The Feminine Critique

Maeve Binchy

Maeve Binchy was born in 1940 in Dalkey, a small village outside of Dublin, Ireland. Binchy received her B.A. from University College in Dublin and became a teacher. Her teaching post at a Jewish school and subsequent vacation in Israel inspired her to work on a kibbutz there. While abroad, Binchy wrote letters to her father every week describing life in a land that was ever on the brink of war. When her father sold one of her letters to The Irish Times for 18 pounds, Binchy, who had been making £16 working at the school, thought that she had truly arrived. She soon became a popular columnist, writing twice-weekly articles distinguished by a quirky, self-deprecating humour. Maeve Binchy lives with her husband, Gordon Snell, in Dublin.

Scarlet Feather by Maeve Binchy. Bestselling author Binchy again explores the depths of family relationships in an 11th warm, involving drama. Set in contemporary Ireland over a period of one year, the smartly paced tale focuses on Cathy Scarlet and Tom Feather, cooking school chums who achieve their dream of opening a posh catering business, Scarlet Feather, in Dublin. Professionally, they're off to a good start; personally, their lives are falling apart. Cathy, whose out-of-work father plays the races while her mother toils as a housemaid, faces the consequences of having married Neil Mitchell, prized son of an upper-class family who employed Cathy's mother for years.
Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy. It began with Benny Hogan and Eve Malone, growing up, inseparable, in the village of Knockglen. Benny--the only child, yearning to break free from her adoring parents...Eve--the orphaned offspring of a convent handyman and a rebellious blueblood, abandoned by her mother's wealthy family to be raised by nuns. Eve and Benny--they knew the sins and secrets behind every villager's lace curtains...except their own.
Tara Road by Maeve Binchy. Oprah Book Club® Selection, September 1999: Against all odds, two newlyweds manage to buy the house of their dreams. In 1982, property speculation is beginning to be a big, big thing in Dublin--and their street is very much in an up-and-coming part of town. "They laughed and hugged each other. Danny Lynch from the broken-down cottage in the back of beyond and Ria Johnson from the corner house in the big, shabby estate were not only living like gentry in a big Tara Road mansion, they were actually debating what style of dining table to buy." But for its various inhabitants, the street is to become a boulevard of dreams--some broken, others created anew.
Evening Class by Maeve Binchy. Maeve Binchy can always be counted on to spin an involving tale about ordinary people that brings out the extraordinary in everyone. In Evening Class, Binchy zooms in on the working-class of Dublin. Schoolteacher Aidan Dunne organizes an evening class in Italian with the help of Nora O'Donoghue, an Irishwoman returning home after 26 years in Sicily. When the somewhat squashed-by-life denizens of the surrounding neighborhood take the unexpected step of enrolling in the class, they find their lives transformed.
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