Rachel Kovaciny's Blog, page 85

Another LOTR Read-Along: The Ring Goes South (FOTR 2, 3)

The fellowship sets out at last, and I start to feel that the story is truly getting started. A lot happens here, and yet I don't have a lot to say. The bit on Caradhras is very exciting.


I spend a lot of time there being impressed by Boromir, of course. He's the one who suggests bringing wood. He's the one who worries that the snow will be "the death of the halflings" (p. 283). He's the one who suggests creating a path back down through the snow for the others to follow. And then he suggests...

The Annotated-by-the-Author Giveaway!

Hey, guess what?  FOUR authors (including me) are running the coolest-ever giveaway right now.  We call it the Annotated-by-the-Author Giveaway... because we're each giving away a copy of our latest book which has been personally annotated by the author.  

That means the author of each book has inserted notes (I used sticky notes, and I'm assuming the others did similar things) into the book giving you all kinds of cool information about the story.  I don't know what...

"The Brass Compass" by Ellen Butler

I got to hear Ellen Butler speak at my local library a couple of months ago on the topic of women in the OSS.  That's the Office of Strategic Services, if you don't know, the American intelligence service they created in the early days of WWII, which has since become the CIA.  I watched the Alan Ladd movie O.S.S. (1946) earlier this year and was curious as to how accurate that representation might have been, and I'm always interested by anything to do with WWII anyway.

Butler wa...

Another LOTR Read-Along: The Council of Elrond (FOTR 2, 2)

Man, this is a long chapter -- good thing I hadn't planned to do more than one or two posts over the holidays. Where to start?

With Boromir, of course. Here he is at last, my beloved Boromir, this "tall man with a fair and noble face, dark-haired and grey-eyed, proud and stern of glance" (p. 234). There's a little smiley heart in the margins of my book here. To get here, he traveled for a hundred and ten days, all alone, making his way from Minas Tirith to Rivendell. I wish I knew what sorts o...

"Amahl and the Night Visitors" by Gian Carlo Menotti, Illustrated by Michele Lemieux

When I was probably about ten, and my brother would have been about five, my mom got this book out of our library on a whim.  Or at least, I think it was a whim -- she might have heard of it somewhere and been delighted to find it, but as well as I can remember, she just randomly found it in the stacks.  

The three of us were enchanted by this story of a lame beggar boy and his mother encountering the wise men, who are on their way to visit the Christ child.  We got it from...

"Christmas in Williamsburg" by K. M. Kostyal and Lori Epstein

I picked this book up earlier this month when I was in Colonial Williamsburg with my kids to see all the Christmas decorations.  I spent all day looking in various shops there for some kind of cool Christmasy book and not finding one.  The last place we went was the big bookstore over in Merchants Square, and I spotted this book right when we walked in.  Exactly what I was looking for!

This book explains what Christmas celebrations were like in the colonial era, that they were r...

Another LOTR Read-Along: Many Meetings (FOTR 2, 1)

This may be one of my favorite chapters. I love peaceful Rivendell, and would love to spend some time resting there myself.

And I find the relationship between Bilbo and Aragorn so sweet. How Aragorn, with all the things requiring his attention and time, still willingly pauses to help Bilbo compose a song. And this is not the first time he's done so.

Did you notice that Frodo has now twice been found lying on his face with a broken sword under him? Gandalf says that's how he was found after the...

"The Story People" by Heather Kaufman

Sometimes, I read a book so quickly, I don't even get around to putting it on my sidebar here.  Or adding it to Goodreads.  (And sometimes I take so long reading a book that you probably get sick of seeing it in my sidebar.  I know I do.)  Well, The Story People was one of those books I simply inhaled.  And then it took me a few days to find time to write a review because... this is a busy time of year, did you notice?

Anyway, so in The Story People, there's this...

The Joy of Christmas Book Tag

Saw this on Finding Wonderland and couldn't resist the Christmasyness of it :-)

(from Pinterest)
1: Anticipation: The Christmas excitement is real; what book release(s) are you most anticipating?

Island of the Mad by Laurie R. King
If I Live by Terri Blackstock
Whatever Katherine Reay writes next

2: Christmas Songs & Carols: What book or author can you not help but sing its praises?

Everyone needs to know how much I enjoy Katherine Reay's books!  I keep giving them to people as gi...

Another LOTR Read-Along: Flight to the Ford (FOTR 1,12)

Once again, I'm astonished at the amount of time that elapses in this section of the book compared to the movie. I've seen the movie more often than I've read the book (though I've read the other two books just as often than I've seen the other two movies, I think), so I'm used to all this going much more quickly and Frodo's wound being more quick-acting. It's the end of their twelfth day out from Weathertop that they meet up with Glorfindel, and they travel with him for another day before Fr...