Maeve Binchy's first novel. Picture coutesy of www.qbd.com.au. |
Hi everyone!
Sorry for the length of time it has been since my last post. I'll try to post more regularly.
A few weeks ago, I thought I'd visit the website of Maeve Binchy, an author who's books I've enjoyed for the last 10 years. I was shocked to find on the home page of that site that Maeve had passed away back in July 2012. I instantly felt sad as I've read quite a few of Maeve's books and have really enjoyed them! It also brought back the memories of when I first heard of Maeve Binchy and her great stories.
I first became interested in Maeve Binchy's novels back in 2002 while I was in my final year of high school. I somehow heard of a Brisbane radio station called 4RPH, which is a radio station for the print handicapped. When I tried the station for the first time one night, I discovered that at 9 o'clock every weeknight, they had a book reading segment for half an hour called Late Night Story, where they do unabridged serialised bookreading. That night, the story was Maeve Binchy's Light A Penny Candle, read by Kate Binchy, Maeve's cousin. Sadly, I missed the beginning of the story, which must have been many nights before. When I heard the story, I was hooked, and kept listening every night! A couple of weeks ago, I thought I'd tune into 4RPH again and I heard they were reading Maeve's book "Silver Wedding"! Sadly, I keep missing it each night, now they're no longer reading that one.
Since that first night listening to 4RPH, I've read many of Maeve Binchy's books: Firefly Summer, Circle Of Friends, The Copper Beech, Evening Class, Tara Road and Minding Frankie, just to name a few. I would recommend all the books I have read. Maeve's final book, A Week In Winter, will be released in November 2012 for some countries or sometime in 2013 for others. I am looking forward to reading it and telling you what I think, though I won't spoil the story for you!
If you'd like to find out more about Maeve Binchy and all her books and other works, I recommend you explore her official website (link above and in the side under Sites I Like to Visit). You may also want to read more about her on Wikipedia's Maeve Binchy page. You can also read a nice obituary about Maeve. I thought I'd also share with you 2 videos I just found on YouTube, part 1 (above) and part 2 (below) of Maeve Binchy's life story.
R.I.P. Maeve. You will be sorely missed by your family, friends and fans, but your stories will live on forever!