An extended memoir with reminiscences about the Author's friends, family members and even beloved animals that have passed away. A therapeutic book demonstrating a compassionate way of dealing with bereavement.
Category: Biography/Memoir
Alice has known, loved, and lost many people throughout her life. Here she talks about her special people, her memory of what meant so much to her about them. She remembers her husband, father and mother, a beloved sister, her little brother Connie, and many others. She tells how she coped with the emptiness she felt when they died, of the seeming impossibility of moving on with life after such deeply felt loss, when time stood still.
This book is a sharing – it lets the reader in on a story and celebration of life in its intimacy, its small, precious moments. When we experience grief, sharing in someone else’s story can help us more than anything, and in the hands of master storyteller Alice Taylor, we may find our own solace and the space to remember our own special people.
Alice Taylor lives in the village of Innishannon in County Cork, in a house attached to the local supermarket and post office. Since her eldest son has taken over responsibility for the shop, she has been able to devote more time to her writing.
Alice Taylor worked as a telephonist in Killarney and Bandon. When she married, she moved to Innishannon where she ran a guesthouse at first, then the supermarket and post office. She and her husband, Gabriel Murphy, who sadly passed away in 2005, had four sons and one daughter. In 1984 she edited and published the first issue of Candlelight, a local magazine which has since appeared annually. In 1986 she published an illustrated collection of her own verse.
To School Through the Fields was published in May 1988. It was an immediate success, and quickly became the biggest selling book ever published in Ireland. It launched Alice on a series of signing sessions, talks and readings the length and breadth of Ireland. Her first radio interview, forty two minutes long on RTÉ Radio's Gay Byrne Show, was the most talked about radio programme of 1988, and her first television interview, of the same length, was the highlight of the year on RTÉ television's Late Late Show. Since then she has appeared on radio programmes such as Woman's Hour, Midweek and The Gloria Hunniford Show, and she has been the subject of major profiles in the Observer and the Mail on Sunday.
Alice has written nearly twenty books since then, large exploring her village of Inishannon, and the way of life in rural Ireland. She has also written poetry and fiction: her first novel, The Woman of the House, was an immediate bestseller in Ireland, topping the paperback fiction lists for many weeks.
One of Ireland's most popular authors, her most recent book is And Life Lights Up.
'uplifting'
'anybody who has lost someone can find solace in this book'
'as if she just writes down on the page what she was feeling, you don’t get any sense that there is any filter between you and the writer'
'you would have to have a heart of stone to not be moved by it'
'a warm personal story of life in rural Ireland'
'And Time Stood Still warmed my heart and reminded me of the value of family, friendship and community'
'in this book, Alice Taylor is singing my song'
'every aspect of the book appealed'
'I was enthralled'
'wonderful'
'a great read, beautifully put together'
'this book is a very practical one ... written from the heart by a woman who like most of us will have experienced grief in all its forms during life’s journey'
'peppered with wonderful stories'
'it’s written very simply, beautifully and movingly'
'beautifully illustrated and featuring the finest of prose and poetry'
