Irish author Maeve Binchy dies aged 72

[HarryT]

From BBC News:

Best-selling Irish author Maeve Binchy has died aged 72 after a short illness.

Binchy, born in Dalkey, Co Dublin, has sold more than 40 million books. Her works were often set in Ireland and have been translated into 37 languages.

They include The Lilac Bus as well as Tara Road and Circle of Friends, which were both adapted for screen.

Binchy trained as a teacher before moving into journalism and writing, publishing her first novel - Light a Penny Candle - in 1982.

She had written the novel in her spare time from her day job as a journalist at The Irish Times.
...

Full story at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19057922

[spindlegirl]

I have read 2 of her novels. She was a great author and I enjoyed her works.

[poohbear_nc]

I too have enjoyed her novels. A real loss to Irish literature, as well as the rest of the world.

[Apache]

Yes a great loss to Ireland and the rest of the world.
Apache

[orlok]

Sorry to hear it. I saw her speak at the Hay-on-Wye literary festival a few years ago, and she was wonderful, a really lovely person.

[pisceschick]

So sad! One article I read said she had a final novel in the pipeline, in the editing stage.

This is a nice writeup that mentions my favorite novel, The Glass Lake:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/book...itter-tributes

A quote from it that describes what I loved about her stories:

What I loved about her books was their big-heartedness, their friendliness – the way you could sink into them and emerge, hours later, still half in the world of a small Irish village, usually one from a time before I was born; Light a Penny Candle began during the second world war, Firefly Summer took place during the 1960s.

RIP.