New real estate

I've moved and renamed my book blog. Unfortunately, I continued to have an inordinate amount of issues with Blogger. But that's ok, I have a new location and a new name that both fit me much better. Please visit me at 100 Book Ninja.

Dead in the Family = 55 down, 45 to go

Recommendation
Dead in the Family
Charlaine Harris
320 pages


I was turned onto this clever series by my friend Robin. I read the first nine books and Harris' book of short stories all within about 10 days. They were fun and addicting. So I was excited that the tenth book in the series was being released within the month of finishing the first nine.


As with the others, I thoroughly enjoyed Dead in the Family. This is the one of the best series I've read in years - it's my version of addictive chick lit. There was one bad thing about this book though - it was to quick of a read. Guess I should have taken my time, and extended my time of being immersed in the life of Sookie Stackhouse.


Just another reason to go pick up the first couple of seasons of True Blood.


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Blockade Billy = 54 down, 46 to go

Recommendation
Blockade Billy
Stephen King
144 pages

I haven't read a Stephen King novel in years, and I'm not quite sure what made me hit the download button on this one - especially since it is a story involving baseball, admittedly not a sport in which I'm particularly engaged.

The book took place in a time when the trappings of today's version of the sport were absent - big-money contracts, admittance of steroid usage, high-profile romances. Stephen King adds his signature dark spin to a period when baseball was more about the game than the drama.

Billy Blakely is called up from the farm system to serve a stint as a temporary pitcher with the New Jersey Titans. His teammates overlook his eccentricities in favor of his ability to aggressively guard the plate and hit the ball. Of course, it turns out that he's not actually Billy Blakely, but a guy who wanted to play baseball so desperately that he killed the actual Blakely family to make his dream come true.

The story is told through the eyes of the third-base coach, and on the day team management learns the truth, he shares the final game in detail, including: "By the time night fell, we knew were fucked for the season, because our first twenty-two games were almost surely going to be erased from our record books, along with any official acknowledgment of Blockade Billy Blakely."

King is known for his passionate love of baseball. That is evident in the exquisite detail in this book...even if some of it was lost on this non-baseball fan.

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Star Trek: Nero - Number 1-4 = 53 down, 47 to go

Graphic novel
Star Trek: Nero - Numbers 1-4

I grew up in a family comprised of four members who are all Star Trek fans. As long as I can remember, we've gone as a family to see the movies soon after they open. We own them all - first as VCR tapes, now as DVDs. And we've always watched them repeatedly.

When I was looking for a science fiction book so that I could start checking off those books from my list, I started with a search of Star Trek titles. During that process, I unearthed a series of four graphic novels that shed even more light on the Nero/Spock backstory, which played a pivotal role in the latest Star Trek movie franchise.

The four short illustrated novels share glimpses of Nero's catastrophic loss of his wife and home planet and how that feeds an unbelievable, crippling hatred across time and galaxies - a hatred that leads to the capture of an older Spock and how he comes to be marooned on an icy planet watching his own home world be obliterated.

For a Star Trek fan, it was an enjoyable read.

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The Fence My Father Built = 52 down, 48 to go

Recommendation

The Fence My Father Built

Linda Clare

294 pages

We all go through that period in our life where we're not sure where exactly we fit in, where we belong. Muri Pond's marriage has just ended, and she has packed up her two children and moves them to a dilapitted trailer on an Indian reservation with her aunt and uncle. Muri's father, who was part Native American, has recently passed away and left his legacy to Muri.

After not haing seen her father since her parents separated when she was a young child, Muri finds that her father's legacy is a mixed bag. For years, he had battled alcoholism, but never lost sight of his connection to his daughter, his heritage, his people and the land.

Muri encounters challenges from her rebelious teenage daughter, being a newly minted single mother, her faith and trying to figure out who she is and where she fits in. She also encounters resistance from a local rancher who controls nearly the entire town and who wants to buy her land supposedly to obtain access to water rights for his cattle. After being blacklisted by most of the locals, Muri vehementhly fights and uncovers the rancher's true intentions - the illegal selling of priceless Native American artifacts originally uncovered by Muri's father.

During the book, Muri is on a journey to discover who her father was. As she digs deeper, she relives memories from her early childhood with her father and the many things she shares in common him - "If my father loved books, he couldn't have been ordinary at all."

