Claire Keegan

I didn't know anybody who would give me a job.

I didn't have any pull, as they call it here.

And I couldn't get a job, you know, putting hair dryers together or making sausages or just doing anything.

And it was...

It was a time of despair, I suppose, but the lovely thing was I had a small library in the town where my mother lived.

My mother and father had separated, and she lived in a little town called Tullow, and there was a very small library, and I sat there every day and read, and it saved me.

It was just wonderful.

Yeah, when I look back now, I was doing my homework for what I'm doing now, but I didn't realize back then that that's what I was doing.

when I was young, we didn't have books in the house.

We didn't have a library and we didn't have access to reading.

And now it just feels like that's something free for everybody.

And I just think it's delightful that you can go online and find all of the Constance Garnett translations of Chekhov stories for free.

And you can go to the library and print them out for free.

And nobody really is without books now if they don't want to be.

And

And also it's so attractive and intelligent.

And I don't know if you've ever seen anybody on a train or, you know, on the bus and they're just lost in a book.

And you instantly find them attractive because they can concentrate.

Mm-hmm.

Yes, it is.