I’m participating in the A-Z Blogging Challenge, where I post every day in the month of April (except Sundays) and each day is a letter.

My theme for the month is a series of posts about the things that shaped me.

Quentins

I’m really starting to sound like a broken record, but once again, I found a book (or this time an author) because of a movie.

Back in the mid-1990s, Circle of Friends came out — a charming, quiet film about childhood girlfriends in the 1950s going off to university in Dublin and discovering love, the world, and themselves.

It starred Minnie Driver in her film debut, as Benny, the main character who believes she’s a little too tall and a little too… solid to catch the eye of dreamy Jack (Chris O’Donnell, with a very dreadful Irish accent, but they had to have someone the Americans recognized).

It’s a delightful little film, and an even more delightful novel. I’m not always a huge women’s lit reader, but Maeve Binchy is a very special case. Once I read Circle of Friends, I enjoyed it so much I had to read every single one of Binchy’s other books — and boy did I love them all.

All of her novels take place in Ireland, either back in the fifties or nowadays, with at least one strong female protagonist. Sometimes the main location is a small Irish village, and sometimes it’s the big city of Dublin, but they’re always about life, family, love, and friendship… and all the heartbreak those entail.

I am using her novel Quentins for “Q” not just because it fits the letter, but because it’s one of my favorites and it has overlapping stories and characters from some of her other novels. It tells the story of a Dublin restaurant named “Quentins” (of course), and all the people around it — its origin story, its staff, and its regulars. It’s a lovely story by itself but I believe in order to really enjoy it, you had to have read the rest of the Binchy universe — or at least Evening Class, Scarlet Feather, and Tara Road . (All also highly recommended.)

Oh, and I think everyone should read The Glass Lake.

And Echoes.

And Firefly Summer (probably my favorite of all).

Really, if you see “Maeve Binchy” on the cover of a book, you should just buy it.

There’s just something about her novels that make them so compelling to read. They’re not groundbreaking, world-shattering feats of literary triumph, but they don’t have to be. They’re quiet, familiar, and the best books to read with a warm blanket, a giant mug of tea, and a furry friend on your lap.

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