I read Silas Marner and it was good, sad yet heartwarming at the end in that sympathetic, melodramatic way of most nineteenth century novels. It was good but from all that I'd heard of George Eliot, I sort of expected more? More fleshing out or explanations or whatever. There was a lot of buildup for Silas getting the little girl Eppie, and then it's just like "flashforward 18 years and Eppie's a gorgeous golden-haired girl!" Like of course she is. But for all that's spent on Silas's life prior to that? No depictions of single-father life? No struggles with raising a little girl on one's hermit/miserly own? And we're just told that Godfrey Cass just like marries his love, just like that? I hate just being told things. Show, don't merely tell! I just feel like there was a lot of potential in the story and with its characters. How did Godfrey convince his wife to marry him? How did she take over the household and get it running well? How did Godfrey live with the guilt of pretending the child wasn't his? I hate just being told stuff after the fact. IDK. I'm used to Dickens and Austen.

Anyway, I'm now reading Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales. I'm of course familiar with and have read most of them, but I like having a complete collection. I bought it at Barnes & Noble last Saturday night. It's not a gorgeous leatherbound book like the Hans Christian Andersen one that I bought at the same time, but the Grimm's was $8 while the other was $20, so. The Grimm's has a lovely wood scene painting as the dustjacket cover, while the HCA one is a gorgeous purple leatherbound one with gold designs. A bit too cutesy to be truly old-fashioned, but it's still nice. The books are uploaded to my LibraryThing (widget in sidebar). Oh, I also bought the fourth season of Ugly Betty on DVD, so now I own the entire show. I will have to watch it one of these days.