The book also documents Muri's exploration of her father's Christian faith: "Had it been hard for him to separate his Native spirtual leanings from his Christian ones? How had he managed to embrace his ethnic heritage and still hang onto faith that had come from the very people who had robbed Indians of their lands? Had he been like me, undecided in what - or whom - to believe?"

It was an interesting book with insight into challenges that many of us face in our lives.

Miscellaneous = 51 down, 49 to go

So I finally came to terms that the chances of me catching up with blog entries on my past read books wasn't likely, here are my reads from the last month. 

Recommendation

Water for Elephants
Sara Gruen
350 pages

Recommendation
Sleep Toward Heaven
Amanda Eyre Ward
304 pages

Recommendation
Little Children
Tom Perotta
368 pages

Short stories
Too Much Happiness
Alice Munro
320 pages

Biography/autobiography
The Glass Castle
Jeannette Walls
288 pages

Movie
Shutter Island
Dennis Lehane
400 pages

Oprah's Book Club
The Reader
Bernhard Schlink
224 pages

Biography/autobiography
John Newton: From Disgrace to Amazing Grace
Johnathan Aitken
400 pages

Biography/autobiography
Wesley the Owl: The Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and His Girl
Stacey O'Brien
240 pages

Sookie Stackhouse Series = 42 down, 58 to go

I'm more than a little behind in updating this blog...like approximately 15 books behind in posting. So this post will be quick one as I need to get back on track. This entry counts as the remaining nine books in my fantasy category and one in my recommendation classification.

My friend, Robin, recommended the very excellent Sookie Stackhouse Series by Charlaine Harris.

Sookie Stackhouse is the main character and just your average barmaid...except for the fact that she's a telepath. She starts dating a vampire...you know, after vampires have come out publicly out of the proverbial closet after the invention of synthetic blood. And so begins the adventures of her life...vampires, were animals, fairies...along with her fair share of drama, violence and of course, a little romance and sex thrown in. 

Dead Until Dark
Living Dead in Dallas
Club Dead
Dead to the World
Dead as a Doornail
Definitely Dead
All Together Dead
From Dead to Worse
Dead and Gone
Dead in the Family

The bonus is that the HBO series True Blood is based on these books. Looks like it's time to rent some DVDs.

The Daily Coyote = 32 down, 68 to go

Other nonfiction
The Daily Coyote
Shreve Stockton
287 pages

Girl drives her Vespa across country, falls in love with Wyoming along the way, gives up plan to move to NYC and relocates her life to Ten Sleep, Wy., a small town of 300 and about an hour from the nearest grocery store.

Then girl meets a nice guy who brings her a 10-day-old coyote. Girl falls in love with said coyote (and maybe the guy) and so begins author/photographer Shreve Stockton's adventure with a coyote pup named Charlie. 

There were a number of things in this book that resonate with me, starting with the opening sentence, "The jewels in this life are the events we do not plan..." That is perfectly simple insightful statement.

There are many areas of the West that I love, including Wyoming, and within the book's first three pages, the author captures the beauty of the state and its landscape succinctly:

...magnetized to the land, to the red dirt and the Bighorn Mountains and the wide-openness I had no idea still existed in this country. The landscape around the Bighorns is like an ocean on pause, rolling with the subtle colors of rust and sage and gold, stretching to every horizon. These mountains are unlike other mountain ranges. While the Tetons are fangs of stone and Rainier is an ice cream sundae, the Bighorns are sloped and subtle, built of some of the oldest exposed rock in the world; rock that has existed, in its current form, for over three billion years. There is exquisite power in their permanence. 

But I guess it would be helpful to get past the first chapter...onto the soul of this book, Charlie, the  coyote pup that comes into the author's life after his parents are shot for killing sheep. This is just the beginning of the book's juxtaposition of the passion and love for an individual wild animal against the reality of wildlife management in the west. It pits an animal lover against the realities of living in areas of the West, which includes the government-supported elimination of many coyotes that are viewed as threats to livestock and the ranching way of life.

But outside all that seriousness, Stockton pulls back the curtain and shows us the fun and antics, as well as trials and tribulations of balancing the responsibility of raising while not fully domesticating a coyote pup into beautiful adult. Every chapter is a new month and a new adventure in Charlie's development and growth.

This was a wonderfully refreshing book and very appropriately subtitled "A story of love, survival and trust in the wilds of Wyoming."

If you'd like to follow Charlie's journey, Shreve Stockton maintains a blog, which was the origination for the name of the book, The Daily Coyote -- where she posts regular photos. You can also subscribe to receive a new photo of Charlie every day or week.

An Old-Fashioned Girl = 31 down, 69 to go

Classic
An Old-Fashioned Girl
Louisa May Alcott
360 pages

One of my favorite classicbooks is Little Women, so since I'm not permitted to reread any stories during my year-long challenge, I decided to seek out another book by Louisa May Alcott.

An Old-Fashioned Girl originally began as a short six-chapter book where the main character, 14-year-old Polly, spends time living with her friend Fanny and her family, the Shaws, a wealthy city family. Polly is exposed to a more fashionable, expensive lifestyle much in contrast to her more modest, moral-focused, middle-class country upbringing.

The author added to the original chapters by picking up the story six years later with Polly returning to the city. She secures rooms for herself and establishes herself as music teacher. Similar to her original stay with the Shaws, as an adult, she battles being happy with the life she has built for herself with the contrast of the privileges, clothes and parties of the Shaws. 

But her new life in the city shows her glimpses of situations that remind her to be grateful for what she has.

She had heard of poverty and suffering, in the vague, far-off way, which is all that many girls, safe in happy homes, ever know of it; but now she had seen it, in a shape which she could feel and understand, and life grew more earnest to her from the minute. So much to do in the great, busy world, and she had done so little...Polly asked for the strength of an upright soul, the beauty of a tender heart, the power to make her life a sweet and stirring song, helpful while it lasted, remembered when it died.

When the Shaw family members find themselves faced with bankruptcy, selling their family home and downsizing their belongings and lifestyle, Polly is the balancing force that reminds the family that they have everything that is important - family, love and one another. 

This book, whose target reader is much, much younger than I, uses an idealized view of life. Using an engaging story, it reinforces 19th-century morals and the importance of appreciating the gifts one has been given. Though the internal battles that Polly deals with do resonate with those that face young adults today, I can see a teen in the 21st century being challenged to apply the lessons of the story to their modern lives. 

But if you are a true romantic at heart, you will appreciate the end - where the Shaw son, Tom, loses an enormous sum gambling, heads out west to find himself and financial stability, and returns to the east coast mature and ready to marry his one true love, Polly.

"Do you want to know the name of the girl I've loved for more that a year? Well, it's Polly!" As he spoke, Tom stretched out his arms to her, with the sort of mute eloquence that cannot be resisted, and Polly went straight into them, without a word.  

Never mind what happened for a little bit. Love scenes, if genuine, are indescribable; for those who have enacted them, the most eleborate description seems tame, and to those who have not, the simplest picture seems overdone. So romancers had better let imagination paint for them that which is above all art, and leave their lovers to themselves during the happiest moments of their lives.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow = 30 down, 70 to go

Classic
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Washington Irving
76 pages

As the story of schoolmaster Ichabod Crane is well integrated into the U.S. psyche, I'm not sure I need to to spend any time on the story line of the legendary Legend of Sleepy Hollow. 

There aren't many books that I know the exact end before I even crack the cover, but it was interesting to read the nuances of the story that didn't make it into the cartoon version, which is how I was most familiar with the story.   

I enjoyed the descriptions of the area located outside of Tarry Town, New York. 

I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud, for it is such little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in the great State of New York, that population, manners, and customs remain fixed, while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making such incessant changes in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them unobserved. 

Serial = 29 down, 71 to go

Recommendation
Serial
Jack Kilborn and Black Crouch
eBook

So I may be fibbing just a bit in classifying this one as a recommendation, unless I count it as a recommendation from Amazon when I looked up "free" books. And it's probably cheating since it's such a short book, just about 8,000 words from cover to cover.

But I was incredibly intrigued by its literary concept - two authors decide on a storyline, each writes a part of the book on his own and then they write the third part in 100-word increments via email. Amazon's description of the book was way more interesting than anything I could commit to screen:

Remember the twin golden rules of hitchhiking? #1: Don't go hitchhiking, because the driver who picks you up could be certifiably crazy. #2: Don't pick up hitchhikers, because the traveler you pick up could be raving nutcase. So what if, on some dark, isolated road, Crazy #1 offered a ride to Nutcase #2? When two of the most twisted minds in the world of horror fiction face off, the result is SERIAL, a terrifying tale of hitchhiking gone terribly wrong. Like a deeply twisted version of an "After School Special," SERIAL is the single most persuasive public service announcement on the hazards of free car rides. Beyond a thrilling piece of horrifying suspense, SERIAL is also a groundbreaking experiment in literary collaboration. Kilborn wrote the first part. Crouch wrote the second. And they wrote the third together over email in 100-word exchanges, not aware of each other's opening section. All bets were off, and may the best psycho win. 

After reading into the first part of the book, I almost put it down. It was very violent and very graphic. This story is definitely not for the faint of heart.. But the approach to its creation was novel to me and worth a read if the concept intrigues you. 

Chasing Harry Winston = 28 down, 72 to go

Recommendation

Chasing Harry Winston

Lauren Weisberger

278 pages

So I never jumped on the very popular chick lit bandwagon, but this book was recommended to me as a good route of escapism for my day-to-day life.

I'll be honest right up front. I wasn't a big fan of this book. It was a fairly difficult read for me. It was a little too superficial and choppy for me. But there were a couple of saving graces - for me, this was primarily the friendship between three main characters.

No matter how many years passed or how much responsibility each assumed, they still managed to bicker like bitchy teenagers on a regular basis. In some way, though, each found it comforting; it reminded them how close they really were: Acquaintances were always on their best behavior, but sisters loved each other enough to say anything.

Every woman wants those close confidantes to whom she can share anything, say anything without filtering or worrying about bruising a fragile ego. While reality can put a slightly different skew on this, it's easy to desire this type of relationship. Luckily, I am blessed with a sister and a couple of very dear friends with whom I can have this type of relationship...and all without the "bitchy teenager bickering." That makes it even better.

And as I started my college career as an English major, I often fantasized about being a book editor. What better profession is there for someone who loves reading, dreams about being an author but figures she doesn’t have the discipline for it. Being a book editor seems the next best option.

So I enjoyed portions of Leigh’s character. She’s a rising star at a leading publisher. She is very forthright with a bad-boy author, who though he’s won a Pulitzer, she tells him his last book was horrible. Her boss is appalled at Leigh speaking her mind, but the author is taken with her glaringly honest response and demands that she edit his current literary project. When her boss shares the news with her, he quotes the author with this line:

"That girl has zero bullshit tolerance and so do I. I want to work with her."

Who can’t appreciate the term “zero bullshit tolerance?”

The Johnstown Flood = 27 down, 73 to go

Other nonfiction

The Johnstown Flood

David McCullough

267 pages

On May 31, 1889, a dam located 14 miles above Johnstown, Pa., disintegrated during a horrible storm, sending nearly 20 million tons of water roaring down the valley and wiping many towns completely off the map in just a matter of minutes.

For Johnstown, the largest of the towns in the valley and the focus of the majority of recovery efforts following the disaster, it took just 10 minutes for the city of 30,000 to be virtually eliminated.

The book is a sobering look at this tragedy that killed more than 2,000. It depicts out the personalities involved, takes a microscopic look at the details of the flood, starting at the dam and moving down the valley. It showcases the preview of actions, or lack thereof, that led up to the failure of the dam, through the recovery efforts, which included a defining moment for the American Red Cross and money coming from around the globe. (It reminded me very much of an earlier example of the world rallying to the needs of those affected - such as in modern day times occurred after the tsunami in Asia and in the earthquakes in Haiti.)

Though much of the newspaper coverage was exaggerated, distorted and based on rumor and conjecture, the pile of debris and wreckage at the stone bridge remained days after the flood and likely consumed up to 45 acres of area. (See this photo from the Johnstown Flood Museum.)

A Sun reporter wrote of a very stirring observation of the catastrophe that remained at the bridge:

"At one place the blackened body of a babe was seen; in another 14 skulls could be counted...At this time the smoke was still rising to the height of 50 feet."

In an earlier chapter, when the pile of debris at the stone bridge caught fire, McCullough shares this sober sentence:

...by six o'clock the whole monstrous pile had become a funeral pyre for perhaps as many as eighty people trapped inside.

It was also observed that people trapped in the debris who had survived the trip down river could be heard screaming as the fire burned, and the survivors on the shore having no way to reach them.

While the complete absence of engineering oversight crashed against the forces of nature to create this flooded tragedy, it would be interesting if this event occurred within the last five to 10 years. As our society is litigious at the drop of a hat, the members of South Fork Hunting and Fishing Club would not have been likely to walk away unscathed with the fortunes left intact.

This is my eighth David McCullough book. I never tire, even for a moment, of his distinct and extremely thorough storytelling style, which makes you feel that you are riding right alongside characters that we often only remember only fleetingly from grade school history. You never feel that you are forcibly reading a history text while consuming a McCullough book.

It is thrilling to see these historical figures in such detail during the defining moments of their lives and careers. If you dislike historical biographies, I recommend McCullough to you. Though I enjoy historical biographies, it is easy for me to equate his books to reading a delightful novel.

The Man Who Would Be King = 26 down, 74 to go

Classic
The Man Who Would Be King
Rudyard Kipling
88 pages

First, I read this book more because it was a free download on my Kindle app. I read in one of the reviews that it was short, but didn't realize until I checked the page count on Amazon, that it was only 88 pages. And that brings us to second...I almost feel like that's not long enough to count as a full book. But hey I finished it, so I'm going to darn well count it.

The only other Rudyard Kipling book I have ever read was The Jungle Book (though which I have to admit here for full disclosure that I didn't know was written by him until about 30 minutes ago).

The story is modeled after some of the time that Kipling himself spent in India and is a literary version of two men he actually met who were bound and determined to build their own Afghan empire. I read in a couple of different reviews that pointed out that a "practical understanding of British imperialist history" would be particularly helpful. Though I really enjoy history, apparently I skipped British imperialism from an impact on overall history during my journeys back in time.

So while I hate to admit it, it took every ounce of my concentration to try and follow the storyline. I think that I failed miserably. Let's just say that I'm thankful that this was a short book. Maybe I was just having an off reading day.

Pride & Prejudice = 25 down, 75 to go

Classic

Pride & Prejudice
Jane Austen
480 pages

The literary titles Emma, Sense & Sensibility and Pride & Prejudice have been on the edge of my peripheral vision since early high school well through the beginning of college when I declared English as my major. And at least two of them continued to take up real estate on my bookshelf through the intervening years.

It's just taken until year 34 of my life for me to pick up one of Jane Austen's literary ventures and read it - though in my defense, I have seen it in theatrical form. I enjoyed the book's formal dialogue and found the proper interaction between social classes and the sexes more than slightly amusing.

When I read books taking place in the 1800s, I always try to imagine myself in the place of a woman of that time and wonder what type of patience I would have had with all of the rules and social expectations. I hope that I might have been somewhat similar in disposition to the second oldest of the five Bennet sisters, Elizabeth - strong in herself and her principles, not willing to back down from a challenge (including her garden conversation with Lady Catherine de Bourgh), but at the same time is willing to admit a change in opinion or beliefs when shown the full truth.

Mr. Decimal, I presume

I'm a huge fan of libraries. Until the day I left for college, I was on a first-name basis with all the librarians at Lepper Library in Lisbon, Ohio. I spent copious hours in the college libraries first at Bowling Green and then at Kent State. As I moved into my mid and late 20s and found myself with some disposable income, I decided that I would build my personal library instead of patronizing a public library.

Now, I'm not talking about about rare and collectible books, instead just my favorite authors (which have changed vastly over the years) sitting on my bookshelf and available at my beck and call. It took me until hitting about 30, going through some major life changes and downsizing my possessions during a couple of moves in a short period of time - to come back to the public library.

When I started living in Lakewood, I made a visit to the Lakewood Public Library.I made my initial visit, checked out some books, read them and then returned them late. It took me another about another two years to make my way back in and pay my fine, which I did tonight when I was there for a Society for Professional Journalists Cleveland meeting. Much to my joy, they took my $2, told me I was back in good standing and happily helped me find a couple of books I was looking to check out.

Now, for years, my book-finding experiences have been focused on bookstores, which are neatly organized by type of book - History, Psychology, Mystery, Fantasy, etc., etc. Wasn't I shocked when much to my chagrin, I was reminded this evening that public libraries are organized according to the infamous Dewey Decimal System.

It only took a matter of seconds for me to determine that Mr. Decimal and I are definitely not on a first-name basis. On a superficial level, it makes zero sense to me. But when I sit and actually think about it, with the hundreds of thousands and hundreds of thousands of books that exist on library shelves around the country, I see more clearly the need for an organized, methodical organizational system. My gracious thanks to the librarians who are the dedicated keepers and protectors of books...while I'm able to just walk in, ask for your assistance and immediately find the book after which I was lusting.

Mr. Decimal, I tip my hat to you. Oh, and dear Lakewood Public Library, I plan to return these books on time, and you'll be seeing a lot more of me - 'cause, hey, buying 100 new books in a year for this challenge is just plain cost prohibitive. I'm happy to be back in the public library fold.

Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman = 24 down, 76 to go

Other nonfiction
Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman
Jon Krakauer
416 pages

This is my fourth Jon Krakauer book, and once again, he has done an outstanding job of juxtaposing history against a compelling current story. I haven't read any books surrounding 9/11, and though this doesn't directly talk about it, 9/11 was the catalyst that for Pat Tillman to abandon his NFL career and sign up for the U.S. Army, along with his brother Kevin.

This book navigates the land mines of the Army's lies, betrayal and conspiracy after Tillman is killed by friendly fire during his deployment in Afghanistan. From the beginning, the Army, and soon the Bush administration, go to extraordinary lengths to cover up how Tillman was killed. This book - which also details the history of Afghanistan and how its landscape was impacted by the United States, Soviet Union and other parties - uses interviews with Tillman's wife, Marie, mother and other family members and Tillman's own journals and letters, as well as interviews with his Army buddies and extensive research to tell his story.

Tillman was a rare person who was unbelievably dedicated and loyal to his family, his friends and his principles. One example of this was that when the Rams offered Pat a five-year, $9.6 million contract, which he turned down to continue to play for the Cardinals with a one-year contract worth $512,000. He declined the offer because of his loyalty to Arizona and the Cardinals. Tillman's agent, Frank Bauer, said in the book, "In twenty-seven years, I've never had a player turn down that big of a package in the National Football League...You just don't see loyalty like that in sports today. Pat Tillman was special. He was a man of principle. He was a once-in-a-lifetime kid."

And after his first tour in Iraq, Pat could have left the Army on a technicality that would have allowed him to rejoin the NFL. But without hesitation, he decided to stay and fulfill his three-year commitment. Krakauer capsulizes Pat's philosophy:

He was one of those rare individuals who simply can't be bought at any price. Although he had no qualms about making a boatload of money if it happened to mesh with his master plan, Pat was impervious to greed. His belief that other things in life took priority over amassing wealth never faltered. But if Tillman was uncommonly resistant to the temptations of the baser human appetites, and was thereby well defended against attempts by others to manipulate him into doing their bidding with such enticements, he found it nearly impossible to resist appeals to his sense of decency and justice. Paradoxically, this latter trait would ultimately prove to be his downfall.

The level of tragedy that the Tillman family had to deal with seems insurmountable to me. It wasn't just that they lost a beloved member of their family, it's that the U.S. Army and Bush administration increased the family's pain exponentially with its conscientious decisions to lie to the family and the American people.

This was a powerful book, one that I highly recommend. Here is a quote from one of Tillman's journal entries that I found powerful:

Passion is what makes life interesting, what ignites our soul, drives our curiosity, fuels our love and carries our friendships, stimulates our intellect, and pushes our limits...A passion for life is contagious and uplifting. Passion cuts both ways...Those that make you feel on top of the world are equally able to turn it upside down...In my life I want to create passion in my own life and with those I care for. I want to feel, experience, and live every emotion. I will suffer through the bad for the heights of the good.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes = 23 down, 77 to go

Classic
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
246 pages

Reading this book brought the same joy as watching a great episode of my one of my favorite crime shows (NCIS, Criminal Minds and Fringe). Now, I'm not a devoted student of classical literature, but I imagine that Sherlock Holmes was perhaps one of the first archetypes of what has become the ever-popular detective novels.

I have to say, though, that I enjoyed this book more thoroughly than many modern day crime/detective novels. There is a level of storytelling and character development that many of today's novels seem to treat superficially.

One assumption that I had was that Watson was more of a sidekick than a true contributor to the Sherlock Holmes storyline. Kind of like an Ed McMahon to Johnny Carson - just there for the comic relief. He is an interesting counterpart and a very necessary dichotomy, which is required for us to see and understand the Holmes character. Watson's recounting of Holmes and his unique approach to crime solving very much makes this book. It makes me strongly desire that I could be a fraction as observant and perceptive as Holmes is.

Here are a couple of passages that I particularly enjoyed:

He was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime, and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in following out those clues, and clearing up those mysteries which had been abandoned by the official police.

I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbours, but I was always oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with Sherlock Holmes. Here I had heard what he had heard, I had seen what he had seen, and yet from his words it was evident that he saw clearly not only what had happened but what was about to happen, while to me the whole business was still confused and grotesque.