Giving this one four stars because of two major points: one, it is at some points in the story horribly slow, and two, there are some stories I simply did not like. I'm not going to talk too much about those though.

There are two stories in particular which I absolutely loved, and one that I liked a great deal. This sounds so formal.

A Scandal in Bohemia
This might be because I started reading this book right after I watched the show, and still had the distinct image of the actors in mind when I read this, but I absolutely loved this. It had intrigue, it had action and it was very mysterious. I love how I had no idea how Bohemia used to actually be a country until I read this, and how the story resolved itself.

The Silver Blaze
This story has got to be my favourite Sherlock Holmes story so far. It was fast paced, funny, and contains one of the most well-known quotes of the whole canon:

"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"
"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."
"The dog did nothing in the night-time."
"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.

The Final Problem
At this point Conan Doyle was tired of writing Sherlock Holmes so he kills him off. Sorry for not spoiler-proofing this, but the book is a hundred years old. I thought this particular story should be a lot more fleshed out, at the length of [b:A Study in Scarlet|102868|A Study in Scarlet (Sherlock Holmes, #1)|Arthur Conan Doyle|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348362236s/102868.jpg|1997473] for example (which is incredibly long, with a lot of shortcomings). The whole 20-something pages felt a bit rushed, but were certainly exciting.


I see from my review of [b:A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four|76120|A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four (Sherlock Holmes #1, 2)|Arthur Conan Doyle|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328865697s/76120.jpg|25423785] that I was happy not to have seen the Cumberbatch adaptation of Sherlock. Oh, what a sweet summer child I was cackles manically about Johnlock in the background

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

When I first saw this book on Netgalley, I supposed it would be about Life of Brian (amazing film). It was not completely what I expected. For the biggest part, it was not at all what I had expected...

 

For someone who edits movies, I was a bit surprised to find so little structure in the book. True, it kind of follows the storyline of the movie, but it switches a lot between different theories in explaining why Life of Brian is the most accurate biblical movie made. Mixed in between the theories is also some explaining on making films and deleted scenes from the movie.

 

The parts about the film where by far the most interesting parts. I found the theories, which also involved the - how could there be a conspiracy without their involvement - Knight Templars and Freemasons. It even references Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. All in all, some parts were funny or absurd, others were just less interesting. I'm not sure what the ultimate goal of this book was nor what I think of it...

I use the TBR Thursday to tell about my new books from last week. It's a way to show my new books to everyone and to confront myself with my inability to lower my TBR.

 

I always say: Next week I will make sure it's lower. Unfortunately, so far it hasn't worked. Never. Nor this week. These books just looked too good, and I got autoapproved for a new publisher (and I always feel like I should 'request' at least one book to thank them).

I also always say: I hope I can read more books next week, and as my vacation is slowly coming to an end (I'll start again September 22nd) I should really use the time I still have to read. But I find myself addicted to this game ANNO 1404, where you have to build your own settlement and it's a really nice game. Unfortunately, this leaves less time for reading. This week's new books are all from Netgalley.

 

TBR pile currently stands at 170. (+6) *HELP*

(Netgalley ARCs at 52 (+2))

 

I've been reading some Doctor Who novels lately and I quite like most of them, so when I saw The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Time Traveller on Netgalley I just had to request it. * Nothing to do with the book itself, but this is the point where BL's search engine is better than GR's. This book is not (yet) on GR! *

 

Next is a MG fantasy trilogy that looked very promising.

 

I saw A man called Ove in the bookstores in German, it sounded interesting, but as I don't really read a lot in German I passed on it. Later, I remembered I'd once seen the book on Netgalley and got the English version there.

 

The Gospel According to Monty Python sounded funny and I really liked The Life of Brian, so I thought I should just give it a try.

 

Have you read any of these books? Do you've got nice new books or are you lowering your TBR?