Recently, An Echo In The Bone, the latest book in the Outlander series was released, and I found myself thinking, wow, it’s been a long time since Gabaldon wrote an Outlander novel, and… where did I leave off in this series? I couldn’t remember enough about it, so I thought the best way to remedy that was to start over. No easy task when you consider the size of these novels. But start over I did with the first of the series, Outlander.

Englishwoman Claire Randall and her husband Frank are on a sort of belated honeymoon in Scotland. Having been separated shortly after their marriage by war taking Frank into the army and Claire into service as a nurse, they have been reunited and are enjoying another start to their marriage. On a trip to Scotland to learn more about Frank’s roots, they explore the countryside where they come upon a stone structure high atop a hill in the Highlands called Craigh na Dun. Frank, a professor of history, is fascinated by the stones, as they are often used in worship by pagans of an ancient time. Claire is interested in the foliage growing around the stones, as she enjoys learning about herbs and their medicinal uses. One day, Claire decides to go to the stones atop the hill to look for some plants she spied on an earlier trip, when she is literally sucked into a time warp transporting her back 200 years to a time of warring Highlanders and Englishmen.

She is set upon by Captain Jonathan Randall, the very relative her husband Frank had been researching. She discovers that Randall is not a hero of any kind, but a vicious sadist intent on raping her. As she fights to get away, she is rescued, then kidnapped, by a clan of Scottish men, who whisk her away deep into Scottish territory, at the Mackenzie clan’s Castle Leoch. Along the way, she meets a man who will become very important to her — the outlaw Jamie Fraser, a young, fiery, handsome Scot, who also happens to have been beaten and injured to an inch of his life. Claire calls upon her experience as a nurse and her knowledge of herbs to aid Jamie, and is soon labeled as a physician at Leoch and made invaluable to the inhabitants of the castle.

The chief of the clan, Column Mackenzie and his brother, the war chieftan Dougal Mackenzie, are reluctant to allow her to leave Leoch, not only because she is a healer, but because she is an English woman, and they suspect she is working as a spy for the English or for the French, as she has chosen to identify herself by her Maiden name of Beauchamp, rather than link herself in any way to the terrible Captain Randall. The Mackenzies are determined to find out her true identity, and eventually lead her back to the English to attempt a trade of sorts in order to discover who she is working for and how she came to be in the woods of Craigh na Dun that day they discovered her.

It soon becomes clear when Captain Randall manhandles Claire violently, that she is not working with him. But Captain Randall demands that she be handed over to the English army, as she is an Englishwoman and it is their right to claim her. To avoid handing her back to Randall, the Mackenzies decide they shall make her Scottish, and wed her to Jamie Fraser.  Neither Claire nor Jamie really want to marry, but they can’t deny a strong attraction between them — one that explodes into a passionate love that will change their lives forever.

Claire now has to decide which man she will be faithful to — her husband Frank, whom she left 200 years in the future, or her new husband Jamie. Frank is safe, if a bit dull, but he offers her stability and security in a time of modern conveniences. But Jamie lights her up with a passion she has never felt before, and he fights for her honor and safety at every dangerous turn.

And there is a lot of danger in this time period — the barbarism of the Highland games is no joke. This is a time of ruthless violence. A time of theft and killing at every turn. Claire is afraid for her life, but at the same time, she has never been happier. She is in love and her skills are useful at a time when modern medicine doesn’t exist. This is a time of beauty, untarnished by tar roads and vehicles puffing their fumes into the environment. Even as her protectors and new friends are attacked and beaten, she doesn’t want to leave them. They’ve become her family.

This was a great book. It’s the reason I kept on buying the series. Gabaldon’s writing is rich in details that bring the time and the places to life. There is certainly a lot of filler in the book — historical facts and details that might not be necessary for the storyline, but which help establish an authenticity and feeling that connect the reader to the story. Of course, this is not a book for the squeamish, as there is a lot of detailed and gory violence in it; and this isn’t a book for the prudish, as Gabaldon has no qualms writing sex scenes and plenty of them. I can recall being in a creative writing class once and discussing the difficulties of letting go of your inhibitions and writing a sex scene that will really put you in that moment and almost make your reader feel uncomfortable, like they’ve walked in on a private moment they aren’t supposed to be a part of. It’s not easy to write like that, but I have to say Gabaldon dropped those inhibitions and gave it gusto. You want sex, you got it. But it’s not all sex. At least not the first half or the book, anyway. My husband used to joke the first time I read this book and we’d be reading our books before bedtime, when he’d lean over and look at my pages every few minutes to discover another sex scene or body part being exposed. It was annoying the first couple of times he did it, but after it turned out he was right near the 4th or 5th time, it became funny and we’d make it a sort of game where instead of him looking over to glance over the pages, I’d just call out, “Another one!” and we’d laugh. You could get mighty drunk if you played it as a drinking game ;)

Anyway… enjoyable read. I’ll be starting the next one (again) shortly.

