Nimavenl - Nicole's Random Ramblings

I love language and especially love reading books and stories that play with language or show the author's love for language. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll is one such story. I'd known the story of Alice in Wonderland for years before actually sitting down to read the book as an adult. What struck me was not only how much I enjoyed the fun and craziness of Alice's adventures, but how much I enjoyed the author's way with words. The simple yet exquisite beauty of the words on the page as they come together into a whimsical whole is simply amazing to me. Source: Quote HD.com I also love tales set in magical or fantastical worlds like the amazing Anne Bishop's Black Jewels books or J. R. R. Tolkien's extremely intricate world of Middle Earth . Alternate realities are very interesting to explore as well, worlds that are similar to yet different from our own. I like how they often provide great insights into our own world and our own thinking, despite so...

Reading "River Marked", the sixth book in the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs, I came across ley lines. There were several scenes set at the Stonhenge replica by Maryhill in Washington State, which got me thinking about the original Stonehenge, and books I'd read set in the British Isles by authors like Marion Zimmer Bradley, Diana Gabaldon and Manda Scott. Living in Europe now, I could actually take a mini-break and go visit some of the places described in the books I've read. Places like Tintagel, Stonehenge, and for instance locations from Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series. I'm trying to come up with a list of places that I'd really really really like to go to. So far, the list is still a *very* long one and mostly still in the "what if" stage, but still...! Just knowing I can hop on a train or an airplane and see these places, or other amazing places like Berlin and Rome and Paris... It's a pretty wonderful feeling! I've g...

I'm reading, or rather, listening to, "An Echo in the Bone" by Diana Gabaldon. It's the seventh novel in the Outlander series and the first of the books I'm listening to instead of reading. It's strange not having my nose in the book itself, however I'm enjoying the new experience of listening to it. In short, the first six books in the Outlander series: