Writer Series : Conan Doyle

Conan Doyle is the writer I’m starting the reading list with, even though my little cousin predicted who is the murderer in Silver Blaze. Never mind….

Today was the first day of the library and I decided to start my reading journey from 221B Baker Street, London. Sherlock Holmes is one of my favorites since a very long time. I remember downloading books from Project Gutenberg and formatting them into pretty documents in Office. Only a few of them were ever read, or even survived my Shift+Del purges. This one did.

I do have read all of the Sherlock Holmes novels which are just four in number. But I’m repeating them to read them with more care to experience the book completely. I haven’t read the short stories yet except a couple from the Adventures and the Memoirs. But I’m more curious about the stories I haven’t read yet. I personally like to enact the entire reading as some TV show I would be watching. I visualize the entire scene, conjuring all the details as mentioned in the text and trying to live it as I read it. It does take some time, but it is worth it and it makes me more involved in reading.

Today while in the library, I was to decide which book to take, my eyes fell on a book titled “Lost World and other stories”. All of these were authored by Sir Arthur but I do think that the fantastic success of Sherlock Holmes has overshadowed these. There is a character named Professor Challenger and is yet to be explored. I’m more curious about these stories and I’m waiting for them.

So my books in this series are as follows:

• Sherlock Holmes — The Complete Illustrated Novels
• The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (56 short stories)
• Lost World and other stories

Also I intend to read Maria Konnikova’s Mastermind — How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes after I finish the works mentioned above. I have not decided on the pastiches yet.

I have already started with the first one and I have finished ‘A Study in Scarlet’ today. But I do want to give it another reading if time permits. Let’s see how it goes.