Knowing that this was Maeve Binchy's last book certainly set a certain tone of finality to this book! In true Binchy style, this book is a series of short stories that all connect and intertwine and culminate at an Inn in Western Ireland. The book details how everyone ends up at the inn - from th...
And I thought A Week in Winter was the late Maeve Binchy's final book!All praise to public libraries with their shelves of new books for browsers like me. As noted in the introduction by her widower, Binchy regularly wrote short stories and kept them in a drawer for potential future use. This col...
Dear Ms. Binchy,How I miss your words. Your way of writing that captured the very essence of family life with all its imperfections and blessings has always touched my heart and I often find myself thinking back to your best works, remembering the characters whose lives touched mine. This last ...
This is the first book of Maeve Binchy that I have ever read - and I must say her style of writing was refreshing, down to earth, inspiring and quite funny. I have been officially inspired to try her works.As for this book of non-fiction - I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was an easy, practical and e...
Utterly charming! Maeve's legendary advice to aspiring writers was to develop your own voice, and from reading this collection of her editorials for the Irish Times, it's clear that she took her own advice. Reading this was like meeting up with an old beloved friend. The essays themselves are ver...
This...was an absolute waste of my time. When I think of the time I could've spent studying, there's a sense of emptiness in me that Maeve Binchy has stolen a day or two of my life that I will never get back. No, no...it's more than that...it's like a sense of betrayal even. Maeve was supposed to...
Η κριτική μου στα Ελληνικά ακολουθεί πιο κάτω...I am Greek and my English is not very good, but decent enough to go by in an English speaking country and read books in this language every now and then.The first time I ever "met" Maeve Binchy was at the early 2000s when due to various circumstance...
This book has been rather refreshing for me. It is meant to be an armchair and hot chocolate kind of a book, but I have ironically read most of it during my travels in the last 20 days. Perhaps it was the much needed calm in the moving daily life of being away from home. When I picked up this boo...
Since I came to Ireland I read several Maeve Binchy stories and though they all have the same style, the same kind of stories... I always enjoyed reading them.Silver weeding must be the one I enjoyed least for the moment.It has been written typical Maeve Binchy way, but there wasn't enough story ...
Firefly Summer tells the story of the sleepy town of Mountfern, as an American, Patrick O'Brian, comes home to find his roots and build a huge hotel on the ruined location of the old house. It explores the changing relationships of the townsfolk as a tragic accident divides Mountfern. There is no...
Maeve Binchy is one of the world’s great literary treasures. I’ve never been disappointed with any Binchy book, and Whitethorn Woods is no exception. The fate of beloved St. Ann’s Well, deep within Whitethorn Woods, is ostensibly the central conflict in the story. A proposed highway bi-pass would...
I didn't realize this was a book of short stories until I started. It's a great premise, take a tube line (or "metro" if you're in DC, but in London it's the tube--and not one mention of "mind the gap.") and make up a story of characters either traveling through, or meeting there, or getting on ...
I now know the pleasure of Maeve Binchy’s fiction! I'm sorry to meet this beautiful person's insight the year of her passing (July 2012). But I have all of her work to look forward to. "Dublin 4" from 1982, comprises short stories that some feel concluded early. I would love to see Carmel's m...
I discovered Maeve Binchy's novels, thought they looked delightful, and gathered quite a few. For years I’ve heard glorious remarks about her and look forward to fitting her tales into my queue. An Irish reading circle via my blog has pushed her ahead. Trust me to start with anything but title...
I was almost really enjoying this book UNTIL the last twenty pages when the main characters went totally "out of character", the ending felt rushed and disjointed, and the story became unexpectedly and unbelievably ridiculous. I was so disappointed that I felt I had wasted good reading time with...
2.5/3 starsWell, this should at least serve as an admonition to all women on how a MAN should never ever be the fulcrum around which a woman's life rotates, making him the centre of her universe. The story - my first Maeve Binchy book ever - is set in the 50s and revolves around the lives of va...
I had a Maeve Binchy phase, oh, about 20 years ago. She wrote these cosy books about an old fashioned Ireland, where people were quirky, knew everything about everyone, and were never nasty to each other. Bad things happened to good people, but they got past it. I outgrew Maeve, but from time ...
**SPOILERS .... BEWARE!!!**I found this read pretty interesting. Each chapter is narrated by a different character & all of the characters are intertwined in some way, other than their obvious attendance to the evening class. This shouldn't have been a problem…. but by the time I got to the 6th c...
I fell in love with Maeve Binchy’s person-to-person conversation in "Aches & Pains" and see the brilliance of her fiction in "The Lilac Bus", 1984. We think a novel needs extreme action, ghosts, treasure, or crime to attract a reader. No. The supremely gifted Maeve, rest her soul, pulls us in ...
I’ve read other Maeve Binchy books and enjoyed them, so I kept giving this book chances to redeem itself; it never did. The story revolves around Ella Brady, a seemingly intelligent young woman with certain standards and values, who in chapter two starts doing stupid and illogical things. It was ...
Maeve Binchy excelled at characterization and defied style. I usually only care about a lead protagonist’s viewpoint. She defied genre because I seldom touch general fiction. She draws me in because she writes about normal people. She gives voice to less pleasant goings-on of family life and ...
