Brooklyn
Book description
Colm Toibin's Brooklyn is a devastating story of love, loss and one woman's terrible choice between duty and personal freedom. The book that inspired the major motion picture starring Saoirse Ronan.
It is Ireland in the early 1950s and for Eilis Lacey, as for so many young Irish girls, opportunities…
Why read it?
2 authors picked Brooklyn as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?
Brooklyn is one of my favorite contemporary novels.
Written in spare, clear prose, the story reels you in as you follow a young Irish girl in the 1950s, who leaves her small town in Ireland to find work in Brooklyn. Homesickness sets in, but love happens too until she is called home at her sister’s death. Complications ensue!
This novel has been made into a great film also.
From Marian's list on Ireland and the Irish.
The story of Eilis, a young woman who immigrates from her small town in Ireland to Brooklyn, is deceptively simple. And you, possibly new to the waiting room, sitting outside the chamber in which your beloved parent is undergoing a CT scan or MRI, feel a perhaps unwelcome kinship with Eilis: You are in a scary new country of your own. In New York, Eilis falls in love though she is forced to return home following a family tragedy. Of course, there’s no place like home to bring out the worst in people. Toibin writes with restraint and grace about…
From Alex's list on to read in the waiting room.
Want books like Brooklyn?
Our community of 10,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Brooklyn.
5 book lists we think you will like!
Interested in immigrants, Brooklyn, and Ireland?
10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them. Browse their picks for the best books about immigrants, Brooklyn, and Ireland.