Time Enough

by Emily Kimbrough

This is, happily, another of Emily Kimbrough's delightful travel books, this time about a two-week cruise on a converted barge on the river Shannon, in Ireland. As the eight passengers hurried to board a Killaloe, the owner commented, "Time enough." And so there was, for what amounted to a suspension of time with no thought of clocks or calendars, just the quiet, constant beauty of the passing Irish scenery.

Genres: Travel, Nonfiction

216 pages, hardcover

First published October 1, 1974

Reviews

[Eden · Rating 5 out of 5]

2020 bk 60. Time Enough is a travel book that reminds us that travel does not need to be rush, rush, rush, but instead can be a reminder to slow down and see what is going on around you. Another reader saw the author as being condescending, I see her as recording lifestyles that were very different from her own. Kimbrough grew up in money and even though she worked for a living, having been divorced, she was never of the middle class or working class. Her attitudes are of a wealthy person in the 60's, perhaps a bit more open than that of her friends who traveled with her. I enjoy her curiousity, her self-depreciating humor, and the fact that she knows that she is seeing new people and different ways of living. This book shows Ireland from the viewpoint of small villages along a canal, villages dependent on farming or tourists for their economy and their interactions with this group of people learning that there is indeed, time enough.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a delightful memoir of a trip on a converted tug up the Shannon River. Emily Kimbrough and her group of traveling friends as introduced in other travel memoirs are enjoying everything you see or do from the river in Ireland.

They enjoy viewing birds and taking trips to crumbling castles, well kept gardens or fancy estates. They pop into nearby villages and wander the streets, enjoy music in a pub or a carving of a Madonna or a mermaid from a church or abby.

Emily Kimbrough's observations of others are witty and really give you a snapshot of what that person is like. Her descriptions of what they see and do are not overblown, but short and pithy.
The book ends way before you are done reading about this delightful trip up the Shannon River.

[Armelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Emily Kimbrough and several friends rent a barge for a two week trip through Ireland. I’m not sure exactly when the trip took place, but the book was published in 1974.

The author may think she’s being amusing, but to me it mostly comes off as condescending. She pokes fun at pretty much everything and everyone, makes caricatures out of her companions, and shudders at the thought of actually learning about the things she sees.

I love travel books, and the idea of a barge trip through Ireland sounds lovely, but I was so annoyed by the author that I had to force myself to pick this up and finish this.

[Sallie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think I got this book in a book swap at a BT gathering. I love Emily Kimbrough's writing - always funny and what a group to go traveling with as she finds.

I've just begun and shall give it a rating when finished.

I couldn't find this anywhere on GroupReads or Amazon, so it must be very much out of print - boo hiss!

Not as funny a book as, OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY, but it has it's moments. I've read one other of her books about traveling via barge with friends - one set in France which I think was her first venture in traveling that way. It made me want to immediately find out if there were still barges out there to book passage one, and this one does the same to me. This book is about traveling on the River Shannon in Ireland where there was always TIME ENOUGH for whatever they wanted to do. Ah.... what a way to travel!

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kimbrough and a group of friends this time travel the Shannon River in Ireland on a chartered boat. The crew takes second place to the peculiarities of some of the passengers, and both fade against the Irish scenery and the attitude, summed up in the title, of the people they meet. In some ways, this book is just some of her earlier books--Floating Island, that covers a similar journey in France, for instance--but just as Ireland is not France, the books are not really the same.

[Carolyn (in SC) C234D · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember this to be a delightful story about a group of old friends taking a cruise on Ireland's River Shannon for two weeks. I enjoyed this writer's style, and it was a lovely picture of Ireland, quite a few years ago.

[Carolynne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Several friends take a luxurious cruise on an Irish river boat. It's a little too peaceful to keep one interested--unless you are contemplating a similar adventure.