On my nightstand

Well, not really on my nightstand. I rarely read in bed these days for some unknown reason. I guess by the time I put my head down, I'm ready to sleep!

I've got a few books on the go right now, as always. Seems my reading habits are as scattered as the rest of me!

I consider 2006, the year I spent in Nova Scotia, as The Year of the Outlander. Aside from a few brief forays into other books for the sake of variety, I spent the entire year reading Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series.

Funny thing about these books. I'd heard about them many times, from many different people (all women) who said they were the best books they'd ever read. Over the years, I'd tried three times to read the first book, Outlander. Three times! I'd constantly lose interest around the same point. The beginning of the first book is not conducive to drawing in a reader in the late 20th/early 21st century. It was boring and read like something from a 1940s women's magazine.

But I persisted, and at the beginning of 2006 went to a used book store and found a copy, yet again, of that first novel. I forced myself to read past that deadly beginning and... well...wow. I was hooked. Just like everyone said I'd be. The two main characters, especially the delicious Jamie, grabbed me and held on tight as they experienced all their different adventures.

Every time I sat on the ferry or ate my lunch, I'd be hunched over my book, completely oblivous to the world around me. Immersed in 18th century Scotland. Fantastic stuff. I'm now into the sixth book, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, and getting bogged down again, I'm afraid. The books are veering away from my beloved, time-travelling Claire and the love of her two lives, Jamie, and focusing more on their children and grandchildren and other characters. I will persist though, and eventually get through it...it's a huge book.

I'm also reading Lord John and the Private Matter. Lord John is a secondary character in the Outlander series, a friend of Jamie's, a gay English officer whose personality made him one of my favourite characters in the Outlander books. Private Matter is like an 18th century whodunit, with Lord John in the role of sleuth, prowling around the seedy underbelly of London looking for cross-dressing noblemen, Irish thugs and a missing spy. Juicy stuff!

Also "on the nightstand":

-- Farley Mowat's Bay of Spirits: A Love Story, his adventures with the love of his life on their boat, the Happy Adventure. They travel in and out of Newfoundland's remote outport villages. Mowat writes with a story-teller's flair that is so captivating it makes you long to have been with him on all his adventures.

-- The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins. A well-known atheist argues against the concept of a higher being. A little bit dense, but still quite readable. There's a two-part television series available to watch online too, if you want the condensed version. Really excellent, watchable documentaries. Here's the links: Part 1: The God Delusion, Part 2: The Virus of Faith

-- Apartment Therapy. Just a little nonsense book by a guy who has a theory about how to decorate and maintain apartments so they "flow."

In my purst right now:
Lord John and the Private Matter.