The Country Girls

Edna O'Brian

We want to live. Drink gin. Squeeze into the front of big cars and drive up outside big hotels.

We want to go places. Caithleen is a romantic: she dreams of finding a handsome man who will sweep her away and look after her. Her friend Baba thinks this makes her a right-looking eejit.

What she wants is money and glamour. Life. As much of it as she can get.

But neither love nor excitement seem possible in their small village, or their convent school. And when they finally make it to Dublin, they find that home isn't as easy to escape as they thought. This is the first novel in Edna O'Brien's trilogy which revolutionised Irish literature in the 1960s.

Banned by the authorities as 'indecent' and burned by the clergy, they were notorious for their frank portrayal of sexual desire: but scandal turned to fame, and made this glorious coming-of-age tale an instant classic that inspires and delights readers to this day.