**December theme: Christmas**

**About the Book:**
It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.

Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.

**About the author**
**Claire Keegan** grew up on the Wicklow / Wexford border, studied Literature and Politics at Loyola University, New Orleans, and subsequently earned an MA at the University of Wales and an M.Phil in Trinity College, Dublin. Her debut, *Antarctica* was a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year. *The Observer* called these stories "among the finest recently written in English". In 2007, *Walk the Blue Fields*, was published to huge critical acclaim and went on to win The Edge Hill Prize for the strongest collection published in The British Isles that year. *Foster* (2010) won The Davy Byrnes Award, judged by Richard Ford: "Keegan is a rarity - someone I will always want to read." The story was subsequently published by Faber, abridged for *The New Yorker,* shortlisted for the 2010 Kerry Fiction Prize and published in Best American Stories, 2010. Her stories have been translated into 12 languages. "Every line seems to be a lesson in the perfect deployment of both style and emotion" Hilary Mantel.

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Book #43 - Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

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Book #43 - Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

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