The Round-Up: June 2026
A monthly miscellany of interesting links and tidbits
A bit of housekeeping to lead off with: I recently enabled referrals on The Second Sentence, so you can now earn from 1 to 6 months’ free access to my paid posts by referring new subscribers! This includes all the fiction (currently ten short stories and a serialized novella) in the Library, and snippets from yet-to-be-published books.
And on that note, there will be a new sneak-peek post coming soon…since I have finished the first draft of the next Mrs. Meade Mystery and will be editing it over the coming months, aiming for a release later this year!
I recently had occasion to look up Cwmmau Farmhouse, a 17th-century house near the Welsh border in Herefordshire that was restored by British mystery author Ianthe Jerrold and her husband George Menges, with the help of Ianthe’s sister Phyllis, in the 1930s—and found it’s become the subject of fresh attention lately owing to featuring in the movie Hamnet. Most recent articles don’t mention the Menges/Jerrold family at all, but happily I did find this post from Jill’s Book Café which details the story of their work on the house.
From Harriet at The Joy of Old Books, a simply delightful post on the many different varieties of gardeners in fiction.
Over at Books in the Scullery, Jem Bloomfield takes a fun look at old-time racehorse names as seen in vintage newspapers, and an interesting deep dive into the origins of the word (and profession) “clerk.” (His recent posts on Agatha Christie’s At Bertram’s Hotel are also worth checking out.)
Netherfield Park is let at last!—or rather, Edgcote House, which stood in for Netherfield in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice miniseries, is on the market for a mere $60.5 million. That doesn’t seem quite so steep when you realize that the 1700-acre estate—which is even more beautiful than I realized from glimpses of it as Netherfield—includes a working farm, equestrian facilities, and over 30 other buildings, including cottages and an old rectory.
As a writer, it’s always fun (and somewhat comforting) to get a glimpse into the creaky early stages of other, successful writers’ labors, so I enjoyed this piece by Derrick Jeter on the many working titles that Larry McMurtry went through for his most famous novel before settling on Lonesome Dove.
Emma Sotomayor at The Wandering Inkblot has put together a really solid list of essential American literature—better than many others I’ve seen. It makes me want to fill some of the gaps in my own reading from the earlier periods especially.
In honor of the World Cup, I must bring back one of the best bits of internet ever: football team sheets made up of the characters from Jane Austen’s Emma (“Highbury Town often began games badly, passes going astray when poor communication led to misunderstandings on the pitch….”) and Persuasion (“Following his rejection, Wentworth rebuilt his career overseas, captaining both Sporting Asp and Celta Laconia to many notable victories.”) Just priceless.
And if you enjoy football humor, then enjoy, as well, Fry and Laurie’s “World’s Worst Football Coach,” and (on a slightly more erudite level) the famous Monty Python sketch “Philosophers’ Football Match.”
As for the World Cup itself, I could hardly begin to share all the wild and wonderful stories that have come across my social media feeds this month. I thought Norway’s Viking photoshoot might take the prize, but Scotland bringing along the world’s oldest surviving football (which might have been kicked about by Mary, Queen of Scots) is even better. (Bosnia, meanwhile, have brought the world’s largest coffee pot.)
And if there was any further doubt whether the cowboy outfit is really our national costume, the number of World Cup visitors I’ve seen sporting cowboy hats this month—from Sweden’s coach to the Czech team to Norway’s star striker to fans of all nations—ought to settle it!
Finally, in case you missed it, this month’s bit of mini-flash fiction:
Chance
We faced each other by the railroad tracks outside town, each with a knapsack on his shoulder and each as stubborn as the other. “We can’t both go,” said Chet. “It’d break Ma’s heart.”
If you enjoy The Second Sentence and you’d like to show appreciation without committing to a paid subscription, you could buy me a coffee or buy a book.
Thanks for the reference to Derrick Jeter's article on "Lonesome Dove". As difficult as it is to imagine, I've seen a few videos on YouTube discussing some production company's plans to remake the miniseries, which sounds like a surefire money losing proposition. What I'd really like to see at my local cinema is the second chapter of Kevin Costner's "Horizon" saga. I feel the film's owners owe it to us Western movie fans after stating two years ago we'd see it beginning August 16, 2024.