Posted May 30, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Book of the Month, Classic, Crime / 0 Comments
Title: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Goodreads)
Author: Arthur Conan Doyle
Series: Sherlock Holmes #3
Published: Penguin, 1892
Pages: 307
Genres: Classic, Crime
My Copy: Audiobook
Buy: Amazon (or visit your local Indie bookstore)
It’s often really hard to review classic literature; simply because it’s already stood the test of time and that makes it difficult to be critical of the book. I’m not really a fan of reading a collection of short stories, especially over a few days; but I really did enjoy reading through The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I’m not sure why I haven’t read more of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels; this is my second with the first being A Study in Scarlet. I think I need to pick up my act and read more of his books; ideally all of the Sherlock Holmes novels.
Sherlock really is a great character, with some interesting quirks. I think at one point I thought he was taking cocaine to get over the monotony of not having a case to work on and then later in the book he was taking it because he was bored with a case. He really has an eye for detail and often it is really impressive the way he solves a case with the details that he discovers. Dr Watson; while you don’t get too much information about him, having him narrate the stories gives these books the extra boost it needs. The unreliable narrator is the perfect way to hide aspects of each case, without having the reader think the author is withholding on purpose.
There is not much I can say against this book apart from the fact it’s a collection of short stories. I feel like each story only gives you a quick glimpse into the brilliance of Sherlock and then the case is solved. I do like the way that this book does flow together without making the reader needing to reset the mind in preparation for the next story. This may be simply the fact that each story is in the same style and the characters are the same, but when it comes to reading a collection of short stories, this is often what I prefer. I probably should have read The Sign of Four in preparation for this month’s book club read but it will be the next Sherlock Holmes novel I get to.
Posted May 29, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Question Tuesday / 0 Comments
I’ve never actually read a book in one sitting; this is because I’m a very slow reader and have a busy life. I still think there are a few books that make me want to keep reading. I’m talking about the books that keep calling to me in the night while I’m trying to sleep, the books that occupy my thoughts and I can’t wait to get back to the book and continue reading. There have been so many books like this, these are books that I want to always talk about and my poor wife is probably sick of hearing about but I think I might need to accompany this post with another blog post: Top 5 Page Turners.
Posted May 22, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Question Tuesday / 0 Comments
A few weeks ago I discussed my reading history and now I want to cover why I read. For me, I love to be told a story, I love to immerse in a completely different world. I’ve also found that now I’ve become a reader, there are a lot more books out there that I really want to read. It seems like for every book I read, I discover at least two other books I want to read. I did get so overboard with my to-read list that I had to cull it to the essentials. Not that I don’t want to read all the books that were on my TBR list, but I’m finding it really hard to keep up with all the books I want to read. There are too many books out there but so little time; I sometimes wish I could speed read so I can catch up with all the books but I think I would miss immersing myself in a book. As said before I do set myself a reading goal every year and I hope one day I’ll have enough knowledge in literature that I might be able to better recommend books to other people.
Posted May 15, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Question Tuesday / 0 Comments
I’ve been writing in my cultural blog for a few years and I love exploring everything to do with Art, Culture, Literature, Philosophy and even Poetry. But I’ve found myself writing more and more about literature, so rather than overloading Knowledge Lost with literature posts I started this book blog as a way for me to do all my bookish posts and to document my literary journey. While I do have dreams of becoming a book critic, this blog was more of an outlet for all my literary thoughts and a good place for me to practice my reviewing and writing. I do plan to continue posting on my cultural blog and you will probably see some posts that will show up on both blogs but this blog will be very bookish and hopefully the perfect outlet for me to talk books with myself and others.
Posted May 8, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Question Tuesday / 0 Comments
Welcome to a new section from my blog which I like to call Question Tuesday; each Tuesday I’ll be asking a question relating to reading and book blogging. I have a lot of questions already I want to cover but I want to leave it open for others to ask me questions as well via comments or via twitter. The first question I’m going to cover is my reading history.
While my parents go through phrases of reading a lot and not reading at all (depending on how busy they are), I was never much of a reader when I was young. I think I would read a book a year, and only because I was told I needed to read. It wasn’t till 3 years ago that I started reading (a lot). It all started with a radio segment (The Culture Club on Triple J) where they drew similarities from songs currently on high rotation with poets (mostly from the romantic era). This started my love for reading; the gateway books were Hey! Nietzsche! Leave Them Kids Alone! by Craig Schuftan (the author was responsible for The Culture Club) and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Now I’m playing catch up; trying to read all the classics as well as newer book. I’ve set myself a goal of reading at least 100 books a year in the hope that sooner or later I might actually be caught up.
Posted April 30, 2012 by Michael @ Knowledge Lost in Monthly Reading / 0 Comments
April has been a great month, not only with the amount of reading that I’ve been able to do but also with the celebration of, firstly, my wife’s birthday and then my sister-in-law’s. Also during the month I was able to take a mini vacation from work, a great chance to recharge and enjoy some reading. In terms of reading, I managed to read more books than I imagined, including some great recent releases, a chilling classic and unfortunately a high amount of below average novels.
Surprisingly, I read a few Magic Realism books with The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey and the massive 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami; while this genre is weird and not really my style, it was good to experience some the genre first hand. I also read a few novels that have recently been adapted into movies in preparation for their releases; The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Overall this month has been a great month of reading for me, knocking out twelve different books.
Highlights for this month included the steampunkish action adventure novel Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway; imagine if Charles Dickens wrote a good James Bondish novel and that is what you’ll find in this book. Also the dark disturbing story of a woman suffering the effects and after effects of a very unhealthy relationship in Elizabeth Haynes’ brilliant debut novel Into the Darkest Corner. As well as the Henry James classic, a gothic horror masterpiece; The Turn of the Screw.
April’s Books
