A romantic epistolary novel about the innocence and devotion with which people seek the meaning and essence of life.
Mary Ann Shaffer (1934–2008) was an American writer, editor, librarian, and bookstore worker.
She became widely known posthumously for The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which she co-authored with her niece Annie Barrows.
Mary Ann Shaffer was born in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and graduated from the University of Miami. She married Carl Richard Shaffer in 1956, with whom she had two daughters.
Annie Barrows was born in 1952 in San Diego, California. She is also known as a children’s book author and co-wrote The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society with Mary Ann Shaffer.
She studied English Literature and later Medieval History at the University of California, Berkeley. She worked as an editor before becoming a full-time writer, and she is married with two daughters.
“…I wonder how the book made its way to Guernsey. Perhaps there is some instinct in books that helps them find their way home — and to the readers they belong to…”
From its enchanting cliffs and white sandy coves to the charming cobbled streets of St Peter Port, Guernsey is a beautiful island to wander through. It is to this island in the English Channel that young writer Juliet Ashton arrives in 1946, in the aftermath of the war, searching for inspiration for her next book. She ultimately finds it among the island’s inhabitants, who teach her the value of life’s small pleasures and how they help people achieve extraordinary things through love, peace in the face of war, generosity, self-sacrifice, and companionship. And then, of course, comes love…
In the end, everyone and everything — the islanders, Juliet, and the books themselves — become protagonists in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, the romantic epistolary novel by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. The novel spent eleven weeks at the top of The New York Times bestseller list, sold more than 7.5 million copies worldwide, and was adapted into a successful film in 2018.
A celebration of the innocence and devotion with which people seek the meaning and essence of life.