Literary Birthday – 1 January – Mary Ann Shaffer

Mary Ann Shaffer was born 1 January 1934, and died 1 February  2008.

Five Quotes

1. That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It’s geometrically progressive – all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.
2. Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers.
3. I love seeing the bookshops and meeting the booksellers— booksellers really are a special breed. No one in their right mind would take up clerking in a bookstore for the salary, and no one in his right mind would want to own one— the margin of profit is too small. So, it has to be a love of readers and reading that makes them do it— along with first dibs on the new books.
4. Men are more interesting in books than they are in real life.
5. We read books, talked books, argued over books and became dearer and dearer to one another.

Mary Ann Shaffer was an American writer, editor, librarian, and a bookshop worker. She is noted for her posthumously published work, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which she wrote with her niece, Annie Barrows.

by Amanda Patterson

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