Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Seamas O’Reilly’s Did Ye Hear Mammy Died?, which is much funnier than you might expect from a memoir with a title like that. (Or perhaps exactly as funny as you might expect from a memoir with a title so baldly about grief, actually.) I particularly liked the chapter about O’Reilly’s father’s habit of taping movies off the TV and them cataloging them all until the collection filled a small room, each tape indexed to a three-ring binder, which doesn’t sound too funny now that I’ve typed it out but somehow the way he writes it is both hilarious and full of affection for his father.

I also read Meindert DeJong’s 1954 Newbery Honor winner Shadrach. Shadrach is an adorable little black bunny, pet of a little Dutch boy named Davie, and shockingly he survives the book! Near the end Shadrach escapes his hutch and disappears, and all seems lost… but then Davie finds Shadrach munching away at oats in a secret room in the back of the barn!

What I’m Reading Now

In The Yellow Poppy, the Duc has been SENTENCED TO DEATH. An escape plan is afoot, but WILL IT REACH HIM IN TIME? Brencourt, repenting too late of his perfidy, has said that he wishes he could change places with the Duc, but I hope and trust that Broster realizes this plot twist is far too A Tale of Two Cities to carry out.

Also keeping steadily on in Maeve Binchy’s Circle of Friends. Jack Foley has just asked Miss Benny Hogan out to lunch at the Dolphin, and since the book has three heroines and only one hero I am a bit worried it’s all going to devolve into love triangles, but I remind myself that I loved Binchy’s Evening Class and must simply trust her here.

And galloping onward in R. A. MacAvoy’s The Grey Horse! Ruairi, the grey horse who has become a man, is attempting to woo fiery dark Maire, who insists he must become a Christian before they wed… which, as Ruairi is a fairy, may prove a bit of a struggle! We’ll see if the priest sees his way clear to doing it.

What I Plan to Read Next

Meindert DeJong’s other Newbery book from 1954, Hurry Home, Candy, which is about a little lost dog. Will Candy bite the dust by the end of the book? Stay tuned to find out!

Comments

[regshoe]

Ooh, that's an interesting comment about A Tale of Two Cities. Broster does like feinting towards killing off one character before actually killing another—she does it in The Flight of the Heron and one other book that I can think of—not that I am making any definite comment about whether, or in which direction, she's doing it here!

[osprey_archer]

Yes, I was definitely thinking about the fake-out in The Flight of the Heron. The Duc's death has been so heavily foreshadowed that surely he can't die... but WHO will die in his place??? (Terrified it will be Valentine tbh. YOU CAN'T TEAR THEM APART LIKE THAT, BROSTER. NOT AFTER ALL THEY'VE BEEN THROUGH.)

[troisoiseaux]

Brencourt, repenting too late of his perfidy, has said that he wishes he could change places with the Duc

Now I'm just picturing some Revolutionary-era Parisian jail with a "zero days since last escape by self-sacrificial body-swap" sign.

[osprey_archer]

Ahaha I LOVE it. Someone should make a comedy about Revolutionary Paris just to use this image.

Tangentially related: what was that book that you read about the last day of (IIRC) Robespierre's life? Reading The Greatest Day in History about Armistice Day has made me want to read other books that focus intensely on one day (or a few days) in history.

[troisoiseaux]

The Fall of Robespierre: 24 Hours in Revolutionary Paris by Colin Jones! I still haven't finished it yet - I think I've only gotten to about 9 AM? - but it's definitely not the book's fault.

[skygiants]

I look forward to your report on Circle of Friends -- I remember reading and liking it when I was a kid but my memories are VERY hazy and it's entirely possible that in the cold light of adulthood it's love triangles all the way down.

[osprey_archer]

So far there have been NO love triangles! However two of the characters have been using a third character's isolated cottage as their love nest without asking her permission (which they would emphatically not have been granted) and SOMEONE is going to pay.