The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society + The Other Hand

It is a rare and fine thing to find a book so good you can't wait to get home to it, and lucky me, I've found two in a week.

Both are anchored by the direst of circumstances and times but both have such a life affirming lightness, without being affirmation-oriented in the least, so as to make it true that great art must come of great hardship.

Let us begin with Guernsey, and because this is vaguely British it might well be pronounced "Jersey" and mean that other place in the ocean, off the big island. But no, Guernsey it is, in print anyway, Jersey really is somewhere else. No idea how it's pronounced by natives, but I'm suspicious that it isn't as obvious as it should be.

The mouthful of a title -- The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - is a bit of a set-back to be honest, promising something along the lines of the Ya Ya Sisterhood or maybe those large lady detectives, both referring of course to a series of books with cutesy titles which run perilously close to cloying cutesiness. But don't let the cuteness put you off. Nor the format -- it is a story told in letters but each is so compelling and funny and alive with character that you more or less forget that this is a literary trick that grows tedious.

Geurnsey is a gorgeous island occupied by Germans during the second world war. The hardship perpetrated on both the soldiers and the civilians was horrible, but maybe less than what was happening on the continent. Evil and cruelty and grief are revealed slowly, as are the character flaws and gold-star good things about each person within the tight circle of the literary group, a kind of book group where each member talks about what they've read or loved. But that's just the back drop of course. The interesting thing is what is endured and how, and what comes of it. Can a book about war be joyous? Ya ya it can.

The Other Hand meanwhile is dark and beautiful in a completely different but somehow related way. It has a slight scent of that other book with a mouthful of a title, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in that a great deal of the pain that is felt is articulated through a very small, very clever boy. It is another book about struggle and unfairness, but it also is so anchored in engagement and life that it, too, is somehow rendered a joy to read.