Tag: Maeve Binchy

The Builders by Maeve Binchy: Book Review

Published on by Margaret4 Comments

I think The Builders is a brilliant little book. I suppose it’s really a long short story, or a novella. It’s part of the Open Door series written by Irish authors for adult literacy learners, so it’s a quick read. It took me about 30 minutes to read it and I was amazed at how much detail and characterisation was packed into its 87 pages and in such a simple, direct style.

It’s the story of a lonely woman, Nan who finds friendship when the builders start to work on the house next door. At the same time her relationships with her three adult children undergo a radical change. I enjoyed it very much but I’m glad I borrowed it from the library as at £4.99 I think it’s overpriced.

Library Loot

Published on by Margaret2 Comments

library-lootI went to the library this week just to return some books and had no intention of borrowing any more as I don’t think I’ll be able to finish the ones I’ve already got out before we leave the area.

But I made the mistake of looking at the first display stand, which contained some very short books in the Open Door series. I hadn’t come across these books before. They are by Irish writers and all the royalties from the sales go to a charity of the author’s choice. I chose The Builders by Maeve Binchy. The royalties go to Our Lady’s Hospice, Harold’s Cross, Dublin. From the back cover:

With family complications and crooked property developers things are about to get very messy.

 I have a feeling it’s going to be too short.

Next I wandered over to the fiction, looking for more slim books and picked up The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith. I’ve been wanting to read this for years. It’s Mr Pooter’s diary first published in book form in 1822, a record of

…the daily grind in respectable suburbia and the City office. It tells of his constant war against insolvent tradesmen and impudent juniour clerks, his incomprehensible, irrepressible son Lupin, and his overwhelming feeling that the biggest joke is on him. It is both entirely fictional and transcentally true.

Inevitably I was drawn to longer books and chose City of the Mind by Penelope Lively, one of my favourite authors. According to the book jacket this is a

… wonderfully rich and audacious confrontation with the mystery of London, with the buried lives that make us what we are …

I hope I don’t have to return them unread.

As I shan’t be going there for much longer I’m posting a photo of the oustide of my local library.

Library exterior