Product Description

Among the many evening classes starting all over Dublin is an 'Introduction to Italian'. On the surface it could be just one of hundreds in which some students will succeed and some will fall along the way. But the Italian class at Mountainview School has its own special quality, and the hopes and dreams of so many people are tied up in the twice weekly lessons. The students learn far more than they ever bargained for, and by the time they are ready to set off on the promised trip to Italy at the end of the year, everyone's destiny has changed utterly.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #108833 in Books
• Published on: 1997-05-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
It's the perfect gift: Laughter, the best medicine! From beloved author Maeve Binchy, who has captured the hearts of millions with her spectacular national bestsellers, including Circle of Friends and Tara Road. In Evening Class, she applies her signature warmth, wit and understanding to something new--a wickedly funny book for anyone who's checked into the hospital, headed for an operation or convalesced at home. Maeve Binchy can always be counted on to spin an involving tale about ordinary people that brings out the extraordinary in everyone. Here, she zooms in on the working-class of Dublin. Schoolteacher Aidan Dunne organises an evening class in Italian with the help of Nora O'Donoghue, an Irishwoman returning home after 26 years in Sicily. When the somewhat squashed-by-life denizens of the surrounding neighbourhood take the unexpected step of enrolling in the class, they find their lives transformed.

Binchy tells her story from the viewpoints of eight different characters and rewards both them and her readers with happy endings after the requisite rocky road. Reading a novel by Maeve Binchy is like catching up with old friends--you know everything will turn out fine in the end, but you're still interested in how things get that way.

About the Author
Maeve Binchy was born in County Dublin and came to fame first as London Correspondent for the IRISH TIMES. Her first novel, LIGHT A PENNY CANDLE, made her famous in the UK and USA. She lives in County Dublin with her husband, Gordon Snell.

Customer Reviews

Very readable, warm and entertaining
This is a lovely book, well written and enthralling like all of Minchy's books. However it is a little unusual in that it starts off so sadly - I was in tears at the end of the 1st chapter - tears of loss for the character whose life she was describing, but I am pleased to advise that all comes well as the novel progresses. I always think a book is magnificent if it can make you laugh or cry, and this does both. It is a lovely book

Pure feel good escapism. not her best but still a great read
Yet again another great book from Binchy - if not her best. Another host of different characters all looking for some diifering type of fulfilment from the Italian evening classes which bring them all closer together and manages to resolve some, if not all of their problems. The only criticism I have of this book is that the characters are a little two dimensional - a function I think of concentrating on so many different people within the space of one mid length story - there simply is not enough time. I still feel that the character and story development and degree of reality in Circle of Friends makes this book in comparison a poorer relation.

Very light
I usually enjoy Maeve Binchy even although her stories have no depth. You certainly don't learn anything but they are entertaining like a good soap opera. Evening class is no different although probably with even less depth than usual.