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    The Library at the Edge of the World
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    The Library at the Edge of the World
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    The Library at the Edge of the World
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Library at the Edge of the World

    Written by Felicity Hayes-McCoy

    Narrated by Emma Lowe

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    As she drives her mobile-library van between the villages of Ireland's West Coast, Hanna Casey tries not to think about a lot of things. Like the sophisticated lifestyle she abandoned after finding her English barrister husband in bed with another woman. Or that she's back in the rural Irish town she walked away from in her teens, living in the back bedroom of her overbearing mother's retirement bungalow. Or, worse yet, her nagging fear that, as the local librarian and a prominent figure in the community, her failed marriage and ignominious return have made her the focus of gossip.

    But now that her teenage daughter is off traveling the world and her relationship with her own mother is growing increasingly tense, Hanna is determined to reclaim her independence by restoring a derelict cottage left to her by her great-aunt. But then the threatened closure of the Lissbeg Library puts her personal plans in jeopardy, and Hanna finds herself leading a battle to restore the heart and soul of her fragmented community.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateNov 14, 2017
    ISBN9781520085241
    Unavailable
    The Library at the Edge of the World
    Author

    Felicity Hayes-McCoy

    Irish author Felicity Hayes-McCoy built a successful UK-based career as an actress and writer, working in theatre, music theatre, radio, TV, and digital media. She is the author of two memoirs, The House on an Irish Hillside and A Woven Silence: Memory, History & Remembrance, in addition to an illustrated book Enough Is Plenty: The Year on the Dingle Peninsula. She and her husband divide their time between London and Ireland.

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    Reviews for The Library at the Edge of the World

    3.5/5

    128 ratings17 reviews

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    • 5/5
      “Everything in life has its time to happen. A time to plant, a time to grow and a time to harvest. And if you take things steady, you´ll bring your harvest home.” (Citation pos. 3113)

      Content:
      Hanna Casey had lived in London, when she divorced after almost 30 years of marriage. Therefore, she came back to Crossarra to live with her mother and she works as librarian of Lissbeg Library. Her great-aunt Maggie had left her old house to Hanna, and with the help of old Fury O’Shea, a local builder, she is going to restore it and make it her home.
      Conor is Hanna’s assistant at the library and in his opinion, the library could be really changed and successful. But Hanna would have to change things, be more relaxed about her stringent rules and open to new ideas.
      When the Government plans to invest in the area, to close the library and move it to Carrick everything changes. In the convent garden of her former school, Hanna meets Sister Michael and step-by-step plans are developed how to fight back …

      This is the story about a small village somewhere at the west coast of Ireland and the people living there. Different Governmental ideas about town and area development together with property speculations are an issue too. It is also about family, relationships between parents and children, between neighbors and inhabitants of small places, gossip and misunderstandings. It definitely is a story about books, readers and book lovers and about the beauty of nature of an Irish landscape.

      The author introduces the reader to a quite complicated main character, Hanna, who still mentally struggles about her failed marriage. But as the story continues, Hanna slowly changes, ready to be more open to other people and ready to call Crossarra the place where she now belongs. There may still be many misunderstandings between her and her mother, but family always sticks together, when necessary.
      We also meet different people living in the village community: Conor, the young book lover with modern ideas about networking and libraries open to everybody, Fury the builder, an old individualist, special but with a great heart and Sister Michael, the old nun, a wise and excellent strategist, and many others. Each of the characters is understandable and likeable.

      As the story develops, it is interesting to see how everybody in the area starts to get together, the old-fashioned social networking as it was found for centuries in rural structures comes to life again, but combined with modern social media.

