In other exciting news, Justin gave me a Kindle for my birthday. ITS SO COOL PEOPLE!! I wanted one so that I could download articles that I need to read for classes and now I am totally in love with reading on it, period. I was a bit hesitant about it, I mean I love books and will not change to the dark side on that. I did think however, as I was re-reading "The Deathly Hallows" that it would be way easier to read on e-reader...anyway. I took that opportunity to download free e-versions of as many of my challenges books as I could. I was able to download my "K" book, On the Road by Jack Kerouac and my "X" book, which is actually a "D", The Extraordinary Cases of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I started reading these simultaneously, out of excitement and got totally wrapped up in Sherlock Holmes! I am actually on my fourth Sherlock Holmes book right now, but I did start with the extraordinary cases.
So, "X" is for Sherlock Holmes.
This series I am finding SO MUCH FUN to read!! Reminiscent to me of the Tarzan series, in that there are many different books in this series, they differ in length, and you can blast through them. (fun fact: I also downloaded a ton of Tarzan books on my Kindle). This is another book where I am constantly reminded of other versions I have seen of it, notably, The Great Mouse Detective (Yes, I am that cool), though I haven't watched many other versions. What strikes me about these books, beyond how fun and quickly you can read them, is that Sherlock Holmes is not that likable of a character. He's sometimes condescending, does coke when hes bored, and is rather emotionless at times. BUT the books are narrated by Watson, who is quite likable, and though he lacks the deductive powers of Holmes, is still bright but has a lot of heart and greatly admires Holmes, as well as many of the "clients" they help.
The Extraordinary Cases, is kind of a memoir. It is a chronicling or several short cases, compiled by Watson to kind of "record" for posterity the many adventures he assisted Holmes with. The cases chronicled cover a ton of subjects, from one of the few times that Holmes was foiled, to stories that touched their hearts, to rather sinister plots blown by Holmes. The shortness of each chapter is fun and I often found myself trying to figure it out before Holmes. Often, I could guess the persons involved but not at all how to bring all the pieces together. It has motivated me to re-read "The Hound of the Baskervilles" which I did enjoy when I read in MS or HS, but I don't remember much about. I have also enjoyed learning bits about the time period that it was written in, for example, Watson often references his time serving in a war in Afghanistan for England.
I've gone on to read another couple of short stories about Holmes and downloaded several. From what I can figure on the Kindle online store, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was rather prolific, he wrote MANY Holmes stories as well as many other books that are non-Holmes related.
Additionally, this may be a bit random, but reading this has often reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock's short films (and show, watch it, its stream-able on Netflix), in that they are both short mysteries, often have dark or sinister themes, but don't scare the crap out of me because they are not graphic or random, but very logical and straightforward with dark things happening to people who partake in dark stuff. I'd be curious is anyone else makes this connection or if its just me.
PS> I kinda want a Sherlock Holmes outfit.
