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Wednesday Reading Meme
Apr. 16th, 2025 05:03 pmWhat I’ve Just Finished Reading
Ella Young’s The Tangle-Coated Horse and Other Tales, a 1930s Newbery Honor book that retells some stories from the sagas of Finn MacCool. Some lovely descriptive passages but not memorable overall.
I also finished Annie Fellows Johnston’s Cicely and Other Stories. Some of the stories I’ve forgotten already (what happened to the titular Cicely?), but others have stuck in my mind, like the story of three southern girls living in genteel poverty because Family Tradition says they mustn’t work… until they realize that their grandmothers worked very hard indeed when they first came to Kentucky, and conclude that surely this older Family Tradition trumps the newer one.
What I’m Reading Now
In Our Mutual Friend, the Boffins have just decided to adopt an orphan boy whom they will name John Harmon, to the astonishment of the Wilfers’ lodger Mr. Rokeworthy, whom I strongly suspect is the real John Harmon in disguise who is lodging with the Wilfers in secret to see if he wants to marry their daughter Bella, as their marriage is the condition under which he could inherit the fortune that, as everyone believes John Harmon to be dead, has currently gone to the Boffins.
What I Plan to Read Next
I have decided that once I finish Our Mutual Friend, I will at long last tackle Elizabeth Barrett Brownings’ Aurora Leigh!
Ella Young’s The Tangle-Coated Horse and Other Tales, a 1930s Newbery Honor book that retells some stories from the sagas of Finn MacCool. Some lovely descriptive passages but not memorable overall.
I also finished Annie Fellows Johnston’s Cicely and Other Stories. Some of the stories I’ve forgotten already (what happened to the titular Cicely?), but others have stuck in my mind, like the story of three southern girls living in genteel poverty because Family Tradition says they mustn’t work… until they realize that their grandmothers worked very hard indeed when they first came to Kentucky, and conclude that surely this older Family Tradition trumps the newer one.
What I’m Reading Now
In Our Mutual Friend, the Boffins have just decided to adopt an orphan boy whom they will name John Harmon, to the astonishment of the Wilfers’ lodger Mr. Rokeworthy, whom I strongly suspect is the real John Harmon in disguise who is lodging with the Wilfers in secret to see if he wants to marry their daughter Bella, as their marriage is the condition under which he could inherit the fortune that, as everyone believes John Harmon to be dead, has currently gone to the Boffins.
What I Plan to Read Next
I have decided that once I finish Our Mutual Friend, I will at long last tackle Elizabeth Barrett Brownings’ Aurora Leigh!