      I have enjoyed every page of the book, there are no lengths in this story. I really liked the different characters and recommend this enjoyable, cozy read for a pleasant weekend, ready to be carried off to an imaginary trip to libraries and a small village in Ireland.
    • 3/5
      "The Library at the edge of the world" is a good read. I enjoyed reading about Ireland's west Coast and the community of Lissbeg. The main character Hanna Casey returns there after becomes the local librarian. She has inherited a run down seaside cottage and is going to make a life for herself. She is bitter and afraid after her failed marriage. A community crisis that threatens the library and the residents of the community gives Hannah a purpose along with the restoration of the cottage. Not so much of an original plot but still an enjoyable story. Love books with books in them.
    • 4/5
      The Library At The Edge of the World is situated in rural Ireland and is a quiet, gentle story of a small town librarian who, as she learns to accept herself and enjoy her life, also learns the value of being part of a community and helping each other. Hanna Casey is 51 years old, divorced and has settled into a job that seems to be leading nowhere. After discovering that her husband was cheating on her, she and her daughter left London and moved in with her mother who lives in the small town of Lissberg on the Finfarran Peninsula. Now, with her daughter launched into the world, she feels it is time to get away from her mother and move into a home of her own. It isn’t until she learns that the local council is planning on making major changes to the area, changes that would indeed impact on her and the library, that she also learns to become involved with the community. This involvement adds to the quality of her life and brings home a few home truths about herself, giving her a new outlook on life.I enjoyed this story with it’s small town atmosphere and various personalities. The Library At the Edge of the World is deceptively simple, stressing the importance of family, simple values, and engaging with one’s surroundings in a positive way. While I thought the ending was a little contrived, this was a good, relaxing read.
    • 3/5
      I started reading the second book of this series before realizing there was a first, so of course I put it down , bought the first and read it. I'm glad I did but this book was a little slow starter for me and I really enjoyed the more developed characters from the second book of the series, Summer at the Garden Cafe more! Confusing and I still think you need to read this before going to the second to know what's going on.
    • 5/5
      Hanna left her cheating husband and moved back to Ireland with her daughter to her mother's home. She begins to rebuild her life but her ability to trust and fit in are sorely lacking. The council is deciding where to put their budget money and Hanna brings together the community together to defeat the council's plan where the taxpayers money for the Finfarran Peninsula.I liked Hanna. I could feel what she felt. I was rooting her on as she takes on the council. The people around her are fun. Her ex, Malcolm, is a jerk. Jazz, her daughter, needs to grow up. Her mother is tough. Conor and Fury are interesting and probably her best friends although she does not realize it. The story was good. I felt like I was there in Ireland. I look forward to the next book.
    • 4/5
      Maybe the most delightful thing about this book is the setting; that being Ireland. Hayes-Mccoy takes you there, vividly, in her story about Hannah going back to her roots and starting her life fresh. I enjoyed Fury O'Shea best. His gruff gentleness was endearing.
    • 3/5
      After her marriage ended, Hanna moved from London with her teenage daughter Jazz back to a tiny town in Ireland on Finfarran peninsula at the "edge of the world." She's fifty, unhappy, still living with her mother Mary, and working at the local library. Hanna decides to refurbish the cottage her great-aunt left to her, and meanwhile gets reluctantly drawn in to local politics when the livelihoods of many in her small town are threatened by the council's grand plans.I love charming, small town novels with quirky characters and was fully prepared to love this story and Hanna's driving the library van to all the outlying villages in the peninsula while renovating her new place. But the first turn off for me is that Hanna's a terrible librarian, taciturn and gruff, keeping the place quiet and pristine and not even wanting her library assistant to start a book club! Her general life attitude irritated me as well, as she's pretty standoffish with the rest of the town and wallows in her "woe is me my life didn't turn out the way I wanted" far too long for my taste. The story tries to do a little too much, and turns in perspective so we sometimes get her mother Mary, Jazz, and other points of view occasionally throughout. Jazz was my favorite character, smarter and more resilient than her mother gives her credit for. The small town charm wasn't quite enough to make up for the flaws.
    • 3/5
      Recently Hannah Casey has questioned her decision of leaving London and her adulterous husband and returning to her childhood home on the fictional beautiful Finfarran peninsula with her testy mother. Now that she employed as the local librarian, she hopes to renovate and move into an abandoned ancestor's cliffside home. However, recent news that she may be losing her job may put an end to the dreams. This novel was an easy and pleasant read populated by a number of colorful characters, especially, the man hired to do the house's renovations. I found that the novel had a satisfactory end
    • 2/5
