Celebrating World Book Day
To celebrate World Book Day, here is a repost from last year.
I don’t have ugly ducklings turning into swans in my stories. I have ugly ducklings turning into confident ducks.” ~ Maeve Binchy
I was deeply saddened to hear last night of the passing of the beloved Irish author, Maeve Binchy. Although, I had long since grown out of her books, I still remember the thrill and excitement of reading her first novel, Light A Penny Candle, when I was a teenager. Here were characters talking in our Irish idiom, living lives we could identify with. She opened the door to a whole new generation of confident Irish female writers. Later, I found great joy in reading her regular Irish Times columns with her own unique outlook on life. I have such lovely memories of reading these pieces aloud to my mother on a Saturday evening. I remember my Mum’s tears of laughter at one particular piece as Maeve described watching two daughters hilariously patronising their aged…
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Marie, you know I love this. I loved, loved, loved Maeve Binchy and read all her books the same way that I read Enid Blyton books when I was a child. I still have the much-loved paperback copy of Light a Penny Candle. I bought it in Easons Bookshop in 1982. I dare not read it outside over here because there’s something about Arizona heat and books from back home that doesn’t mix. (Picture all the pages of Edna O’Brien’s Girls in Their Married Bliss floating around the pool … true story).
When Light a Penny Candle came out I was 19 (my favorite age, by the way). Such a tiny detail to remember all these years later, but the way Maeve Binchy described Aisling and how she always threw her head back when she laughed resonated with me at a time when I hadn’t a care in the world.
Anytime I’m homesick I turn to Maeve Binchy, Edna O’Brien (my favorite writer always and forever), and Seamus Heaney. Not sure what I’d do without those three 🙂
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