My Favorite Books
I tend to favor books in a series, and one of my all-time favorites is the Earth’s Children series by Jean M. Auel. The first book, The Clan of the Cave Bear, was first published in 1980. It follows the life of a Cro-Magnon woman named Ayla, who is adopted as a young child by a clan of Neanderthal people, the Clan of the Cave Bear, after an earthquake destroys her home and separates her from her family. Ms. Auel did extensive historical research and the series touches on a theory that the Cro-Magnon man may have interbred with the Neanderthal, rather than just wiping them out. This has actually been shown to have some merit as DNA tests reveal that modern humans carry more Neanderthal DNA than previously thought. If you are interested, check out the Smithsonian Magazine article linked below.
Another of my favorites is the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. This is a romantic, time travel, historical series that follows Claire, a WWII British Army nurse, who falls through time after touching a stone in a druid’s circle. She lands 200 years in the past and meets Black Jack Randall, a British Officer who also happens to be her husband’s ancestor, and is a less than pleasant man. Claire is rescued by a band of highlanders after Black Jack mistakes her for a woman of ill-repute and is about to rape her. When the highlanders find out Claire is British, a sassenach, they don’t know whether she is a spy or if she truly needed rescuing, but decide there is too much risk to set her free. Over time, Claire ends up falling in love with a young highlander named Jamie, and not knowing if she will ever make it back to her time, marries him out of necessity to protect her from Black Jack.
The Starz Network has done an excellent job of adapting the books into a series and I can’t wait for the next season to start. The “droughtlander” is especially long this year due to Covid-19 delaying production.
I am really a bibliophile. I have loved books for as long as I can remember. I even participated in summer reading contests at the library when I was a child. The first book that I actually remember reading was Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry. This was a book about two orphan children who try to capture Misty, one of the wild ponies that live on Chincoteague Island off the coast of Virginia.
I collect books and hate seeing people who don’t value them as much as I do. I cringe when I see someone dog-ear the pages instead of using a book mark, or when they write in them, even when the book was meant to be written in. I have a kindle, and I do love the convenience of it, but I will always love the feel and smell of the real thing. One of my favorite places to go, besides craft stores, is the library or a book store. My grandson is in kindergarten now and is just starting to learn to read, but I have read to him almost every night since he was born, and I am trying to teach him to respect books, too. I was so proud when I caught him “reading” a book in bed the other night, when he was supposed to be sleeping.
HootOwl Handicrafts 