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Irish writer stumbled upon her career by accident. As a young teacher traveling in Israel, she wrote a stirring letter home to her parents. Her father typed it up and sent it to The Irish Independent, which published the dispatch and launched what would become a career spanning several decades. Still going strong at 68, despite a brush with heart failure in 2002, Binchy has penned countless bestselling novels about small-town Ireland. Perhaps best known for and (a former Oprah's Book Club selection), Binchy talked with Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ about her new book, , and why you should never invite more than four Irish people to a dinner party.

Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ: is set in a heart clinic. Why did you choose this setting and how does it influence the story?

Maeve Binchy: I set in a heart clinic because I attend one myself as a patient. I have always found it a place of hope and optimism, where they teach you how to manage your heart disease and not to be afraid of it. When I was young, if anyone had a heart attack, we thought it was goodbye. But not nowadays. It semed like a good place to set a story, a place where people were slowly getting courage to live their lives to the full. And I wanted to make it cheerful and postive and funny, which is what we all need.

GR: Your books capture the culture of Ireland. Although Ireland has not escaped the recent economic downturn, how has Ireland's rapid growth—finally joining the ranks of the world's wealthiest countries following centuries of poverty—influenced your storytelling?

MB: Ireland has changed a great deal in my lifetime. People became much more wealthy after we joined the European Union. The influence of the Catholic Church changed; once we feared the clergy and were in awe of them, and now it is much more communal. Once no foreigners came to work here, because there wasn't enough work for ourselves, but now it's multicultural, and you can hear twenty languages being spoken all around you. It has been a great help to the country and given us all more confidence.

When I started writing I used to concentrate on the '50s and '60s, but I needed to try to become more modern and catch up on today's Ireland. So I started to watch the young Irish people and talk to them as if they were a different tribe, which in many ways they are! I discovered that they are not so different from my generation. They have more freedom, more responsibility, and more courage than we had, but they also have areas of uncertainty and unrequited love as we all did.

GR: Your novels often explore the concept of love. Can you name a few of your favorite literary love stories?

MB: I think most people read a love story long before they ever know what true love is like. So we remember the great passions that we read about when we were young. I loved the story of , and how Antony allowed himself to dally with the Queen of Egypt when he should have been back in Rome watching his back. I liked the frenetic troubled romances in , and the changing patterns of Scarlett O'Hara's love life in .

GR: The newest book centers on Clara, the doctor in charge of the clinic, but the book also follows quite an ensemble of characters with intertwining stories. How does your work within the discipline of short story writing contribute to your work within the novel genre?

MB: I like to concentrate on the bit part players, the supporting cast as well as the main characters. So it's often interesting to pause and follow somebody home to a different life while still connecting them to the main story. Then when that person appears again it's like meeting an old friend. Because I do write short stories, I suppose I find it easy to slip into someone's life for a short time and then leave.

GR: New characters are joined by a few from past books, including Nora from , Maud and Simon from , and itself (if I can call a restaurant a character). How did you decide which characters to bring back to life?

MB: I decided to bring back characters whose lives were not finished and tidied up. I was even wondering myself would Vonnie ever find her long-lost son? Would Signora be happy when she married Aidan? How would the twins Maud and Simon turn out when they stopped being twelve-year-olds? I so enjoyed meeting them all again, and I think the readers like it too.

GR: Irish culture is known for its storytelling, both in the oral and written tradition. Do you also enjoy telling stories out loud? Are you the life of the dinner party?

MB: The Irish do love telling stories, and we are suspicious of people who don't have long, complicated conversations. There used to be a rule in etiquette books that you should invite four talkers and four listeners to a dinner party. That doesn't work in Ireland, because nobody knows four listeners. I do talk a lot at dinner parties. I hope not too much, but then I love other people to talk as well. I am edgy and anxious when people just nod and smile instead of having views on every subject under the sun.

GR: What are you working on next?

MB: I am working at the moment on writing a three-page outline for another novel. I must make it interesting enough for the publishers to like it and give me the go-ahead. It should be in the same style as the books I have already written, but not visit the same topics and repeat myself.

GR: Describe a typical day spent writing. Do you have any unusual writing habits?

MB: A typical day is breakfast (grapefruit and Irish soda bread and tea,) then upstairs to a big, bright workroom. We have one long desk: my husband () is at one end, and I am at the other. He writes his children's books, and I do my stories. We both try to be at our desks by 8:30 AM, and we work until 1:00 PM. This includes answering mail and filing. We have a secretary one day a week. Then when work is over, we have lunch and play a game of chess. We play seven days a week and have been doing so for over thirty years, and we are still hopeless at it, but love it to bits.

GR: With two writers in one household, do you and your husband give each other feedback or work separately?

MB: We always read each other our work in the afternoon. The rules are that we must be honest. No false praise. We allow the other ten minutes sulking time if we don't like what we heard, but then we have to accept or reject the criticism. No one is allowed to brood over it!

GR: What are you reading now? What are some of your favorite books and authors?

MB: I have just begun by , which seems terrific. My favourite authors are , , , and .