The Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

An old version, that has been lovingly read

I have had this book on my bookshelf for years and never got around to reading the series. My mother gave me this book about 7 years ago because she loved it after reading it in her book club. Now, she knows how much I love my romance stories, so this book was right up my alley.  If you start this book you will not stop so be prepared…

How to begin to outline this book…that is the question?!?! I am going to try to make this short, otherwise I am going to start giving away major plot points :).  The book starts off in Inverness, Scotland in 1945. Claire Randall and her husband, Frank, are taking a much-needed vacation together after the war, where Frank was a solider and Claire was a nurse. They both have seen unexplainable things and are trying to gain their normal married life back. All of that is about to change… Claire happens to stumble upon an ancient stone circle while looking a certain type of plant (her interest is medicine). She decides to go back one more time to see if she can find that plant and WHAM transportation back to the year 1743 (it’s a very painful process). When she wakes up after being transported she does not know anything and thinks it is all a joke. Until, Jack Randall (whom looks exactly like Frank and is English) attacks her in the forest. Coming to her rescue, is a Scot and she goes with him to his friends. This is where you meet Jaime, who is a lad with a very severe wound. Claire helps save him and they travel together with the other Scotsman to, what you come to find out later is, Jaime’s uncle’s castle. All through this time Claire is aware of Jaime and Jaime is of Claire but Claire knows that she must go back, this is not her time. The Castle (Castle Leoch) and the Clan Mackenzie embroil Claire in many different scenarios good and bad (I want to write about them all but no spoilers from me ;P). To save Claire from a particularly difficult scrape Jamie agrees to marry Claire (much to her chagrin). From then on it’s the two of them together through thick and thin. For most of the story, Jaime has no idea that Claire is from the future, only until witch trials come into play, does Jaime learn the whole truth. After that there is no stopping them together and Claire has to decide to return to her husband in the future or stay with this husband in the past. 

Ok so that was a little longer than I wanted and it really did not do this book justice because there is just so much going on and I hate spoiling books for everyone. Jaime and Claire are amazing together and separately. Both are stand out characters and you want to continue to learn their life story through this series. Their love knows no bounds and you can feel it jump off the page. Diana Gabaldon is an amazing story-teller and weaves a beautiful tale of love and loss, triumph and defeat, all while staying true to historical events. Her attention to detail through the entire series is amazing and all the characters a fully developed and become like family. To me, that is how you tell it is a good book, if the characters become your family.  If you like a romance, mystery, fantasy, historical etc. book, this one is for you. I swear to you if you pick up this book, you will not put it down and you will read all of the other books after it as well.  So go pick up  the Outlander by Diana Gabaldon from Amazon and read your hearts out! 

So this was my introduction into the world of Diana Gabaldon and the series following Jamie and Claire. To further this discussion, I will be writing a review (tomorrow?) about a spin-off from this series dealing with a secondary character, Lord John Grey. As Diana (hope you don’t mind that I have first name basis’ with these authors :)) has stated this tale about Lord John was only supposed to be a short story but it grew into a 3 book (so far) series. So onto the next book… Lord John and the Private Matter.

Slàinte  and Slàn leibh for now

Tori

Upcoming

So many books, so little time

As my bookshelf shows you, I have many books to read in the future and with those books come the many reviews. So the up and coming reviews on here are slightly delayed, due to my schedule. I really am just not finding the time in my day to actually sit down and read (Oh the HORROR). That being said, I am reading Lord John and the Private Matter and will be posting a review about that at the end of the week. Also tomorrow afternoon there will be a review posted on the first book of the Outlander Series by Diana Gabaldon with little reviews of the rest of the series accompanying it. I am doing this to prepare you for the Lord John series, since he is a secondary character within the Outlander series.  So bear with me for a day or so more till I can really get into the swing of things on here.  That’s all for now, but If I could make a plea to my readers…please email me book recommendations!!! I really want to read the things that you guys think are amazing and worth my time. My email is on the about page of this blog, so if you think of anything shoot me and email. 

Adios for now

Tori

P.S. Look at this lovely picture of High Tea that I enjoyed with my friend the other day. Amazing and I totally pretended that I was one of Jane Austen’s characters the whole time (literature obsessed much :))

English Breakfast, cucumber sandwiches, and scones...OH MY!

The Tender Bar

 

My first review! Yippee!

Here goes nothing, my first review on this blog. If you can’t guess from the picture above the first book that I am going to review is The Tender Bar by J.R. Moehringer. I stumbled upon this book because an amazing guest at the hotel that I work at asked me what I wanted to do for a living (he is a frequent guest so we talk often). I told him that I will be an editor and we started discussing our favorite books. Mine was Pride and Prejudice (didn’t you guess that already :)) and his was The Tender Bar. The next day he brought a copy of it to the desk and let me read it. I thought that was so amazing and we have been sharing book recommendations ever since. When he first described the plot of the book it did not sound very interesting, but I will read anything so I tried it and FELL IN LOVE!

