Enjoy A Week in Winter

A Week in Winter

By Maeve Binchy

This is a week in winter that is years in the making.  A group of strangers converge on the opening of a charming, rebuilt, historic Bed and Breakfast on the west coast of Ireland for a week’s vacation.  Each guest carries their own baggage in hand and in heart.  They blend together, coming from all over and from all ages, for a moment in time.  They share a joyful opportunity to pause, and to reflect on their life trajectories, each pondering whether they are on the path they really desire.  Change is in the air.

The author artfully weaves the individual stories for each of the characters, and then tells how those stories intersect during this magical week.  The book begins with the tale of Chicky Starr, and what takes her away from Ireland to New York.  Then you’ll learn what drives Chicky to restore an old, decaying mansion back in her home town in Ireland.  The ripples of Chicky’s decision lead to the restoration of other peoples’ lives, especially friends and staff at her B and B.  That is when we are treated to the stories of each of the other characters.  This wintry tale about people taking the time to care, and to seek joy, is blanketed by the vivid personality of rugged Ireland with its customs, traditions, and music.

Maeve Binchy was an Irish novelist, playwright, short story writer, columnist, and speaker.  A Week in Winter was her final novel, published posthumously in 2012.  Her love for small town Ireland came naturally from her own life experience.  Her childhood home was 10 miles from Dublin, where she grew up with sisters and brothers and parents who loved their children.  She described her parents as people who “thought all their geese were swans. It was a gift greater than beauty or riches, the feeling that you were as fine as anyone else.”  After extensive travelling, she married a writer and moved into a house in a little town in Ireland called Dalkey, just a few hundred yards from her childhood home.  She wrote many heartwarming books and short stories, and said about her life’s work, “I'd like people to think I was a good friend and a reasonable story-teller and to know that thanks to all the great people, family and friends that I met, I was very, very happy when I was here.”

Thereby hangs a tale. . . .

 

Agent ZigZag

Agent ZigZag

A True Story of Nazi Espionage, Love and Betrayal

By Ben MacIntyre

Do you like spy thrillers?  Well, this one is the real thing.  This is the true accounting of the self-serving, but also heroic adventures of Eddie Chapman as a double agent during World War II.  He was a British citizen, with an interesting personal history.  Despite his checkered past, he volunteered for the British spy service.  With his criminal record, his offer was not taken up by MI5 at that time.  Then he turned traitor, volunteering to spy for the Nazi’s to save himself.  But then he turned again and ended up as a double agent for the British.  Chapman would say that it was always his intent to work for the British and that may be, or he may have seized an opportunity that came his way as he did so often in his life.  His story, and reading about his adventures is enthralling.

You’ll learn a lot about the people and the workings of the Nazi secret service.  Chapman was one of the first initiates in the Nazi’s ambitions to turn allies’ citizens into their own spies.  You’ll read about Chapman’s training, and about secrets he discovered for the British during his private training by the Nazi’s in France.  When Chapman was deemed ready and fully tested regarding his loyalties, he was dangerously parachuted back to Britain on a mission for the Nazi’s.

Then you get to read about Chapman immediately turning himself over to service as a double agent for MI5, Britain’s secret service, who gave him the code name ZigZag.  You’ll get to meet the people he worked with there, including the man that Ian Fleming modeled “Q” after in the James Bond books.  The book details how Chapman and his MI5 handlers dangerously but successfully fooled the Nazi’s. 

Chapman is a charming and likable personality, with a very checkered and criminal personal life before becoming a double agent spy.  He loves deeply and often, and you’ll read all about the fascinating and brave women who are attracted to him, and one who spies with him.

Ben MacIntyre is a British author, historian, and columnist for The Times newspaper.  He has fully researched this topic, including exhaustive numbers of confidential files finally released by the British government in 2002, and also videotaped recollections by Chapman himself before he died in 1997, and interviews with the surrounding characters in Chapman’s life from several countries.

This book is a most enjoyable way to understand the inside story of a very important time in history.  The author treats the facts objectively, but at the same time tells the story in an engaging way that exposes the humanity behind the treachery, the heroics, and the ambitions.

Thereby hangs a tale . . .