Written in My Heart's Own Blood - Outlander book #8

Written in My Heart's Own Blood by Diana Gabaldon was my big book for the summer.  I love the Outlander series, and book eight didn't disappoint.  In fact I enjoyed it much more than it's predecessor, An Echo in the Bone, because it wrapped up comfortably, like the rest of the books in the series, instead of with a cliff-hanger, which was so unsettling.  There's still room for lots more books, should Gabaldon want to continue the story, but it also had a lovely sense of completeness and closure.

One of the things I like about the series is the sense of extended family--it's really the clan idea, but more so. Some of the characters are connected by blood--that's the traditional family or clan--but Jamie and Claire have big hearts and a sense of responsibility to the waifs and the dispossessed whose paths intersect with theirs, and the collection of people who can rightfully say they are part of the Fraser clan, American-style is large and diverse.  Sort of like America itself!

This particular book had the right balance of time travel stuff thrown in too.  In some of the books, the idea of Claire being not of the time she is living sometimes gets lost in the plot.  And there definitely is a lot of plot...and characters...and story threads.  Gabaldon also achieves the right balance of Jamie/Claire with the rest of the threads.  Some of the newer characters are really growing on me, and it was so good to have Jenny's sister Claire back on stage again.  I can't help it, I'm already matchmaking for her and I think Lord John's brother Hal would be an interesting love-interest.  I don't believe he's eligible at the moment, but a lot can happen!

Again, I'm so impressed by the level of detail Gabaldon achieves in a very throw-away style. You never get the feeling with her that she is inserting her research because she did it. I found Claire's treatment of Lord John's eye absolutely fascinating, and I did some reading on the Revolutionary War battles that feature in the story and Gabaldon got the details right and made them relevant.  That is no mean feat.

I do hope there's a book nine in the works.  I think with the Outlander TV series looking so good, the market will be hungry for more.  I sure am.

Speaking of the TV series, did everyone catch Gabaldon in her bit part as Iona McTavish, who attended the gathering?  She talks about it on an Aug 30 post on Facebook.

Big Book Summer Challenge - checkpoint

When I signed up for the Big Book Challenge earlier in the summer, I figured that Diana Gabaldon's latest, Written in My Heart's Own Blood, would be the only book that I read this summer that would qualify (i.e., >400 pages).

Boy was I ever wrong!

I'm 633 pages into the 822 pages of Written in My Heart's Own Blood, and loving it.  I'm glad I'm reading it slowly--just one section per week.  This way I have time to enjoy the story and characters and all the details that Gabaldon so painstakingly adds that makes her fictional world seem so real.

I'm also 324 pages into the 601 pages that is John Steinbeck's East of Eden.  Man, how I love this book.  I haven't read it in over 30 years and it is simply wonderful.  I just read the "timshel" section of the book where Lee expounds on the Cain and Abel story and the importance of the phrase "thou mayest."  I can't wait to visit Steinbeck country in September when I go out to visit my daughter in San Francisco.  In addition to Monterey, I'm planning on visiting Salinas and maybe King City when we go to Pinnacles National Park (hoping to see some California Condors)

I read all 576 pages of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, and reviewed it here.  I was half-way through with it before I realized it was an official "big book."

Beatriz Williams' A Hundred Summers qualified as a "big book" with 432 pages.  I reviewed it here.

Daughter of the Forest, by Juliet Marillier, was my first "big book" of the season, clocking in at 560 pages.  I read it in June with the GoodReads TuesBookTalk Read-a-Longs.  I cannot believe I never got around to reviewing it as I did enjoy it and am looking forward to reading the next book in this very interesting series.

Since I'm an English major and my mantra is "you do the math," I got out my calculator to discover that I have read 2525 pages in my Big Book Challenge so far this summer, and that's not counting the books I read that didn't have the page count required.

So yeah, I guess I like to read.

Hope you're all have a wonderful summer, reading what makes you happy, and enjoying life.

2014 Big Book Summer Challenge: Written in My Heart's Own Blood

I heard about the 2014 Big Book Summer Challenge on the Book by Book blog, and immediately thought that I should sign up for it in order to motivate me to start Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth.  And then I remembered that the next book I wanted to start with Written in My Heart's Own Blood, the latest (last?) in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.

It's a remarkably easy challenge:

• Anything over 400 pages qualifies as a big book. - both Testament of Youth and the Gabaldon definitely qualify!
• The challenge runs from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend - I'm getting a late start but I won't let that slow me down.
• Choose one or two or however many big books you want as your goal.  - 1 is my goal, 2 is my stretch goal.
• Choose from what's on your shelves already or a big book you've been meaning to read for ages or anything that catches your eye in the library - technically both were on my shelf when I decided to do the challenge, though WimHoB just recently landed there :)
• Sign up on the links list below or on the 2014 Big Book Summer Challenge page.
• Write a post to kick things off - Voila!
• Write a post to wrap up at the end, listing the big books you read during the summer.
• You can write progress posts if you want to and/or reviews of the big books you've read...but you don't have to!  

I'm not much for the pool or beach so here's my image of ideal summer reading mode...