The author wrote this book so well and is such a great story to tell that I can’t believe it took me this long to read it. But I digress and am getting ahead of myself. The book is a memoir and revolves around J.R. Moehringer’s life as he grows up in the 70’s. J.R. grows up with a single mom, who divorced his father after 2 years due to an abusive relationship. They then move into with his grandparents since they cannot afford anything else. Overcrowded is to tame a work for this house. From him and his mom, his grandparents, his single uncle and his mom’s sister and her 5 children, they all cram together in one little house. It makes for interesting stories. The house is old and falling apart, the grandfather is rude and verbally abusive to the females of the family, and all J.R. wants is to escape and learn who is father is. This leads to him listening non stop to the radio for The Voice, which is his father. He develops a relationship with the radio and becomes attached to the sound of his father’s voice. This is when the story really picks up speed and we finally see J.R.’s life unfold. Everyone thinks that his relationship to The Voice is unhealthy and he needs male influence in his life. His grandfather is not providing it, so Uncle Charlie steps in. Uncle Charlie is a bar tender at the local bar, where everyone frequents (that’s what they all say). Charlie takes J.R. on summer adventures to the beach with his bar buddies and eventually invites him to spend his time at the bar. The patrons of the bar (all male) become J.R.’s family. His home away from home. They teach him about life, they make him want to go to college, they teach him about girls and are always there for him. This bar has a cast of characters (what bar doesn’t…) and continually provided hilarious answers and questions to J.R. I don’t want to give too much more away but the rest of the book follows J.R. through high school, college and life after college where he doesn’t know what to do with this life ( sounds familiar to me). Through the ups and the downs he always goes back to his family of men at the bar.

Phew…that was a long plot summary, hopefully not too long.

I would recommend this book to just about anyone. It has so much resonance with anyone that has been through struggles in their life or just the trials of growing up. It touches a place in your heart no matter what you have been through. J.R’s life struggles are something that we all go through. Boys and their troubles (girls too), graduating high school, deciding what major you want in college, what to do after college etc. Mr. Moehringer’s book touches on all of these points in a funny but serious way. There is so much to read in the book, all the side stories and the references to the great literary works of our time (come on my English major friends you can spot them). It is a great book about life, growing up through our ever-changing world and how one man dealt with all of life’s challenges. So my challenge to all of you readers out there is to go pick this up at your local bookstore, or Amazon or rent it from a library. I guarantee that this book will not disappoint.

So my first review is in the bag, I know you all enjoyed it :). Obviously I will work out the kinks and I think (if I am clever enough) that I am going to set up a rating system to rate these wonderful books on. So more to come soon… I think there might be a non-book related post coming in the future…so just be forewarned (a rant it will be).

Upcoming books that will be reviewed (there are so many on my bookshelf that I will be posting a picture later):

1. Lord John and the Private Matter by Diana Gabaldon- I have read all the books of the Outlander series so am moving on to her other series about Lord John. The Outlander series is a review that I am tackling on here before I move to this one.
2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins Yes…I am probably one of the few (and by few I mean just me) who has not read this series. Well it is on my list and they will all be completed soon 🙂

Those are the ones I know of for now…more to obviously come and I will also be reviewing some of my favorite books just to get the ball started on this blog.

So au revior for now.

Tori

 

Hey All!

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Well said Ms. Austen, but in my case it is a single women in possession of no fortune , must be in need of more books from her local bookstore. I spend way too much time and money  at bookstores and Amazon. Now I am dedicating my time and money to this blog so all of my book dreams do not go to waste. 

This is a new venture for me, in my ever-growing expansion into adulthood (scary). I’m trying to get into grad school for editing at the moment and wanted to take the time to actually blog about the wonderful world of books that so inspires me. So bear with my everyone while I try to make this blog a place where all literature obsessed women (men too) can come and learn about the world of books that inspire me everyday. Hopefully it will come to inspire you too 🙂 

I am going to try to post one or twice a week, maybe more if I am really ambitious, about the books that I am reading during my week or anything related to books and literature. I read any and all books (anything my grubby little hands can grab) and will be posting about them all here. Fore warning to all of my future readers out there, I read a lot. By a lot, I mean 2 or 3 sometimes 4 books a week if I’m lucky.  So this blog will hopefully have many posts about all ranges of books every single week. 

I hope you all enjoy and I will be posting my first review and maybe some pictures of the lovely bookstores in my area later today or tomorrow. 

Ta-Ta for now!

Tori