovered breaking curfew by the Germans occupying their island—boasts a charming, funny, deeply human cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all. Juliet begins a remarkable correspondence with the society’s members, learning about their island, their taste in books, and the impact the recent German occupation has had on their lives. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.

The Kommandant's Girl,
by Pam Jenoff
Nineteen-year-old Emma Bau has been married only three weeks when Nazi tanks thunder into her native Poland. Within days Emma's husband, Jacob, a fiery and independent scholar, is forced to disappear underground, leaving Emma and her parents imprisoned within the city's decrepit, moldering Jewish ghetto. But then, in the dead of night, she is smuggled out of the ghetto. Taken to Krakow to live with her husband's Catholic cousin, Krysia, Emma takes on a new identity as Anna Lipowski, a gentile. Emma's already precarious situation is complicated by her introduction to Kommandant Georg Richwalder, a high-ranking Nazi official who insists that Emma come work for him -- a job she cannot refuse without arousing suspicion. Urged by the Resistance to use her position -- and the Kommandant's obvious romantic intentions -- to gain access to details of the Nazi occupation, Emma must become perilously close to her enemy and, now in perpetual danger of being discovered, finds herself questioning loyalty and duty, fearful of risking her life and the lives of those she loves. Based in part on actual events, Pam Jenoff's astonishing debut novel delivers unrelenting tension in an achingly beautiful account of a young woman forced to bend loyalties, deny truths and betray her own beliefs -- a woman almost powerless against her extraordinary circumstances, who must decide which risks are worth taking and which vows are worth breaking.

The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story,
by Diane Ackerman
 
A true story—as powerful as Schindler's List —in which the keepers of the Warsaw Zoo saved hundreds of people from Nazi hands. When Germany invaded Poland, Stuka bombers devastated Warsaw—and the city's zoo along with it. With most of their animals dead, zookeepers Jan and Antonina Zabinski began smuggling Jews into empty cages. Another dozen "guests" hid inside the Zabinskis' villa, emerging after dark for dinner, socializing, and, during rare moments of calm, piano concerts. Jan, active in the Polish resistance, kept ammunition buried in the elephant enclosure and stashed explosives in the animal hospital. Meanwhile, Antonina kept her unusual household afloat, caring for both its human and its animal inhabitants—otters, a badger, hyena pups, lynxes. With her exuberant prose and exquisite sensitivity to the natural world, Diane Ackerman engages us viscerally in the lives of the zoo animals, their keepers, and their hidden visitors. She shows us how Antonina refused to give in to the penetrating fear of discovery, keeping alive an atmosphere of play and innocence even as Europe crumbled around her.