Evening Class (novel) Evening Class (novel) Evening Class is a novel by Maeve Binchy. It was adapted as the award-winning film "Italian for Beginners" (2000) by writer-director Lone Scherfig, who failed to formally acknowledge the source, although at the very end of the closing credits is the line 'with thanks to Maeve Binchy'. A story of many Irish men and women from various backgrounds and how a teacher, Nora O'Donoghue (known as "Signora"), and an Italian evening class changes their lives over the course of a year. Each chapter deals with the life story of one or more students in the class. In
Number 11 (novel) Meanwhile, Erica Wagner of the "New Statesman" concluded that while the novel could be seen as preachy, it makes good points about London under austerity measures. However, Robert Epstein of "The Independent" deplored that the novel was "too obvious, both in its targets and in their subsequent takedown". In "The London Evening Standard", Andrew Neather conceded that the novel was "first-class entertainment", but he lamented that it did not live up to a proper satire. Reviewing it for "The Guardian", Alex Clark called it "a political novel" as well as an "interrogation of the purposes and efficacy of humour in