      While the title is tempting to a librarian like me, the book fell short. The premise is amazing but I couldn't get on board with any of the characters, especially the curmudgeon divorced and bitter librarian. Stuck living with her mother after she caught her husband cheating on her, she resorted to being the local public librarian even though she felt it was beneath her. Now that her daughter has moved out and her father has died she is restless and eager to move away from her mother. She got no money out of her ex-husband so she takes up a loan to restore her old aunts derelict cottage on the outskirts of the village. While working on her new project, her job and her small community are threatened. It's up to her to finally give a damn for once and come up with a plan to save the library at the edge of the world. This book has all the right elements,: small Irish town, cute little library, a cottage in need of some TLC, and some zany characters but it's still missing something. A meh, read.
    • 2/5
      I really wanted to like this book (bookish people and a library to be saved, what's not to like), but I found it to be a slow read. There weren't any characters that I liked (which is normally not a problem), but I simply couldn't get involved in their plight or invested in the storyline as a result. It wasn't a bad read, but simply one that didn't work for me.
    • 4/5
      My rating of this book might not quite be fair; it probably deserves a higher rating, but this is one of those books that left me floundering a bit. I got the story I was expecting based on the back cover, but not the atmosphere.Hanna Casey is not a likeable MC; she's bitter and not really very strong. She made it hard for me to want good things to happen for her, although I never actively disliked her. She seemed to recognise how hateful she was being, but never really did much to correct it. And she's a terrible librarian. Her mother is so. much. worse. At no point did I find her sympathetic, although I suspect I was meant to. Truly, her mother was awful.But boy did I fall in love with the Finfarrin community the author created. This story is timely, I think, as at its heart it's a story about a community taking itself back and actually becoming a community again. Hanna's the catalyst, but really the story didn't come alive for me until it stopped being so much about her and more about Finfarrin.It's a slow paced, well-written story with a happy, hopeful ending, just without the happy, upbeat tone. Nobody is plucky in this book. That's ok, it's probably better for it; it's just different from what I was expecting and that's likely reflected in my rating.
    • 3/5
      While the place descriptions were both vivid and lovely, the plot was lacking and the characters hard to care about, given their selfish, stupid secrets and cruelty.
    • 3/5
      A quick, easy summer read.
    • 5/5
      Great story, well told. Enjoyed my first audiobook very much❤️.
    • 4/5
      Started slowly. When I don't like a character, it's hard to make progress... of course, this character progressed also - so in the end - I liked it very much!! A lot like a "Maeve Binchy" story - Irish and happy ending!
    • 3/5
      Hanna Casey moves back to Ireland's Finfarrin Peninsula, accepting a job with the local library. Local issues threaten the library's existence. This installment lacked a real plot. It seemed an attempt to acquaint readers with characters. I normally love a book with an Irish setting or one involving a library. The book, however, failed to strike a home run. I did not hate the book, but the lack of plot contributed to its low rating.
    • 4/5
      Hanna Casey returned home to the west of Ireland, daughter Jasmine in tow, after finding her English husband, barrister Malcolm Turner, in bed with another woman. Jasmine is now finished school and working as a flight attendant, and Hanna is alone with her controlling, negative mother in her mother's bungalow. Hanna is the librarian at the Lissbeg Library, running that branch of the county library system, and driving a bookmobile around the area two days a week. And in her quest for a more peaceful, satisfying life, she's set her sights on renovating the decaying cottage that she inherited from her great-aunt, Maggie Cassey. Then she learns of a plan to reorganize county services--and eliminate her job.This is a book filled with interesting, quirky, often difficult characters, most of whom have their good points, who are often in conflict even when they're working toward the same end. Hanna has spent the last few years being cool and withdrawn, and now everything she cares about accomplishing will force her to step out of herself and form friendships and alliances. Her assistant at the library, Connor, sends her a builder, Fury O'Shea. Fury is high-handed, difficult, keeps his phone turned off, and brings his little terrier, called "the Divil," with him everywhere. He's also, she slowly realizes, the only one who will do justice to Maggie's cottage and her hopes for it. A library user conducting a systematic search for one particular book of which he recalls only that there's a dog on the cover, turns up a valuable old book, the garden book from the nearby convent--which is now down to just two nuns, one of whom is in seriously declining health. This leads to a meeting with the other nun, Sister Michael, which in turn leads t a plan to restore the convent garden. This becomes the core of an undercover organizing effort to build a plan to replace the county's reorganization plan with one better suited to serve the entire county, not just the two towns that are the two major tourist destinations. The sandwich shop near the library has graphic design skills. A friend of Connor's has web design and programming skills. A retired man who loves to bake starts baking sweets for the sandwich shop. A retired road engineer becomes the head of a subcommittee working on a piece of the proposal that will address the bad roads in the area. Fishermen in one of the tourist towns hear that this group doesn't like the proposed new marina--and show up to explain how bad the marina will be for the professional fishermen, who will lose the pier they rely on while the cruise ships do real damage to the marine life in the area.It's one unexpected connection after another, true community organizing, and a wonderful interplay of personalities. This is an absorbing and satisfying story.Recommended.I bought this audiobook.