The Sound of Freedom & The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club
This has been a very busy and tumultuous last few months but I have been reading as much as I can. Here are a couple of books I wanted to share.
On Easter Sunday 1939, the brilliant vocalist Marian Anderson sang before a throng of seventy-five thousand at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington-an electrifying moment and an underappreciated milestone in civil rights history. Though she was at the peak of a dazzling career, Anderson had been barred from performing at the Daughters of the American Revolution's Constitution Hall because she was black. When Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR over the incident and took up Anderson's cause, however, it became a national issue. Like a female Jackie Robinson-but several years before his breakthrough-Anderson rose to a pressure-filled and politically charged occasion with dignity and courage, and struck a vital blow for civil rights. ~Goodreads description
I first heard about Marian Anderson on a podcast which you can listen to here. I was very intrigued so I went looking for more information and ran across this book. The author wrote an engaging well written story about an amazing woman and he did a great job of putting her story in context of the times in which it occurred. I highly recommend it! Here is a brief video that shows just how good of a singer she is and one of the songs she sang on that fateful day:
The Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club is a series of three books that I started earlier this year. I generally tend to space out my reading of a series of books sometimes months at a time, sometimes years pass before I will read the next one. But I really loved the premise of the series and so I found myself making my way through them at a good clip.
Based on some of literature's horror and science fiction classics, this is the story of a remarkable group of women who come together to solve the mystery of a series of gruesome murders - and the bigger mystery of their own origins.
Mary Jekyll, alone and penniless following her parents' deaths, is curious about the secrets of her father's mysterious past. One clue in particular hints that Edward Hyde, her father's former friend and a murderer, may be nearby, and there is a reward for information leading to his capture...a reward that would solve all of her immediate financial woes.
But her hunt leads her to Hyde's daughter, Diana, a feral child left to be raised by nuns. With the assistance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Mary continues her search for the elusive Hyde and soon befriends more women, all of whom have been created through terrifying experimentation: Beatrice Rappaccini, Catherin Moreau, and Justine Frankenstein.
When their investigations lead them to the discovery of a secret society of immoral and power-crazed scientists, the horrors of their past return. Now it is up to the monsters to finally triumph over the monstrous. ~Amazon Description
I loved how each book is a journey. Nothing happens quickly instead you get a lot of great character moments between the various woman. Plus I loved how the author just hit a upon all so many of the characters from classic science fiction/horror classics, but not in a gratuitous way each woman has their place and it all makes for a delightful series.
This entry was originally posted at https://under-the-silk-tree.dreamwidth.org/70497.html
On Easter Sunday 1939, the brilliant vocalist Marian Anderson sang before a throng of seventy-five thousand at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington-an electrifying moment and an underappreciated milestone in civil rights history. Though she was at the peak of a dazzling career, Anderson had been barred from performing at the Daughters of the American Revolution's Constitution Hall because she was black. When Eleanor Roosevelt resigned from the DAR over the incident and took up Anderson's cause, however, it became a national issue. Like a female Jackie Robinson-but several years before his breakthrough-Anderson rose to a pressure-filled and politically charged occasion with dignity and courage, and struck a vital blow for civil rights. ~Goodreads description
I first heard about Marian Anderson on a podcast which you can listen to here. I was very intrigued so I went looking for more information and ran across this book. The author wrote an engaging well written story about an amazing woman and he did a great job of putting her story in context of the times in which it occurred. I highly recommend it! Here is a brief video that shows just how good of a singer she is and one of the songs she sang on that fateful day:
Click to viewThe Extraordinary Adventures of the Athena Club is a series of three books that I started earlier this year. I generally tend to space out my reading of a series of books sometimes months at a time, sometimes years pass before I will read the next one. But I really loved the premise of the series and so I found myself making my way through them at a good clip.
Based on some of literature's horror and science fiction classics, this is the story of a remarkable group of women who come together to solve the mystery of a series of gruesome murders - and the bigger mystery of their own origins.
Mary Jekyll, alone and penniless following her parents' deaths, is curious about the secrets of her father's mysterious past. One clue in particular hints that Edward Hyde, her father's former friend and a murderer, may be nearby, and there is a reward for information leading to his capture...a reward that would solve all of her immediate financial woes.
But her hunt leads her to Hyde's daughter, Diana, a feral child left to be raised by nuns. With the assistance of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, Mary continues her search for the elusive Hyde and soon befriends more women, all of whom have been created through terrifying experimentation: Beatrice Rappaccini, Catherin Moreau, and Justine Frankenstein.
When their investigations lead them to the discovery of a secret society of immoral and power-crazed scientists, the horrors of their past return. Now it is up to the monsters to finally triumph over the monstrous. ~Amazon Description
I loved how each book is a journey. Nothing happens quickly instead you get a lot of great character moments between the various woman. Plus I loved how the author just hit a upon all so many of the characters from classic science fiction/horror classics, but not in a gratuitous way each woman has their place and it all makes for a delightful series.
This entry was originally posted at https://under-the-silk-tree.dreamwidth.org/70497.html