Circle Of Friends: Maeve Binchy

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Her books often deal with people who are young, fall in love, have families, and deal with relationship or family problems. Benny never tells them that this broke her heart instead she smiles through the pain and pretends excitement.

This is an excellent opportunity to learn from Colin Newton and Derek Wilson the educational psychologists who brought this DfES endorsed approach to the UK. Warmth and laughter are interwoven with sadness in this compassionate and absorbing tale of friends whose lives, over a period of ten years, become entwined. Where a new jukebox in town caused uproar and new fashions such as miniskirts scandalised the more conservative. No praise a humble reading like myself would express my adoration for this author, her style, her depth and her realistic plots.Maeve Binchy was born in County Dublin and educated at the Holy Child convent in Killiney and at University College, Dublin. Benny’s family can afford to send her to the University College of Dublin – but they want to control her as much as possible despite her increasing independence, so they insist that she comes back home to Knockglen from Dublin every night. It became all about Benny's 'sexual awakening', which is kind of a part of the book, but there's more to the story than just that.

Bound in green leather with hubbed spines, gilt page edges, gilt titles/decorations on spine and boards, marbled endpapers, and ribbon page marker. My favorite aspect of this book is the characters and my absolute favorite is Benny Hogan, our main character. Leaving aside the hot debate about the use of this intentionally derogatory term for books that are enjoyed by millions of women – and men – the world over, to label her work as chicklit is to fundamentally misunderstand it.It had likeable characters, an engaging plot and despite the old fashioned setting and gentle tone of the narrative, I was surprised how fast I raced through it. Oh, sure, I didn’t see it mentioned much anymore, but after all there are an awful lot of movies out there. Meanwhile, Nan is using Eve’s mother’s family for her own ambitions—Eve’s mother was from the Big House, and Eve has been raised by her working class mother to believe that she is destined for the upper classes.

By an unfortunate accident, Benny and Eve meet a group of students who will later be considered their circle of friends (see what I did there?The sixth book I am taking to my desert island to be read endlessly until my sad demise is Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy. Also, in focusing solely on Benny's story, we lose out on one of my favourite threads in the novel - the renovation of Knockglen.