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Conan Doyle

SFG75

SFG75

Well-Known Member
Went to goodwill again today to do some book browsing, as well as to pick up some "new" ties. I found a book of Sherlock Holmes stories by Conan Doyle. Anyone like his works? This is a genre I don't have much experience with, but am willing to learn about. Any other suggestions in regards to crime and/or mystery? :)
 
I really love the Homes stories. The language, characters, and story are great stuff. I have the collection of his Sherlock stories. I havent read them all yet but I will!
 
SFG,
Now, there is an author I have read all of! I would say start any place, you can't miss. The first is as good as the last. The long ones may strike you as slow by modern day standards ( e.g. Sign of Four, Hound of the Baskervilles) but if you stick with them they are not at all bad.
Peder
 
The stories include.....

A Study in Scarlet

The Sign of the Four

A Case of Identity

The Red-Headed League

A Scandal in Bohemia

The Boscombe Valley Mystery

Thanks for the advice all-I will make this my short reading before bed-time preference. :)
 
SFG,
The mysteries begin!
Because your list brings back recollections of all those titles, except for not having the Hound of the Baskervilles, which I mentioned earlier as one of the long stories. I thought it was my usual approximate memory at work, but google shows Hound as having 15 chapters, so we have a case for sleuthing right off the bat! :)
Peder
 
SFG75 said:
The stories include.....

A Study in Scarlet

The Sign of the Four

A Case of Identity

The Red-Headed League

A Scandal in Bohemia

The Boscombe Valley Mystery

Thanks for the advice all-I will make this my short reading before bed-time preference. :)
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Read all those apart from the last!

After reading I always want to talk like in that fashion!

The wabbit chanced upon a most singular post by SFG concerning that most ingenious fellow of one Mr Sherlock Homes of Baker street...
 
SFG,
If you like the Holmes stories, I recommend that you move on to any of the Nero Wolfe mysteries by Rex Stout. Among Stout's fans who are obsessed enough to worry about such things, it has been speculated that Wolfe is the son of Sherlock (or even Mycroft) Holmes and Irene Adler.
Stout's style is 1930's and 40's NYC, as opposed to Doyle's 1890's London, but the ratiocination is the same.
 
Read the first couple of chapters of A Study in Scarlet. I can tell already that I really like this book. It held my attention at 2:00 a.m., which after a long day, is an impressive feat in and of itself. Perhaps this is the bes purchase yet from goodwill(go figure)

Prussian-I love the blood type in your siggy. Once you go Arabica, you never go back.

Wabbit & Peder-Thanks for the positive references, by jove!. ;)

funes-I will definitely check out that author. Reminds me of the proverbial black and white, grainy skit where a hard-drinking detective is in his run-down office and a beautiful woman walks in.......you know what I mean.
 
It's funny to think that Conan Doyle hated his Sherlock Holmes books. He tried to kill Sherlock and had to bring him back because of readers' demands. He thought crime writing was no serious writing and was only proud of his other writing, most of it historical/fantasy stories and novellas. Yet, reading them now, the Sherlock Holmes books are as good as ever, while the others are insignificant.
 
It's ironic that many of the great creative forces be they writer, artist, actor often are applauded for the things that mean the least to them :)
 
The Prussian said:
SFG75:

Never. Robusta is robbery!. :D
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LOL-It's amazing how if you have the good stuff, you refuse to consume the regular line of coffees(i.e.-folgers, maxwell house, etc.) My foo-foo coffeehouse taste has created an expense(a good one at that) for me.
 
Wabbit said:
It's ironic that many of the great creative forces be they writer, artist, actor often are applauded for the things that mean the least to them :)
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Yeah-people like Emily Dickinson just stuffed their writings and others engaged in sorrowful episodes and others have burned some of their works. Amazing how the truly great never think their own works are even adequate.
 
funes-I will definitely check out that author. Reminds me of the proverbial black and white, grainy skit where a hard-drinking detective is in his run-down office and a beautiful woman walks in.......you know what I mean.
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Yeah, but that isn't exactly Stout's thing. At least, not in the same way that it is associated with folks like Chandler and Hammett and Cain, etc. Either way, I think that you'd enjoy them a great deal. Plus, there are 40+ books in the series, so if you do like them, you won't run out for a while.
 
I've always loved Holmes, and have always compared every mystery book I've read since to him. He influenced me so much (I read Holmes when I was quite young) that I thought Hammett's Spade was all wrong because he didn't solve cases through deduction and cool calm calculation.

But anyway, I'd recommend The Maltese Falcon by Hammett, featuring Sam Spade, because it is a good book. I'm hunting down the Chandler books myself. I'd be interested in your impressions given your fondness for Doyle.

ds
 
Just finished A Study in Scarlet a few days ago, have now started The Sign of Four. I believe that I see how his pattern of writing these stories goes. And for a moment, I thought it was just a flaw of contemporary writers. :D I'm really addicted to Doyle's work, I think part of it has to do with how he writes, the other with how it isn't very predictable.
 
I love the Sherlock Holmes books. I have fond memories of my dad reading them to us from his bog annotated set when we were kids :) I am reading them in order right now on my Palm Handheld (Project Gutenberg texts).

Has anyone read any of Conan Doyle's other works? Any you would recommend? How about the Professor Challenger series?
 
you can't go wrong with a bit of Sherlock. but on a palm pilot JoannaC?! :) The two don't seem to go together lol!
 
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