Nights of Rain and Stars

Irish-born Maeve Binchy is a teacher turned newspaper columnist turned novelist. She was born in Dublin on May 28, 1940. Her father was a lawyer and her mother a nurse. She received her B.A. in 1960 from University College in Dublin. After teaching at a school for girls, she became a columnist for the Irish Times in 1968. By 1979, Binchy was writing plays, a successful television script, and several short story collections. Her first novel, Light a Penny Candle (1982), was a Literary Guild Dual Selection. Two of her novels, Silver Wedding (1989) and Circle of Friends (1991), have been Book-of-the-Month Club selections. Currently, there are more than six million copies of her books in print. Binchy's novels are usually set in rural Ireland, where Binchy seems to capture the dynamics of life and relationships in small towns. A Circle of Friends, successfully translated into a popular film, is the coming-of-age story of three young women in 1950s Dublin. Binchy lives in a suburb of Dublin.