Rachel Kovaciny's Blog, page 52

"To Tame a Land" by Louis L'Amour

So.  Um.  Hmm.

The thing is, I really quite liked this book until the last chapter ruined everything.  You've got a coming of age story where a guy called Rye starts out as a boy, and life is really hard because he loses both his parents young and in miserable ways, but he gets through that with the help of a nice guy named Logan who mentors him and kind of semi-adopts him until he's old enough to go out and be his own man.

And Rye does, he goes out and lives a full life on the frontier and does w...

Winners of the Tolkien Blog Party Giveaway 2020

The Rafflecopter widget has spoken!  I had it select 10 winners, then matched them up with prizes, and here are the results:

Prize 1: Two 4-oz candles from Midnight Flame -- Allison T.

Prize 2: Four bookmarks from  -- Ivy Miranda

Prize 3: Two 2-oz candles from  and Flick the Wick -- Stephanie

Prize 4: All three soundtracks for the Lord of the Rings trilogy -- Kendra

Prize 5: Three stickers of the Three Hunters -- Evelyn K.

Prize 6: Four stickers of the four hobbits from...

Answers to the Tolkien Middle-earth Relatives Quiz

Here are the answers to the Middle-earth Relatives Quiz, and your scores :-)  Even though this was one of the toughest quizzes I've ever made, so many of you did really well!

1. Eowyn is Eomer's sister.

2. Prince Imrahil is Boromir's uncle.  (Imrahil's sister Finduilas was Boromir and Faramir's mother.)

3. Legolas is Thranduil's son.

4. Frodo is Bilbo's cousin (and heir). (Frodo is Bilbo's first cousin once removed on Frodo's mother's side and his second cousin once removed on his father's side. Bil...

Answers to Hobbit Family Name Unscramble

Alas, the party is coming to an end.  But hasn't this been a fun week?  I know I've enjoyed it -- and am still enjoying it!
Here are the answers to
1. froopdout = Proudfoot
2. okto = Took
3. gotmag = Maggot
4. sibgang = Baggins
5. browhelnor = Hornblower
6. tontoc = Cotton
7. drynuckbab = Brandybuck
8. brubg = Grubb
9. glober = Bolger
10. snydanma = Sandyman
11. greedclarib = Bracegirdle
12. maggee = Gamgee
Scores
Briar Rose...

"Roverandom" by J.R.R. Tolkien

I hadn't even heard of this charming little book until earlier this year.  So if you hadn't heard of it before either, don't fret!  It was first published in 1998, though Tolkien had actually hoped to publish it after The Hobbit.  But his publishers didn't want more funny and whimsical fantasy stories for kids in general, they wanted more of The Hobbit in particular.  So Tolkien shelved Roverandom even though he had revised it repeatedly and made lovely illustrations for it, and wrote The Lord o...

Tolkien Middle-earth Relatives Quiz

Time for our second game for this year's Tolkien Blog Party!  I did something similar a few years ago, but I'll try to make it different enough that it will still be challenging AND so no one can go hunting back through old party posts and cheat off that one.  Mwahaha!
Note: some of these are related by blood, others by marriage.

Submit your answers in the comments, and I'll post the answers and everyone's scores at the end of the week.


1. Eowyn is Eomer's ___________.

2. Prince Imrahil is Boromir's...

Hobbit Family Name Unscramble

Our first game this year is an unscramble.  Try to figure out what Hobbit family names (surnames) these are!  Put your guesses in the comments, which I've put on full moderation until the end of the party, and I'll reveal the answers and everyone's scores on Saturday.

Most of these do get mentioned in the movies too, not just the books.

1. froopdout
2. okto
3. gotmag
4. sibgang
5. browhelnor
6. tontoc
7. drynuckbab
8. brubg
9. glober
10. snydanma
11. greedclarib
12. maggee

Good luck!

A Tolkien Blog Party 2020 -- Kick-Off Post

Can you believe this is the eighth year we've gathered here virtually to celebrate J.R.R. Tolkien's timeless stories and all things Middle-earth?  I think that's pretty cool, to be honest!


I just posted my giveaway a minute ago, so be sure to check that out and enter if any of the prizes strike your fancy.


As always, there's a tag below that you can copy to your own blog and answer there, then put the link to your post in the linky widget at the bottom of this post. Like last year, you can also c...

Giveaway for the Tolkien Blog Party 2020

I cannot host a Tolkien Blog Party without giving away a few mathoms in true hobbit style!  So here are this year's prizes, which are of more special magnificence than usual because I feel like everyone needs an extra lift this year.

Prize 1: Two 4-oz candles I bought from Midnight Flame, one called Second Breakfast and one called Shieldmaiden of Rohan.  Both have some loose dried flowers on top of the candle for extra scent and beauty.

Prize 2: Four bookmarks I bought as a PDF file from

"In Our Time" by Ernest Hemingway

 

Not my new favorite Hemingway, despite the presence of some of my favorite short stories of his.

In Our Time is a collection of vignettes about war and bullfighting that intersperse a lot of short stories, many of them featuring Hemingway's alter ego, Nick Adams.  The vignettes focus on gory, unpleasant, depressing events, and the short stories are similarly about death, loss, leaving, and things ending badly, all except the last two, which are "Big Two-Hearted River" parts 1 and 2. 

Only in thos...