Rachel Kovaciny's Blog, page 95

"Hood" by Stephen R. Lawhead

So, I'm in a little bit of an awkward position here.  A friend loaned me this book, and the two others in the series, about 4 months ago.  She said, "I just know you'll love these!  Here, you can borrow them."  And I was excited, because two years ago when I was doing My Year with Robin Hood, lots of people recommended these books to me.  So as soon as I'd finished my mountain of books from the library, I started in.

But... I didn't love Hood.  I liked parts of it...

Robin Hood Week Tag

As part of the Robin Hood Week festivities, Olivia has kindly provided us with a tag.  I love tags, did you know that?  Yeah, if you've been reading my blogs for more than about two minutes, you probably did.  Anyway, here goes!

What was your first exposure to Robin Hood?  It was the little read-along book and vinyl record put out by Disney, retelling the 1973 animated film.  I got that when I was 2 or 3, and I listened to it over and over during my childhood...

"I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov

I'm quite sure I've read this before, back in my twenties, but the only story I remembered at all was "Robbie."  That makes sense, though, as it has a Cinderella thing going on, and I love Cinderella.

I, Robot is a collection of 9 short stories concerning robots, written by Isaac Asimov and originally published as short stories from 1940 to 1950, according to Wikipedia.  They're strung together with a loose framing device of a narrator interviewing Dr. Susan Calvin about the ear...

Top Ten Tuesday: More, Please

Today's topic from The Broke and the Bookish involves things we want to see more of in books.  It's been a while since I tackled one of these lists, but this is such a fun and different topic, I had to find time to do it.



Here are my top ten things I want more of in books!  I thought it would be hard to come up with ten, but once I started thinking this through, I actually had trouble narrowing it down to ten options.  Hee!

1.  Cowboys.  But, real cowboys, not just dude...

INSPY Biz

The 2017 shortlists for the INSPY Awards were announced here earlier this week.  Since I'm judging the Mystery/Thriller category, I have about five weeks now to read these five finalists:


Conspiracy of Silence by Ronie KendigCold Shot by Dani PettreyDressed for Death by Julianna DeeringIf I Run by Terri BlackstockWhen Death Draws Near by Carrie Stuart Parks

(Source)
Happily, my library has a couple of these, so I got to start reading yesterday already.  BUT. &n...

"Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan" by Rich Bowers

The subtitle of this book, "The True Story of How the Iconic Superhero Battled the Men of Hate," led me to believe that this would mostly focus on the time when Superman's writers used him to convince kids that the KKK was bad.  And it's definitely about that.  But it's also a whole history of how Superman was created, and a history of how the KKK was formed and all the different times when it died down and then reemerged.  All in all, it was a thoroughly fascinating book, with...

"The Great Gatsby" Read-Along -- Official Announcement

Just to officially alert you... I will be hosting a read-along of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald right here on this blog beginning June 1.  You'll notice that the buttons all say "June 1-30," and that is because I'm convinced we can read and discuss the whole book in one month.


If you've never participated in one of my read-alongs and are curious about how they work, basically I will write a post for each individual chapter.  Each post will contain my own thoughts on th...

"The Man in the Box" by Marylois Dunn

Ohhhhhhhhhhh, this book.

I read this book many times when I was a teen.  I got it from the library over and over.  I remember writing a poem about how much I loved it, and putting a copy of that poem inside the front cover of the book before returning it, and then being really pleased every time I would check the book out again and find the poem still there.

But I haven't read this book since leaving home to go to college.  It's been almost twenty years.  I've kept putting...

"April Twilights and Other Poems" by Willa Cather

I always try to read a collection of poetry in April, since it's National Poetry Month here in the US.  And how could I resist a book with April in the title?  It was too perfect to pass up when I spotted this at the library earlier this month.

According to the foreword, Cather originally published a collection of poetry called April Twilights in 1903.  She later revised and republished it.  In this volume, you get the revised versions of those poems, and also a lot o...

I'm an INSPYs Judge!

I screwed my courage to the sticking place a few months ago and submitted an application to judge the INSPY Awards for 2017.  And they accepted me!  

If you don't know what the INSPYs are, they're "The Bloggers' Award for Excellence in Faith-Driven Literature."  If you visit the official site here, you can see the post that welcomes me and the other 2017 judges, and learn more about the awards as a whole.

I'll be judging the Mystery/Thriller category, and I'm so excited about thi...