I mentioned a while ago in a post about shopping for books and being a cheapskate that I was positive I had a copy of this book somewhere in my house. Turns out I was both right and wrong. I did indeed have a copy of the book — it was just in a big container of books stowed away in the garage. So once I pulled it out from amongst my old Sweet Valley Twins and BSC books, I finally read it again. Then I forgot to review it. Then I started writing the review and saved it as a draft. Then I forgot about the draft. And now I’m up at 4:00 AM, unable to sleep, and I remembered I have this and another book to review.

Anyway… this was a reread for a course I’m marking, and, as I’ve discovered with a lot of rereads lately, I liked it much better than I did when I first read it in grade 9. I guess it just made more sense to me now that I’m older. I can see why this book is a classic — it certainly raised a lot of controversial issues in the day it was published.

The story revolves around the Finch family: a little girl named Scout, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus. The first half of the book centers around Scout’s, Jem’s, and their friend, Dill’s, fascination with Boo Radley — a man living down the street who hasn’t left his house in years. Of course, this causes all sorts of myth to be created about the mysterious locked-in man by the children of the town.

The second half of the story centers around the trial of Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white girl; and in the Southern USA of the 1930s, a black man was guilty until proven innocent. Atticus Finch is appointed as Tom’s attorney, and the family must now deal with the prejudice and anger from a town and the county full of white people raised through through generations of racism and class differences. Through the name calling and threats, Atticus attempts to teach his children to be compassionate to all people: whether they are black or white, poor or rich, smart or slow. He believes that all people should see the world through the eyes of the less fortunate, and not be too quick to judge.

It’s definitely a great story about compassion and honesty and understanding. Atticus epitomizes honesty and goodness, and through the eyes of his children, we see how blinding and wrong racism can be. At times, I thought the book felt a little too long in places (the first half in particular), but the story as a whole contains messages that are worthy of all readers’ time.

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I decided to reread this classic Shakespearean play while listening to an unabridged audiobook of it at the same time. When I took a Shakespeare course in University, I found that watching the plays while I read along helped me to understand them better. I particularly liked the taped stage productions of the Royal Shakespeare Society, which I borrowed from my library. I’d watch and read along and seeing the actors’ expressions helped me figure out the language much better than those little footnotes at the bottom of the page do when reading. This time, however, I got a dramatized audiobook of the play from iTunes (with multiple actors and lots of sound effects, which really helps) and listened along as I read. I realized that there is really no way to just listen to a play and not read along — you’d get so lost in the characters and trying to figure out who was speaking and entering and exiting the scenes without all the stage directions to guide you. So I definitely wouldn’t recommend downloading Shakespeare onto your iPod unless you intend to read along with it as well — much better to watch the play performed exactly to the script if you don’t want to read it yourself.

Macbeth is a Scottish nobleman who has earned glowing recommendations from his fellow countrymen as a great soldier on the fields. On his way home from a battle, Macbeth and his fellow nobleman Banquo come upon three witches who make prophecies to the two men: Macbeth, already Thane (Lord) of Glamis will soon earn the title of Thane of Cawdor, and become King of Scotland shortly after. They also tell that that though Macbeth will become King, none of his own children will succeed him on the throne — that is destined for Banquo’s lineage.

Upon returning to the King’s castle, one of the witches’ prophecies immediately comes true: King Duncan, so impressed with all he has heard about Macbeth, names him Lord of Cawdor for his brave service to the country. Believing that the rest of the witches’ prophecies must also come true, Macbeth and his ruthless wife, Lady Macbeth, become impatient for the third prophecy to come true. They decide they will murder King Duncan when he comes to stay with them at their castle, and make it seem as if the King’s own sons had each schemed to murder their father so that they may take up his place on the throne. When Duncan is found murdered, the sons flee in fear for their own lives, not realizing they have only supported the story that they had brought about the murder of their own father by running away. With the murdered King’s sons fled, Macbeth is named King of Scotland.

With this new title crowned on him, Macbeth becomes jealous of the witches’ last prophecy — that no child of Macbeth’s shall rule Scotland, but one of Banquo’s will. Macbeth decides to hire killers to murder Banquo and his son so that the witches’ last prophecy can not come true. When the murderers kill Banquo, but fail to capture his son, Fleance, Macbeth returns to the witches to learn more about his fate. The witches tell him that a war will be brought to his doorstep, but no man borne of a woman can kill him, leaving Macbeth with a sense of security that he will live a long life, during which he can no doubt come up with some plan to prevent Fleance and any of his children from assuming the throne.

With each killing, Macbeth falls further and further into madness. He shows remorse in the beginning with Duncan’s murder, but with his cruel wife by his side, and power corrupting his mind, he commits more and more murders to keep himself on the throne. His ambition and overconfidence soon will lead him to his downfall as the rest of the noblemen begin to see what evils Macbeth has committed, and rise up against him to revenge their families and take back their country.