Echo in Bone by Diana Gabaldon

I would have finished this book a lot sooner if it were not so enormous. 800 pages of hardcover goodness, which is, of course, very annoying to carry around to read while on transit.

I first read her books while in high school, and I am always surprised when I see a new book in the series come out. The books always end with some loose ends, but not in any big cliff hanger that would annoy me to wait the 5 years it takes her to write the next one. This one is good, better than "Dragonfly in Amber" which felt like a hodge podge of things she just felt like talking about. Like always, there is an abundance of historic details, and Jamie & Claire are as loving as always.

I think, subconsciously, I've taken Jamie and Claire as my ideal married couple. They love each other so much, you can't help but admire their strength and trust for each other in times of peril. They never doubt each other. I want to have that, I hope I have that, but only time will tell.

Young Ian is back in this one. He's recovering from his "divorce" in this book, and I find myself wanting good things to happen to him and it does! Ironic though that he finds love with a Quaker.

William, Jamie's bastard son, becomes more prominant in this book. I didn't really like reading about him because he's so boring. The book establishes him as a genuinely nice guy, who is unconsciously similar to his biological father. He plays Ian's rival for the fair maiden, but Ian wins (which is what I preferred anyways). The good stuff doesn't happen to him until the very end when he finds out his true parentage. The book ended before I got a chance to really like him.

There is a parallel storyline where you get to read about Brianna and Roger's life in the 1980s, and how they cope with modern life. They are able to read letters left to them by Jamie and Claire, so there remains a link between the past and present. In the middle of the book, a person from the past comes and gets stuck in the future. I hoped it was William, the son, but it was William - the man who tried to hang Roger in a previous book. And a friend in the modern world kidnaps Jem and Brianna to find the gold Jamie hid for them. Unknowing that the kidnapper remained in the modern world, Roger and William(the other)went back in time to find Jem.

I suppose Jem's kidnapping and Roger going back in time is a bit of a cliff hanger, but I was less involved in that storyline. I always feel more connected with Jamie and Claire's story. Claire married John Grey, Jamie's gay lover, when she thought Jamie died in a ship wreck - I was most displeased when I read that. The reader knew Jamie wasn't on the ship, so it felt extremely contrived to read that so near the end. Gabaldon did it on purpose to force Jamie and Claire to separate, because when Jamie comes back alive in the second to last chapter, he's forced to run into hiding with John Gray's help.

Now that I think about it, there's a lot of things the next book needs to cover. So she better have another one out soon. The story needs to reunite Jamie and Claire (of course), have William (the son) deal with his actual parentage, Ian and Rachel get married (a must), Fergus and his family survive the revolution (I was glad we got to hear about his family again in this book, and I imagine they will have a bigger role in the next one with all the conspiracies afoot), Roger and Brianna's family are reunited - in one time or another... Also, Jamie's sister, Jenny, is going to have a bigger role. She's come to America with Jamie after her husband died... I remember her being a lot of fun, so it should be interesting to see what she does in the new world.

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, audiobook read by Stephen Fry

I read this book a long time ago, and didn't really get into it. Alot of my friends did and thought it was the wittiest thing in existence. This was the only book I read in the series.

I tried listening to the book this time because it was read by Stephen Fry. I started idolizing him recently because he is the host of QI (or Quite Interesting). QI is a quiz show where contestants (usually noted British comedians) vy for scores based on how interesting their answers are. Obvious and wrong answers cause shame to the contestants, and interesting if wrong answers are awarded. Right answers are rare and well noted. After watching QI, I started to follow Stephen Fry's work and was quite surprised that I liked him so much. I always knew of his existence, in movies that I've liked, but never really knew what else he did.

This version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is great because you could hear the irony and absurdity of what the story is telling you. When I read the book, I was 13 or something, and alot of the humour went over my head because I wasn't sure what was real or fake. Stephen Fry has a great voice, and I really appreciate his reading because he also does all the voices.

Unfortunately, Stephen Fry only has an audiobook out for the first book in the series. I was able to find older versions of book read by Douglas Adams. I just started Restaurant at the End of the Universe as read by Douglas Adams, and it's not bad. His voices aren't quite as distinct as Stephen Fry's, but you are still able to hear the nuances of language he meant when he first wrote the book.