Before I curl up with my books, I wanted to mention two things. First, I joined Shelfari today. I resisted joining another network because I am very happy at Goodreads. I am a member of LibraryThing, but unless you agree to pay for a membership, you are limited to only 200 books, so I am not at all active at LibraryThing. You might not remember this, but back in 2007 a controversy erupted over the fact that Shelfari did not used to allow users to easily uncheck the names of contacts they did not want to invite to use Shelfari. Tim Spalding, CEO of LibraryThing, also caught Shelfari astroturfing. However, I’ve not heard any criticism of Shelfari for two years, now, so I joined up. The interface is beautiful, and the community is more in charge. At Goodreads, you can apply to become a “Librarian” and edit book information, but Shelfari allows all community members to do so, which is both more risky and more open. Goodreads easily allows users to connect their accounts to Twitter, and it also allows me to share blog posts, but that may be because I’m a Goodreads author. As far as I can tell, Shelfari doesn’t allow you to do either of those things. So anyway, I’ve joined up, and we’ll see how it works out. Considering the time investment today, I hope it will be worthwhile. You can see my bookshelf in the sidebar to the right, and feel free to be my friend on Shelfari (and Goodreads, for that matter, but don’t expect too much if you become my friend on LibraryThing).
Second, I have begun two reading challenges: the Bibliophilic Books Challenge and the All About the Brontës Challenge. with my first selection, Syrie James’s The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë. It should be obvious how the book meets the Brontë challenge, but in case you were wondering how it meets the Bibliophilic Challenge, it is the fictionalized diary of Charlotte Brontë, and at only about 50 pages in, James has already mentioned Rochester and Jane and discussed the juvenile writing of the Brontës, as well as Branwell Brontë’s poetry, so I decided it met the criteria for the challenge.
I’m also in the midst of re-reading the Outlander series. I have not read the last three books, and it has been so long that I think I had better re-read the first four before I try to pick up the most recent books. I am currently working on the second (and my favorite) book in the series, Dragonfly in Amber. I am continuing to read Crime and Punishment through DailyLit, and when I have to turn out the lights, I’m reading Mansfield Park on the iPhone with Stanza.
Category: Reading Challenge, This and That
Tags: bibliophilic book challenge, brontë challenge, charlotte brontë, diana gabaldon, dragonfly in amber, goodreads, in-progress, librarything, shelfari, syrie james, the secret diaries of charlotte brontë 4 Comments
I first read Diana Gabaldon’s novel Outlander in about 1998 or 1999. I remember loving it. In fact, I liked it so much that my first early forays into creating websites were focused on a Diana Gabaldon fan site. For the uninitiated, the Outlander series is the story of Claire, who takes an early morning walk to the standing stones at Craigh na Dun near Inverness while on her second honeymoon with her husband Frank Randall and finds herself nearly 200 years in the past. She is captured by members of the MacKenzie clan and falls in love with and marries Jamie Fraser, but she knows the second Jacobite rising is coming, and she fears for his future.
On a re-read, Outlander definitely holds up. Diana Gabaldon describes her method of writing as creating scenes and then putting them together like a puzzle. I am not sure I knew that last time I read, but knowing as I read this time, I could see it in action. None of the scenes appears to stop the plot; instead, they serve to add realism and round out the characters. I remarked to my sister that the book is a little more “rapey” than I remembered, and we laughed. What I mean by that is I had forgotten that Claire was so often in imminent danger of being raped. Once again, a horrific scene of torture near the end of the novel struck me as gratuitous and over-the-top, just as it did on my first read. Gabaldon has created a gift of a character in Jamie Fraser. He pops off the page, larger than life.
Gabaldon has a gift for storytelling. I know I certainly keep turning the pages. She also has a gift for humor, and if she doesn’t flinch from describing scenes of violence, she leavens it with one of the best love stories I’ve read. I have not read a time-travel romance yet that tops Jamie and Claire’s, and I’ve read a few. 
What? It’s a guilty pleasure. One of the things I like best about her books is that I do learn things. I find the herbalism and history particularly interesting. The herbalism and setting of Gabaldon’s books strongly influenced my own book, A Question of Honor.
I have not read the last three books in Gabaldon’s series, and given the amount of time that has passed since I last read the first four, I thought perhaps a re-read was in order before attempting the last two. I am a little nervous about the time commitment. I have a friend who has read The Fiery Cross (I never finished it) and parts of An Echo in the Bone, and she said they were somewhat boring. I can’t recall if we talked about A Breath of Snow and Ashes. Anyone read them and can verify? I’ll probably try to read them, but I admit to being wary. I felt the early books in the series, even among the first four, were the best.
The Christmas holidays mean I’ll have some time to read. As I indicated in my previous post, I wasn’t getting into We Have Always Lived in the Castle, so I’ve set it aside. I really have been wanting to reread Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, so I downloaded it to my iPhone using the Kindle app. I have to say, it was like magic. I clicked a button, and when I opened my Kindle app, there the book was. I have used Stanza and Classics on my iPhone, but this is my first Kindle experience, so I’ll let you know how it goes. I understand I can annotate the book using the app.
I also picked up Jasper Fforde’s book The Fourth Bear. I have enjoyed all of his books. This one didn’t grab me yet (I’m two chapters in), but we’ll see. I know some readers don’t enjoy his Nursery Crime books as much as the Thursday Next series, but I really did like The Big Over Easy.
I’m trying to decide what to do about my own book. I want to work on editing and revising over the holiday. I haven’t completed the ending.
Finally, I watched the film based on Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel Speak, which I reviewed here. It’s an excellent book, and the film was very good, too, although not as good as the book, which is usually the case.
Category: Book News, Fantasy/Sci-Fi, Historical Fiction
Tags: diana gabaldon, in-progress, jasper fforde, laurie halse anderson, outlander, speak, the big over easy, the fourth bear, we have always lived in the castle 3 Comments
I admit I’m struggling to finish a short book. It isn’t that I don’t like it. I just can’t get into it enough to want to pick it up. Worse, I keep thinking about other books I want to read, and then I tell myself I need to finish that one first. The end result is that I’m doing very little reading.
I think I’m going to set aside We Have Always Lived in the Castle for the time being. It’s too short not to finish at some point, but I’m just not that into it for right now. I’ve read too far to give it up completely.
I am contemplating revisiting Diana Gabaldon’s series. She has just published a new one, An Echo in the Bone. I discovered my new department chair at work is a fan of this series, too. She and I are becoming fast friends. We have so much in common from our interests to our philosophies of education. I am so grateful she has come to work with me. It was funny how we discovered we had the fact that we are Diana Gabaldon fans in common: she started to tell me about the books in order to recommend them. And I had to respond, “Oh, I’ve read them!” I would say any of the older fans of Twilight should check Gabaldon’s books out. You won’t be sorry.
On the other hand, I could also read something I haven’t read. I have two Jasper Fforde books on my shelf. I’m not sure. Maybe I’ll stare at the book shelf for a while until I figure it out. All I know is I’m finished with grad school for the semester, and NaNoWriMo is over (and I won!). My novel is called Quicksand. I actually need to tidy up the ending because I wrote more than 50,000 words, which is the requirement for winning NaNoWriMo, but I didn’t finish my book. I also decided to set it aside and revisit it with fresh eyes when its time to revise. However, it has now been a little over a week since NaNoWriMo ended, and I am finding I miss my characters. Some of them became very real to me, and I enjoyed seeing them every day when I came home.
Once finals begins (or ends), and I have a little more time, I should post some excerpts or podcasts about my book. I am really interested in trying to publish it, but I admit the prospect of trying to find an agent is daunting.
