Love For Books

Danielle Steel

Danielle Fernande Dominique Schuelein-Steel was born in New York on August 14, 1947 her parents were John Schulein Steel, and Norma da Câmara Stone Reis, the daughter of a Portuguese diplomat.[Danielle spent much of her childhood in France [3], where she was from an early age included in her parents’ dinner parties, which gave her the opportunity to observe the lives and habits of the rich and famous.[2] Her parents divorced when Danielle was seven, and she was raised in by her father in New York, she rarely saw her mother, who moved to Europe.[1]

Danielle’s books have been translated into 28 languages and can now be found in 47 countries across the world.[9] Her books, often involve the main characters being in a crisis of some sort which threatens their relationship. Some people say that her characters are over-the-top, which they feel make her books seem unrealistic.

Danielle has had  Twenty-two of her books adapted for television films; two have even received Golden Globe nominations. One of them is “Jewels,” which is the story of the survival of a woman and her children in World War II Europe, and the family’s eventual rebirth as one of the greatest jewelry houses in Europe.

Maeve Binchy

Maeve Binchy was born in Dublin she first found fame first as London Correspondent for the Irish Times. Her first book, Light A Penny Candle (1982) was popular both in the UK and USA. She lives in Dublin with her husband, Gordon Snell.
A lot of her novels are set in Ireland and deal with the tensions between rural and urban life, and the contrasts between England and Ireland, showing the big changes in Ireland between World War II and today.

 
She says of her upbringing. ‘My memory of my home was that it was very happy, and that there was more fun and life there than there was anywhere else. My mother could do all kinds of things, like take a bone out of your throat if it got stuck and you were choking, or clean out a turkey on Christmas Eve when it arrived far from oven-ready. She could take out splinters and cure headaches and get the grocer to deliver her a packet of Gold Flake by giving a list of other items as well and asking if it could be brought up to the house soon because she was in a hurry for the cornflour. Our house was ten miles from Dublin City where we all went to University and then to work. Ten miles is near enough to live at home, and just a little too near to get a flat unless there was some bad feeling. And there was no bad feeling.’