So, if you've been speaking with me at all recently, you likely know that I currently possess favor for the BBC show Sherlock. If you haven't seen it, I advise that you watch it. If necessary, I will mail you my DVD's, granted you promise to return them. The premise of the show is based on the novels originally by Arthur Conan Doyle, but with a twist - Sherlock Holmes was born into modern times, and once again, fatefully met John Watson, who had recently returned from Afghanistan and needed a flatmate. It's the heart of the original with an all new fleshing out - one that probably appeals more to today's audience. And the cast is just gorgeous in every way.
But! Because I've been on this rampage, I've been reading the original ACD stories, and they're really very good. They aren't of Charles Dickins complexity, either, so one could conceivably read and understand them without maximum concentration. One of the longest - and best - of these is The Hound of the Baskervilles, about a mysterious hound that's been haunting the Baskerville family, and, apparently, killing them off. I believe the only other full-length novels are A Study in Scarlet (which I'm in the midst of) and The Sign of Four (which I'm searching for - Holmes and Watson keep referencing it in the other stories, saying it was the most interesting of their cases), but there are novels containing collections of his stories. The most fun of it is trying to guess who did it - but the reader can never deduce it as well as Sherlock. Read them, if only to stand in awe at his genius (and Conan Doyle's creativity)!
And did you know, never once in all sixty of them does Sherlock say, "Elementary, my dear Watson." It's canon from one of the shows or movies. ;D Don't you just feel like your entire childhood was a lie?
~Tobi
Subject: The Hound of the Baskervilles & Other Tales 