Epistolary Novels

Ahhh, a new word for me, and it's appeared over and over this last week. I keep getting it turned over on my tongue and my mind: E-Pill-Is-Tory, E-Paw-Still-ary...blub.... Eh-PISS-Tuhl-Airy, right? Am I the only one that's never heard of this classification category?

So, an epistolary novel is one that is written in letters by either one character in a book or many. I finished Dying to Meet You and the author calls it a graphic epistolary novel. Hmmmm. I've read more than a few of those.

That means that The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Shaffer and Barrows falls under this category. Jacklyn Moriarty's books (I particularly loved The Year of Secret Assignments does, too, but only if you include emails. Oh, and 47, Charing Cross and The Griffin and Sabine series by Nick Bantock----and what about the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series? To update the definitions to contemporary times, you'd have to add email, wouldn't you?

Whaddya think?

2/21/15: Diaries, emails, newspaper articles, texts....these are the stuff that epistolary is made of!

Here are some that I've read:

Adult Epstolary Novels:
Dear Lily  (Drew Davies) 2
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society (Shaffer & Barrows) 5

Kid's Epistolary Novels:
Dying to Meet You (Book 1) (Kate Klise) 4
Same Sun Here (House & Vaswani) 4

Kid's Picture Books
Boxes for Katje (Candace Fleming) 5
Dear Vampa (Ross Collins) 4.5
First Year Letters (Julie Danneberg) 4
My Pen Pal, Santa (Melissa Stanton) 3
Seven for a Secret (Laurence Anholt) 4
Snail Mail: With Pull-Out Postcards (Sharon King-Chai) 5
Thea's Tree (Alison Jackson) 4

Kid's Picture Books still to review:
Ask Dr. K. Fisher about Weather - Llewellyn
Chain Letter (Babysitter's Club) - Martin
Day the Crayons Quit, The - Jeffers
Dear Annie - Caseley
Dear Peter Rabbit
Dear Polar Bear - Ablett
Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin - Tonatiuh
Diary of an Ant - Cronin
Diary of a Spider - Cronin
Diary of a Worm - Cronin
Gardener, The - Stewart
Help Me, Mr. Mutt!
I Wanna a New Room - Orloff
Kate on the Coast - Brisson
Love from Your Friend, Hannah - Skolsky
Love, Mouserella - Stein
Memoirs of a Goldfish - Scillian
Memoirs of a Hamster - Scillian
Quiet Place, The - Stewart
Small Dog's Big Life, A: Around the World with Owney - Kelly
With Love, the Little Red Hen

Kid's Chapter Books still to review:
Dying to Meet You (Book 2)
Dying to Meet You (Book 3) Till Death Do Us Bark - Klise
Dying to Meet You (Book 4)
Dying to Meet You (Book 5) Hollywood Dead Ahead
Letters to Leo - Hest
Naked Mole Rat Letters - Amato
Regarding the Bees - Klise
Regarding the Fountain - Klise

Other's I've heard of but have not yet read (with links to the Goodreads review):
Love, Rosie (Celia Ahern) Adult
My Most Excellent Year (Steve Kruger) YA
Letters from Skye (Jessica Brockmole) Adult HistFict
Address Unknown (Kathrine Kressmann Taylor) Adult HistFict
I'll Be Seeing You (Suzanne Palmieri-Hayes) Adult HistFict
The Tattooed Map (Barbara Hodgson) Adult
More Than Love Letters (Rosy Thornton) Adult Romance
The Lawgiver (Herman Wouk) Adult