Rachel Kovaciny's Blog, page 61

"She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman" by Erica Armstrong Dunbar

After seeing the movie Harriet  (2019) in the theater last month, I decided I needed to know more about Harriet Tubman.  I re-read Freedom Train  right away, then wanted a more adult nonfiction account of her life, so I found a couple different ones at the library and put holds on them.  This is the first one that came in.

This was a really fast, engaging read.  I actually wanted it to slow down a few times, and I'm glad I've got another biography of her from the library...

"Mycroft and Sherlock: The Empty Birdcage" by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse

Um, so I've read the third book now too.  This is so unlike me.  I've read all the books (so far) in this series in like two months.  Usually, I can stretch a good series for YEARS!  Or, if there are only three books, at least for six months.  But... the library had this on the shelf, so I got it.

I still like Mycroft and Sherlock  best of the three, but I did like this one better than Mycroft Holmes .

Sherlock Holmes decides he's done with school because he'd rather...

"Nutcracker and Mouse King" by ETA Hoffmann AND "The Tale of the Nutcracker" by Alexandre Dumas

I'm reviewing these together because The Tale of the Nutcracker is Alexandre Dumas' French translation of the German story Nutcracker and Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffmann.  And the edition I read has them both together, translated into English by Joachim Neugroschel.

I'd never read either of these before -- my knowledge of the Nutcracker story comes from the ballet by Mikhail Baryshnikov that we watched on PBS every winter when I was a kid, and which I now watch on DVD with my own...

"South by Java Head" by Alistair MacLean

While this won't ever be a favorite MacLean book for me, it was definitely a thrilling ride!  It's got spies (more than you realize), daring rescues, extreme escapes, a cute little kid, several nurses, some treachery, several heroes, and various exotic locations.  Also, terrible storms at sea.  Also, submarines.  Also, various explosions.

Basically, the Japanese are overrunning Singapore during WWII, and a bunch of Brit...

Literary Christmas Challenge 2019

Yes!  Tarissa is hosting my favorite Christmas book blogging event again this year!  Check out her kick-off post at In the Bookcase to find out all the whereases and wherefores.  

I'm hereby signing up to read at least three Christmas-related books.  And one of them is a combined volume of both E.T.A. Hoffmann's original story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, plus the more-familiar translation/retelling by Alexandre Dumas.  The othe...

The Seven Question Book Tag

I'm in the mood to fill out blog tags.  And Eva tagged me with this a while back, so I'm going to seize this mood and fill this out!

RULES

thank the person who tagged you (thanks, Eva!)answer the questions givencreate new questions

"Lady of Quality" by Georgette Heyer

This book was just what I needed right now.  It's a frothy, jolly frolic that made me laugh aloud more than once.

Miss Annis Wychwood is a woman after my own heart, and no mistake.  She knows her own mind, she's Sensible, and she's Kind and Helpful.  She even has a penchant for playing fairy godmother, though it's never put in exactly those terms.

But Annis is...

"Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman" by Dorothy Sterling

I got a copy of this from a yard sale when I was a kid, and I read it and read it and read it and read it.  Harriet Tubman was a big hero for me -- I bonded to her stubbornness, I think.

Anyway, I went to see Harriet (2019) this weekend (my review here), and it made me want to re-read this book so that I could reacquaint myself with the truth of her st...

Cover Reveal for "Dear Author" by Laura A. Grace

I've hung out with Laura A. Grace online for a while now.  She blogs, she's on Instagram, she's on Facebook -- we run in the same online literary circles, basically.

And now, she's written a book.

But not just any book.  Not a novel about unicorns or quests, oh no.

Laura has written a book that is a love letter to authors.  Tha...

"The Graveyard Book" Graphic Novel Adaptation by Neil Gaiman & P. Craig Russell

You might recall how much I loved The Graveyard Book  earlier this year.  Probably my favorite new read in all of 2019 thus far.  Well, when I was buying a copy of my very own, I discovered that there's also a graphic novel adaptation of it!  And I happen to love good graphic novels, so I bought that too, mostly because I liked how they drew Silas on the front cover.

It rocks!  They kept a lot of my favorite lines, the whole st...