Monday

After about five and a half hours of class today, not counting the ten minutes or more between classes where I couldn’t do much except wait for class to start, I declared a day free of homework. Or, a night free of homework because by that time it was past 6:00.

I grabbed my copy of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and went to sit by the fountain.

Believe it or not, it was cooler outside than it was in more dorm room. It’s probably an even greater difference now. No air conditioning in the dorms is not fun. Fall can’t come fast enough!

So, anyway, I sat on a rock in the fading sunlight and read “The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb”. I thought it was nice to see Watson’s job as a doctor bringing Sherlock a case. By this time Watson’s married, and I also thought it was nice to see how easily he goes back and forth from his house to Baker Street. It was a simple case, but many of them are, I’ve noticed. Sometimes I could easily guess the mystery, or at least detect important elements that Watson didn’t figure out until later. Other times I’m impressed with Sherlock’s intelligence.

This is the ninth story in the volume, but “A Study in Scarlet” and “The Sign of Four” are also included, and I understand that those are often sold as separate novels.

When I first started following the list, I counted out the books I’d already read from it. Since I’d read a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories that I thought had the same title, I counted it as read. Later, though, checking my book against the list of stories officiall included, I found that there were many I hadn’t read. So I decided that I might as well read the whole thing over again when the time came because I couldn’t remember most of the stories very well anyway.

I remember that the first time I read a Sherlock Holmes Collection, it was while my family was camping. I remember reading a lot of stories all at once the day that we were packing up to leave because I was bored and I couldn’t help with anything. I’m sure that I understand it a lot better now, especially having a greater knowledge of the way things were during the time period in which it was written.

Current Progress

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: page 243 out of 446
Clarissa: 46% through volume 8 of 9