Circle Of Friends: Maeve Binchy

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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. When they go to university in Dublin together, their loyalty is tested by the addition of others to their circle, most notably the beautiful, mysterious Nan, an ambitious young woman determined to rise above her working-class origins.

She rests her arms on another friend who has his eyes on her, without bothering to wonder what Jack would feel. Everytime I read this book (yes, I read it more than twice), it always remind me of how valuable friendship is, and how blessed are the people who has true friends. As in the first edition, the technique is clearly described, there are many practical examples and all of the original summary sheets (for parents, teachers and other professionals) are included. Eventually, Benny grows from being a sheltered 10 year old to being a sheltered 19/20 year old about to attend a Dublin university. Binchy’s prose doesn’t flow with descriptive elegance; her very simple language and the way she weaves her story awed me.However, they make the girls childhood friends and have Nan move to Dublin later, they make Sean Walsh even worse, and they change the ending in a way that frankly undercuts Benny’s growth. Maeve Binchy herself was at University during a similar era, so she must have known what she was talking about. It had a big impact on me when I first read it, and that impact has not lessened over the dozens of re-readings I have made of this book over the years, including the latest. Setting out for university in Dublin - although poor Benny has to come home on the bus every night - the girls' stories become entwined with that of beautiful, ambitious Nan Mahon and college heartthrob Jack Foley. The ability to do this, to include layers of complexity and feeling so that the reader is held in thrall every time is a rare and beautiful skill that she possessed in boatloads and is the reason that her books have been bestsellers for decades, and are still popular many years after her death.

As the title suggests, the book can be used as a manual or workbook for working with teachers and other professionals.Set in Dublin, as well as in the fictitious town of Knockglen in rural Ireland during the 1950s, the story centres on a group of university students. Not without reason is Binchy (Evening Class; Circle of Friends) most popular for her novels, as this unimpressive collection of short stories linked by the theme of travel-and-learn indicates.

Unhappy with this option, Eve overcomes her resentment of the upper-class Westward family who abandoned her mother and asks her wealthy cousin Simon Westward to pay for her college education. An enchanting novel of fierce loyalty and love in changing times, from the bestselling author of Light a Penny Candle 'What better books to raise the spirits than the gentle, insightful Irish tales of Maeve Binchy?This is my second novel after Copper Beeches which I read some 4–5 years ago and which I definitely liked, though I don’t remember the storyline now.