Short Stories:Since Maeve Binchy took the Irish book world by storm with her wonderful first novel, Light a Penny Candle, in 1982, she has published 17 more books. Her position as the queen of popular fiction is unchallenged - a pioneer of the genre, she is one of a tiny handful of writers who established it as Ireland's main and perhaps most surprising literary export.
But it should not be such a surprise that the Irish proved themselves masters, or mistresses, of storytelling in books; in oral popular tradition, we have long been recognised as the best storytellers.
Maeve Binchy, like the other Irish women writers who specialise in popular fiction, has, however, not been taken seriously by the literary establishment, although distinctions such as the recent Irish PEN Cross Award and honorary doctorates from UCD, and Queen's University Belfast, among others, go some way towards giving her the status she deserves.
A novelist who defies easy categorisation, she is gradually acquiring recognition as a writer who has chronicled the mores and foibles of middle-class Irish life over the past quarter of a century.
Circle of Friends, for instance, is the most vivid UCD novel, no matter how you classify it generically, and, like all her works, it is written in a personable, engaging voice which is uniquely Binchy's, and probably her greatest gift, though not her only one.
From her earliest short stories, Binchy has been a writer with a sociological impulse - in keeping with her journalistic beginnings. She describes individuals functioning within the constraints of their networks and social milieus. This book is no exception.
A beautifully produced collection of short stories written between 1984 and 2001, it functions as a chart of her writing career; a slightly irritating factor is that the stories are not chronologically arranged, although assessing the writer's development is not what it is about.
It is about Christmas. The main calendar festival in much of the western world, this is an ideal temporal location for any work of fiction.
Binchy, who knows the nuts and bolts of storytelling inside out, has often said that she sets novels in small towns because there all the characters can interact constantly and spontaneously.
Christmas is the small town of the calendar, the time of year where families and friends come together in a heightened atmosphere and sparks fly.
THE CHRISTMASES INVOLVED here occur in Ireland, England, the US, and Australia, and there is a passing reference to a Swedish Christmas. One character remarks of an Irish Christmas: "There is no such thing, any more than there's a typical United States Christmas."
But in fact many of the stories do paint an accurate picture of an Irish Christmas, which is typical, and slightly different from, say, the Australian and other Christmases described in the book, although almost identical to the English. Plum puddings, turkeys, Midnight Mass, St Stephen's Day - you don't get them in Stockholm.
More recent Irish customs are noted: "Fionnuala said that New York was cold but back in business, unlike Ireland which had presumably closed down for two weeks".
Grumpy grannies, sulky teenagers, overworked mothers, populate the stories. Some of these may seem stereotypical, and occasionally resonant of bygone days - the philandering fiancés, the fussy housewives: "clever ribbons and angels and paper flowers - mountains of mince-pies and stacks of savouries". Does anyone do all this stuff? However, these characters are generally recognisable as people we know, as people we are. Binchy's sure touch exaggerates them just enough to bring them to life on the page.
In the end, however, it is her voice itself which enchants. Her humour: "Maura showed pleasure at the carpet sweeper, which [ her husband] Jimmy said might be useful on those occasions when she didn't think it worthwhile to take out the vacuum cleaner."
Her sudden insights: "In publishing, they always told you the best decisions, the best books, came by accident, not by dint of long and careful planning".
In these stories, as in all her work, Binchy takes an amused look at people engaged in the struggle of . . . well, Christmas. She is not sentimental but she is warm, and almost invariably her characters extricate themselves from their crises and find insight and redemption. Mostly there are happy endings. Which is what we all want, especially at the time of year in question.
Éilís Ní Dhuibhne's latest novel is Fox, Swallow, Scarecrow (Blackstaff Press). She teaches on the MA in Creative Writing in UCD and is a curator at the National Library
This Year It Will Be Different By Maeve Binchy Orion, 261pp. £17.99