Cannonball Read 11

Sticking it to Cancer One Book at a Time

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Academic Fiction at it’s Best but also Worst

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

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It’s probably been 15 years since I’ve read anything substantial by Umberto Eco. I’m pretty sure I was maybe a sophomore or junior in college the first time I read The Name of the Rose. Now, I find myself in the position of needing to reread it for a work-related event. In the intervening decade and a half, I’ve gotten a lot better at Latin, and I’ve also been exposed to a lot more primary source material concerning theology, philosophy, science, literature, and history of the European Middle Ages, as well as 20th century literary theory. What do my academic qualifications […]

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2/10/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:7 |

So my new favorite author is. . . Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?

Mycroft Holmes by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse

Mycroft and Sherlock by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse

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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is well-known for being the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, a United States Cultural Ambassador, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom under President Barack Obama. He is also a New York Times bestselling author and, less famously but most pertinently for our purposes, an avid Holmesian. The day he decided to team with Anna Waterhouse to pen a series of novels starring Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s less renowned Holmes brother, my world became infinitely more joyful. Although I’ve read many of the Sherlock Holmes books and stories authored […]

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2/8/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:5 |

Lyndsay Faye is the best.

The Whole Art of Detection: Lost Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes by Lyndsay Faye

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I’ve read quite a bit of Sherlock Holmes pastiche, though by no means even close to all of it, and so far, I think Lyndsay Faye’s version of Holmes and Watson is my favorite. This collection, which was gifted to me by Bunnybean for Book Exchange in CBR9, is made up of fifteen stories published over a period of ten years, many of them in The Strand, the very same magazine that published Conan Doyle’s original stories. All of the stories mimic Conan Doyle’s style, as Faye (a member of the Baker Street Irregulars) is a player of the Great […]

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1/4/2019 | 's CBR11 Review No:2 |

I have now conquered the complete Sherlock Holmes.

The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #9) by Arthur Conan Doyle

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I’m glad he went for one more round. I liked all of these better than the ones in His Last Bow. Because I’m fast running out of review posting time, I’m copying and pasting all my mini-reviews for this book. I will hopefully put up a real review on Goodreads HERE within the next couple of days, and also a full review of The Complete Sherlock Holmes HERE. I’m not posting it on CBR because I’ve already counted all nine books to my tally this year. – – – December 18, 2018 – 88.0% ““The Adventure of the Illustrious Client” […]

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12/31/2018 's CBR10 Review No:172 |

“You are the one fixed point in a changing age.”

His Last Bow: Some Later Reminisces of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #8) by Arthur Conan Doyle

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This is the shortest Holmes story collection: only eight stories and a preface written by Watson, explaining that Holmes is now retired to Sussex and keeping bees, and here are some stories he hasn’t yet published about their adventures, including their very last one. (All the stories in the last published book, The Case-book of Sherlock Holmes, apparently take place before “His Last Bow” as well.) Because of the shortness, you feel it a little bit more when a story is a dud. In particular, I thought the first, double-length story, “The Adventure on Wisteria Lane,” was a bit dull. […]

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11/30/2018 's CBR10 Review No:157 |

Probably my least favorite of these books.

The Valley of Fear (Sherlock Holmes, #7) by Arthur Conan Doyle

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I liked this, I did. But the first half was just an extended Holmes story (a pretty good one!), while the second half was basically pointless. I don’t think this should have been a full length novel. The content of the story just doesn’t justify it. The Valley of Fear was published in full in 1915 (after being serialized in The Strand of course), so by this point, Conan Doyle had been writing the character for almost thirty years. (This was also around the time Conan Doyle started getting super into spiritualism, and about five years before he started believing […]

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11/28/2018 's CBR10 Review No:140 |

“Holmes,” I cried. “Is it really you?”

The Return of Sherlock Holmes (Sherlock Holmes, #6) by Arthur Conan Doyle

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While gathering my thoughts to start writing this review, I kept getting the feeling that this was my favorite of the Holmes story collections so far. With this feeling in mind, I moseyed on over to Goodreads to look at my status updates to try to collect evidence to back it up (I rate and do mini-reviews for every story), whereupon I found to my surprise that my reaction to most of the stories was just good, not great. It’s a solid story collection! However, only two out of the thirteen stories I liked enough to really remember and have fond feelings for. […]

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10/31/2018 's CBR10 Review No:131 |

Holmes: better left alone

The Beekeeper's Apprentice, or On the Segregation of the Queen by Laurie R. King

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The first pick for my library book club came in with a whimper. Overall, we (self included) didn’t really like this book. This was an interesting endeavor because King takes Sherlock’s Holmes out of retirement, and back into the fray, with the addition of the plucky Mary Russell, a whip smart teenager who befriends Holmes and keeps him on his toes. In addition to Holmes there is the familiar cast of characters: Mrs. Hudson, Watson, and Mycroft. Watson is more secondary as Russell serves to fill his place as the right hand of Holmes. I think what King did is […]

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10/27/2018 's CBR10 Review No:40 |


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