Month: July 2009

Outlander

By Diana Gabaldon


Now, this is a novel. I’ve read this one before, but have never gotten around to reading the rest of the series. I decided that this whole set of six books would make good summer reading, and decided to start over with the first one. The seventh in the series is due to be published this fall, so I need to read faster.

If you haven’t read these, and like historical romance, I’d highly recommend this. The main heroine, Claire, is poking around a set of standing stones in 1945 Scotland. When she accidentally touches one of the stones, she’s whirled back through time to 1743, in the Scottish Highlands right before the rebellion of Bonnie Prince Charlie. She has loads of perilous adventures, and due to her smart-ass personality, gets in a lot of trouble along the way. She meets rogues and outlaws, and ends up marrying into a large Highland clan for protection.

The whole thing is completely preposterous, but Gabaldon writes it so well that it ends up being a real page-turner. This is a terrific book, and I’ve already gotten well into the second book of the series.

627 pages.

Guenevere, Queen of the Summer Country (Guenevere Novels)

By Rosalind Miles

Hmmm. What to say about this one? I sort of liked the story, though it’s been done a few too many times. It’s part of a trilogy of Guenevere stories, and I’m a sucker for trilogies.

In the end, I’d have to say that I wouldn’t buy the rest of the set. So many books, so little time to read those that don’t grab me by the throat. I liked Mists of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley, much better.

515 pages.

You might have noticed that there’s been a gap between the last post and this one. One might think that reading that last book threw me off for months, but I just forgot to post. I’m not even going to try to catch up. I’ll try to do better in the future, but there have been a few hundred or so pages that missed getting counted because I was too lazy to put them in here.

Oh Yeah, The Blog

OK, you want it in a nutshell?

1) Cruise to Alaska. Wonderful!

2) 4th of July. Great party, great neighbors, lots of fireworks. Dogs hated the noise, we loved it.

3) Knitting. Still working on that baby blanket.

4) Baby. Baby Jacoby was born on July 6th to my niece Janet and her husband, Charlie. It’s now the 20th, and the danged baby blanket still isn’t done. Knit faster, Lorette, knit faster!

5) Spinning has consumed my life. There are bits of fiber all over the place in this house. Bits of wool now are overwhelming even the Lucy-furr, which is saying something.

6) Teyani came to spin, eat, and drink wine on Saturday. We had a great time, check her post for photos. I have some that I’ll post when I get them off the camera.

7) Tomorrow at 7AM I go back down the rabbit-hole to work. I may or may not get more details of the above events posted before I come out the other end of the warren on next Monday.

8) Last, but most definitely not least. I have a new job. It’s probably no secret to anybody that knows me that my hospitalist practice pretty much consumes my entire existence during my work-weeks. I currently work 7 days on, 7 off, which sounds great in principle, but. It’s starting to do me in. I mostly spend the first 2 days out of the rabbit hole recovering, then the last 2 days getting ready to head back down the hole again. A local thing came up, I jumped, applied, got it. Starting in November, I’ll be working a more consistent 40-hour week. I’ll be in the same hospital, don’t have to move, and I already know all the other docs that I’ll be working with. Changes can be hard, but as changes go, this one will be relatively painless.

I’ll try to get back here to post photos if I have time this week. To tide you over, here’s the Picasa link for the Alaska photos. And here are just two of my own.

Of course, Sweetpea had a good time. Did you really have to ask?

So did I. Photo from our veranda. Yes, I know, I live with a good man. He packed lemons, vodka, and bought me martini glasses at our first stop.