This year it will be different and other stories
(Book)

Book Cover
Average Rating
Published
New York : Delta Trade Paperbacks, 2007.
ISBN
9780385341783, 0385341784, 9781448720743, 1448720745
Appears on list
Status

Description

Fifteen tales on love and family at Christmas. In A Typical Irish Christmas, two fathers commiserate on their ungrateful children, while in The First Step of Christmas a disunited family makes up.

Copies

LocationCall NumberStatus
Downers Grove Public Library - 2nd Floor - AdultFICTION BINCHY, M.On Shelf
Geneva Public Library District - 2nd Floor - FictionF BINCHYOn Shelf
Oak Lawn Public Library - Adult FictionFICTION BINCHYOn Shelf
Warrenville Public Library District - Adult FictionF BINCHY, MAEVEOn Shelf

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Similar Authors From NoveList

NoveList provides detailed suggestions for other authors you might want to read if you enjoyed this book. Suggestions are based on recommendations from librarians and other contributors.
Rosamunde Pilcher and Maeve Binchy write heartwarming, gentle, upbeat, leisurely paced, timeless, character-centered stories that focus on family and relationships in Ireland (Binchy) or Scotland and England (Pilcher). Pilcher's books are slightly more romantic. -- Ellen Guerci
Maeve Binchy and Elizabeth Cadell are known for writing gentle romantic family stories, and the plots of their novels often involve eccentric characters and independent heroines. Binchy's novels are less romantic in tone than Cadell's, but their characters and realistic situations will appeal to each other's readers. -- Rebecca Vnuk
Both Cathy Kelly and Maeve Binchy write domestic fiction that follows the lives of several people in a community with a common interest or bond; these are gentle, leisurely paced explorations of the characters' lives and relationships. -- Lynne Welch
Engaging characters, warm family relationships, and recognizable challenges characterize these Maeve Binchy and Jojo Moyes' fluidly paced novels. While Binchy is known for her Irish settings, Moyes sets her novels in Ireland, England, and Australia. -- Shauna Griffin
Maeve Binchy and Belva Plain are known for writing character-driven and heartwarming stories that explore the relationships between complex women, their families, and their communities. Both write in a variety of time periods, but Plain has more historical tales than Binchy. -- Stephen Ashley
Sarah Woodhouse and Maeve Binchy both write upbeat, domestic stories with a leisurely paced, timeless style. -- Ellen Guerci
Though Maeve Binchy's novels are set in Ireland, usually in cities, and Marcia Willet's are set in the rural West Country English countryside, both are leisurely paced and feature mature women and their families. -- Rebecca Vnuk
Both Dorothea Benton Frank and Maeve Binchy write leisurely domestic fiction centered on relationships. Family and friendship are paramount, and the resulting crises and interactions draw the reader along as the narrative progresses. -- Lynne Welch
Though Ayelet Waldman's catalog also includes mysteries and memoirs, she and Maeve Binchy both write homespun and heartwarming tales focused on women and their complex, sometimes messy relationships. -- Stephen Ashley
Both Maeve Binchy and Joanna Trollope write domestic stories of relationships with strong heroines, interesting characters, and intertwining plots devoted to family stories and family crises. Their novels are engrossing and leisurely paced. -- Ellen Guerci
Although J. Lynne Hinton's novels are Christian fiction while Maeve Binchy's are gentle reads, both feature strong women and issues that relate to family and friendship. Both also use intertwining characters and subplots to create rich, full stories. -- Rebecca Vnuk
Fans of stories about complex women navigating relationships with family and friends will enjoy the heartwarming works of both Maeve Binchy and Julia Alvarez. Alvarez's work can sometimes be more emotionally intense than Binchy's more gentle reads. -- Stephen Ashley

Table of Contents

The first step of Christmas --
The ten snaps of Christmas --
Miss Martin's wish --
The hard core --
Christmas timing --
The civilized Christmas --
Pulling together --
A hundred milligrams --
The Christmas baramundi --
This year it will be different --
Season of fuss --
"A typical Irish Christmas ..." --
Traveling hopefully --
What is happiness? --
The best inn in town.

More Details

Published
New York : Delta Trade Paperbacks, 2007.
Format
Book
Physical Desc
259 pages ; 21 cm
Language
English
ISBN
9780385341783, 0385341784, 9781448720743, 1448720745
Lexile measure
920

Notes

Description
Fifteen tales on love and family at Christmas. In A Typical Irish Christmas, two fathers commiserate on their ungrateful children, while in The First Step of Christmas a disunited family makes up.
Target Audience
920 L Lexile

Published Reviews

Publisher's Weekly Review

That Binchy (Circle of Friends) would choose to enter the Christmas market should not be a surprise. Her wide audience enjoys the warmth of her fiction, the emphasis on the power of love to transform ordinary lives‘even as she acknowledges that for some people, love is elusive or the prelude to frustration and heartbreak. Here she presents 15 short stories that take place during the holiday season; all display her deft rendering of family relationships and the stresses of contemporary life. Unfortunately, however, these tales are formulaic and superficial. We meet women unable to spend Christmas with their married men, children from broken homes, aged parents for whom Christmas is an ordeal rather than a pleasure, couples trying to resolve the past, lonely souls looking for a future. Several stories feature second wives whose husbands are oblivious to the machinations of their (always beautiful but selfish) first spouses. While the characters and their predicaments are potentially interesting, as soon as her narratives begin to develop, Binchy catapults forward to disappointingly simplistic endings. Readers will yearn for more: more character development, more detail, less fast-forwarding, fewer perky or maudlin conclusions. These tales are fine for a fast read during a busy season, but many will wish that Binchy had instead developed one of them into a novel that would do justice to her characters and themes. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
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Library Journal Review

Stories from the beloved Irish author. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Kirkus Book Review

A collection of Christmas-centered feel-good tales about love and family snarls in the season of comfort and joy. All are rendered in Binchy's popular unglossed style (The Glass Lake, 1995, etc.), and set in England, Ireland, and Australia. Some of the 15 tales have to do with unwise, innocent women carrying torches for the married lovers who take them for granted. Most eventually find the strength to douse the torch they've been carrying and let their own light shine--one is helped along by the plight of a loveless teenager and a sad gambler who's lost all. There are also abrasive relationships with children. In ``The First Step of Christmas,'' a resentful, neglected stepdaughter is lured home by a simple holiday tradition. Two single men with wayward adult children find mutual support and insight in ``A Typical Irish Christmas,'' and two singles in their 50s fly to Australia to meet their children's spouses for the first time--and discover each other along the way. Included as well are amusing tales about ditsy-to-just-plain-awful grannies. In ``A Season of Fuss,'' adult children foolishly try to curb their mother's towering nervous flights of preparation for the holidays. In ``The Best Inn in Town,'' two crazy grandmothers--one with ``a lip that curled all on its own,'' the other possessing ``a tinkling laugh that would freeze the blood''--are about to be dumped in a local inn. But the grandchildren, used to ``the natural order of things'' at Christmastime, have a better idea. There are marital reconciliations, too, and, in the sourly amusing title story, a long-suffering housewife, a good old reliable preparer and supplier of Christmas jollity, plans a surprise for her dense family that will resonate far beyond Christmas. In all, an appropriate gift for the casual reader--a bit of sentimentality and a touch of romance, along with humor and hopeful turns to treat those with cases of the holiday blues. (Literary Guild featured alternate selection)

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Citations

APA Citation, 7th Edition (style guide)

Binchy, M. (2007). This year it will be different and other stories (Delta Trade paperback edition.). Delta Trade Paperbacks.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Binchy, Maeve, 1940-2012. 2007. This Year It Will Be Different and Other Stories. New York: Delta Trade Paperbacks.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Binchy, Maeve, 1940-2012. This Year It Will Be Different and Other Stories New York: Delta Trade Paperbacks, 2007.

Harvard Citation (style guide)

Binchy, M. (2007). This year it will be different and other stories. Delta Trade paperback edn. New York: Delta Trade Paperbacks.

MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)

Binchy, Maeve. This Year It Will Be Different and Other Stories Delta Trade paperback edition., Delta Trade Paperbacks, 2007.

Note! Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy. Citation formats are based on standards as of August 2021.

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