What I am reading Wednesday

[paranoidangel]

What I Just Finished Reading
Mary Neal and the Suffragettes Who Saved Morris Dancing by Kathryn Atherton. I saw this in the Morris Federation newsletter, added it to my wishlist to think about later and then one day it was £2, so I bought it. And it was really interesting. As far as history is concerned, Cecil Sharp is the name you associate with the morris dancing revival, but it was actually Mary Neal who started it, he just had his own opinions and took it over.

The Zig Zag Girl by Elly Griffiths. I enjoyed this. It was nice to go back to the 1950s for a bit of murder. And the murders and characters were interesting.

The Sisters by Rosalind Noonan. I acquired this because I saw it on the front page on the library ebook website and thought it sounded interesting. A few chapters in I had to check why and the summary sounded interesting. Except that it was such a tiny part of the book and there was a whole lot else going on that wasn't.

What I'm Currently Reading
Suffragette Planners and Plotters by Kathryn Atherton. This one was 99p and much like the Mary Neal book, this is about two people who were so instrumental in the WSPU and the Suffragettes that they wouldn't have got going without them, but we only remember the Pankhursts. And the book reminded me of the original Black Friday: a terrible day of police brutality and not a month of sales/'sales'.

What I'm Reading Next
The Stranger Diaries by Elly Griffiths. This is the first in the Harbinder Kaur series, of which I have book four. So whether I like book one or not, it won't take long to get to book four.

Smoke and Mirrors by Elly Griffiths. The second in the Brighton 1950s series. I am looking forward to this one.

Mirrored from my blog.

Comments

[watervole]

Damn, Mary Neal is back to £10.99 now.

I've got an original copy of one of the Esperance Morris books. It was beautifully produced.

[watervole]

Inspired by a slightly later historical period, but I think you might like a song about women's morris that I wrote when my hair was less grey than it is now...

https://youtu.be/tOFbtW5Gao0

[paranoidangel]

Ooh, I do like that.

[watervole]

Thanks!

There's lot of very convincing old photos of women dancing NW.

[liadt]

The Mary Neal book sounds really interesting and depressingly typical with her contribution fading away behind a man.

[paranoidangel]

Yeah, way too typical.

[watervole]

It's partly that she believed the stuff about morris being a genuine pagan ritual, done by men.

I wish she'd had access to the far more detailed historical materials that we have today.