Maeve Binchy: “All Round Good Egg”
July 31, 2012
News broke this morning that beloved Irish author Maeve Binchy had passed away, yesterday, at the age of 72. A Binchy-Book will always be equated in my mind with a cosy and decadent descent into blissful and effortless reading. Her novels were often set in busy little Irish villages populated with families, friends, neighbours and shopkeepers, going about their entangled every-days with challenges and successes, and yes, a little lurve here and there too. From Light A Penny Candle to the most recent, Minding Frankie, each was a delightful voyage, as a good story should be.
Maeve Binchy embraced her Irish homeland and shared the good-natured ways of its people with her readers. Donal O’Donoghue wrote the following in the RTE of Ireland describing a visit with Maeve:
“In the picturesque Dublin village of Dalkey, there’s a pretty cottage that looks deceptively bijou. That is until you step into its book-lined interior. Like C S Lewis’ wardrobe, this is a way into another world. Maeve Binchy, best-selling author and all-round good egg, lives here. Upstairs is her work room and you get there by a glass elevator. With her arthritis worsening and a dicky heart, Maeve is not as mobile as she once was. “But I hate people talking about their ailments and illnesses”, she says. My father had a great statement. He used to say that the words ‘how are you?’ is a greeting, not a question about your health.” So at 70 years of age, MB remains resolutely young at heart, a tonic and a trouper. “I have a great friend who is a retired judge now and whenever we meet, we say to each other: ‘what will we do when we grow up?'””
Maeve Binchy wrote some fifteen novels as well as short stories and plays. I’ve enjoyed all I’ve read. A special one on my shelf is her non-fiction guide for writers called: The Maeve Binchy Writers’ Club. Her warmth and wit is just as evident when she’s offering guidance as when she is storytelling. Tried and true advice but in Maeve’s version of write-what-you-know she is quoted as saying, “You see, I’ve never been at an orgy and I wouldn’t know where legs should be and arms should be.”
While it is indeed sad to think Maeve won’t be writing any new stories to entertain and comfort us, the good news is she leaves us with one more to savour, A Week in Winter, to be published in October 2012. I can already anticipate a quiet week-end this winter, with a last precious Binchy-Book to warm my heart.
Some final words from Maeve Binchy – words that resonate:
The happiest moments of my life are connected with family and friends. There is a great comfort about being with people who knew you way back when. There is a mental shorthand, an easy-going feeling that life doesn’t have to be explained or defined; we are all in more or less the same boat. To have a community around you in a changing and unstable world is invaluable and nothing can beat the feeling that there will always be people out for our good.
Going for Gold
July 21, 2012
Bust out your patriotic gear – the Summer Olympics are almost here! Let the Games begin in six short days, on the 27th of July, live from London. It’s only taken a few athlete profiles in recent media to remind me to stock up on tissues – I am a sucker for those inspiring back stories of grit and sacrifice and loving support … and inevitably I’m impressed to tears. Now wait, good stories? (check!) emotional engagement? (check!) adventure, challenge and love? (check!) – aren’t these the qualities we want in a great book? A-ha!
Here are four new-ish releases – just in time for the Summer Games – all with an Olympic theme.
The Underwater Window by Dan Stephenson (June 11, 2012)
Swimming is the sport and rivalry and friendship spark the emotion. The novelist was/is a competitive swimmer so knows of what he writes.
The Secret Olympian by Anon (June 26, 2012)
Secret? Anonymous? Here is clearly the titillating non-fiction entry in the list. Reviews aren’t stellar but it might just be perfect for the beach while waiting for the North American and European time zones to coincide. “Anonymous” is a former British Olympian sharing stories from competition and the Olympic Village (“Dorm sports” are apparently medal worthy) extricated from his journals.
Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron (January 9, 2012)
This sounds like a winner! Award-winning itself, (The Bellwether Prize for Fiction) the novel tells the tale of a young boy – a Rwandan Tutsi runner – and his drive to compete and survive within the political conflict that surrounds him. Despite the challenges, he maintains his dream of being an Olympian for Rwanda.
Gold by Chris Cleave (June 5, 2012)
Due to Cleave’s enormous success with his previous release, Little Bee, this novel is being welcomed enthusiastically and covered broadly. You’ve no doubt seen the bright yellow cover in every book shop window. The sport is Cycling and the athletes are women balancing “ambition, loyalty and love”. Another athletic writer, Chris Cleave knows cycling and is being commended for his ability to capture the speed and intensity of the racing.
Nora Ephron
July 7, 2012
Nora Ephron (1941-2012)
“Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim.”
You know that question, who would you invite to your dinner party if you could invite absolutely anybody – real or fictional, dead or alive? Nora Ephron would be on my invite list. Sadly, at a youthful 71 years, she passed away on June 26th. Among her many movies, When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail have become our generation’s comfortable favourites – like old friends we visit on occasion and then savour why we love them so: the witty humour, the poignancy, the frank authenticity. The writing is stellar and I know every one of you reading this can recite a line, or even several, or, let’s be honest, the entire script, from memory. (“I’ll have what she’s having!” ) Nora’s mother advised her that “everything is copy” and “take notes” which perhaps contributed in a small way to Nora’s striking ability to capture pitch-perfect dialogue and scenarios so authentic, many thought she’d read their minds.
Nora was not just a screenwriter and movie director, she was a novelist and essayist as well, with titles like: I Feel Bad About My Neck, Heartburn, I Remember Nothing, Wallflower at the Orgy, Crazy Salad and Scribble,Scribble. She was also known to be a devoted reader. Here are a few of her thoughts on reading:
“Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it’s a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it’s a way of making contact with someone else’s imagination after a day that’s all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.”
“… the state of rapture I experience when I read a wonderful book is one of the main reasons I read; but it doesn’t happen every time or even every other time, and when it does happen, I am truly beside myself.”
Arianna Huffington was a friend, and grateful to Ephron for her commitment to the Huffington Post. Read Arianna’s tribute and a collection of Nora Ephron’s HuffPo articles and blog posts here.
It has become abundantly clear that Nora Ephron was admired, respected and loved by many. So many wonderful articles have been written in her honour in recent weeks. In the words of Meg Ryan:
“Nora was an era. We pictured ourselves inside her dreams and they became ours. All wisdom, wit and sparkle lights, what a treat she was, what a blessing. I marvel again and again, what a life… To have created a simple happiness in people, to have added to the sum of delight in the world.”
If you haven’t laughed your way through them yet, perhaps you’ll make room on your bedside table or in your beach bag for one of these recent collections:
