Monday, July 9, 2007

BOOK: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle

Classics are classics for a reason. This was immensely readable, and a mystery I've heard about and never read. Sherlock Holmes is perfect - arrogant and confident and right. 'Elementary', Dr.Watson narrates, so we don't know anything that Watson doesn't and he doesn't know what Holmes is doing or thinking. An interesting perspective. My book from the library had what must be the smallest font legally allowed, and the smallest space between lines - everything was crammed into 128 pages. However, I persevered and the mystery and suspence had me turning the pages through squinting eyes and anxious nerves. I thought it might be more cliched, but no. Good writing, good plot, and good characters are why we call this book a classic.

This counts as my first classic for Kathrin's Summer Classic Challenge, and also an early entry for the 15 books/15 decades challenge (1900s).

4 comments:

  1. And here I thought my copy was small print, but at 173 pages.:-) We finished about the same time! I enjoyed this one too, although not so much Holmes' arrogance. That's not a characteristic I do well with even in real life people. Still, you gotta love him. He's Sherlock Holmes after all.

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  2. Gosh, I read this book so long ago! One Christmas, my Grandmother got me a set of Sherlock Holmes books. I just loved them!

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  3. My 15-year-old is a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes books, but I've only read one and it was a very long time ago. Thanks for the reminder. I need to dig through the kiddo's collection, next time I do a classics challenge.

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  4. My copy had tiny font as well. I just read this this past weekend, and like you I thought it was a very enjoyable book.

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