It’s the birthday of bestselling Irish author Maeve Binchy (1940-2012), beloved for such novels as Light a Penny Candle (1982), Circle of Friends (1990, movie adaptation 1995), and Tara Road (1998), as well as for her famously warm, generous, and good humored personality.

(NB: Today is Tuesday but feels like Monday, and having a lovely person like Binchy to write about makes it much easier to ease into the week.)

Binchy was born in Dalkey, County Dublin, Ireland, the oldest of four; her father was a lawyer, her mother a nurse. Binchy once told an audience, “I had a very happy childhood, which is very unsuitable if you’re going to be an Irish writer.” She got a B.A. in history at University College, Dublin, and taught at a girls’ school for several years before becoming a writer and editor for The Irish Times (1968). Binchy was soon popular as a colorful, irreverent columnist on daily Irish life. In 1972 she joined the paper’s London office, and in 1977 she married writer Gordon Snell, who supported her in her efforts to write novels. The couple eventually settled in a modest cottage in Dalkey where they shared a writing room.

Binchy’s first novel, Light a Penny Candle, was a bestseller, and she gave some of her earnings from the novel to family, friends, and even a colleague who needed a month’s mortgage payment. By this time, Binchy had already published two or three short story collections, including Central Line (1978) and Victoria Line (1980). The novel Echoes came out in 1985 and Firefly Summer in 1987; both were also bestsellers. Binchy’s novels often focused on friendships and families—with plenty of gripping drama thrown in—in small-town Ireland. Addressing the lack of graphic sex in her novels, Binchy once said, “You see, I’ve never been at an orgy and I wouldn’t know where legs should be and arms should be.” (One invitation from Harold Robbins could have solved that, but one is grateful somehow that that didn’t happen.) Later novels include Heart and Soul (2008), Minding Frankie (2010), and A Week in Winter (2012, published posthumously).

Binchy had yearned to have children but infertility prevented that. Instead, she became a devoted aunt to her nieces and nephews and took great joy in the children of family and friends. In the final years of her life, Binchy suffered from osteoarthritis and other ailments; a month before her death, a severe spinal infection set in, and Binchy finally died of a heart attack. She was 72.

Have a big ol’ warmhearted generous sort of Tuesday and stay scrupulously honest to the data.