Maeve Binchy "Minding Frankie"

I love talking to Maeve Binchy. And she loves talking too. Talking was actively encouraged when she was growing up. To be seen and heard, she says.

She's promoting her new novel "Minding Frankie" and is quite shameless about the fact that she enjoys a good natter. She says she starts every book as if she was with a friend and is about to launch into a story "Let me tell you something". 

She's kind of stunned that she's going to turn 70 this year. "Inside I still feel I'm 23" she says. "I thought when you got old your mind narrowed but it doesn't". 

She also told me how she doesn't worry about best seller lists any more, "they can worry about that in London". But when she was younger, she admits that she would go into bookstores and re-arrange the layout of the books, putting Joanna Trollope and other "rivals" behind hers. Trollope has admitted to Binchy that she did the same to her books!

"Minding Frankie" is published by Orion Books.