Looking in the open windows of Juliet's Life

If I wait long enough between reading a book the first time and the second time, I can forget what happens in the book!  What I don't forget is that when someone gives me their copy (mine long gone to someone else)  I recognize it like a good old friend.  Or I remember that the plot and characters weren't  entirely satisfying, that the book isn't one I care to read again.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (definitely in the good friend category,  was written by co-authors, Mary Anne Shaffer and Anne Barrows, though Mary Ann died by the time the book was published.  It's an epistolary novel, filled with letters to, from and about our main character, Juliet, beginning in 1946 just after the War. I was reminded of how much I enjoyed a similar format years ago in A Woman Of Independent Means. I also love books of letters, like the one I'm reading of Carson McCullers' and William Maxwell's letters to each other.

Guernsey is an entertaining  thread of letters that tells the story of several people during the occupation of the Channel Island of Guernsey--as well as humorous and everyday correspondences between Juliet, the writer, in London, and her friends.

If you're looking for a good summer read, this is definitely one.

In one letter, Juliet tells her editor, Sidney, on the 21st of July, 1946:

"Night-time train travel is wonderful again!   No standing in the corridors for hours, no being shunted off for a troop train to pass, and above all, no black-out curtains.   All the windows we passed were lighted, and I could snoop once more.  I missed it so terribly during the war.  I felt as if we had all turned into moles scuttling along in our separate tunnels.  I don't consider myself a real peeper--they go in for bedrooms, but it's family rooms in kitchen and sitting rooms that thrill me. I can imagine their entire lives from a glimpse of bookshelves, or desks, or lit candles, or bright soft cushions...."

There's a name for that: crystoscopophilia--the love of looking into other people's lit open windows.

When I learned the word, I was happy to know that my penchant for looking into open windows is common enough to have a name.  Reading, after all, is looking into open windows on the page, isn't it?