MobileRead April 2013 Book Club Vote

[fantasyfan]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

My husband and I were actually talking about his morning. Is that his given name? I can't imagine him as a a baby or young child; talk about the burden of having a name "bigger" than you are.

It is--or most of it--his full name given at birth is Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch. BTW he is going to be the voice of Smaug and also The Necromancer in the coming continuations of The Hobbit.

I love him in Sherlock. Steven Moffat who wrote the series said that he has simply elaborated on the Doyle stories--sometimes quite cleverly. Watson was shot in the shoulder by a Jezail bullet in A Study In Scarlet but in a later story Watson says he was shot in the leg. Moffat has his Watson wounded in the shoulder while in Afghanistan but suffering psychologically from a phantom pain in his leg {which is why he uses a cane).

Moffat also admired the Rathbone/Bruce Holmes films from the late thirties and forties. And there are a number of cinematic nods to them as well.

Personally I think the series is a tour de force but not for the purist--you have to go to Jeremy Brett if you want the stories very close to the Doyle originals. I wouldn't be without any of the three versions. I think there's room for them all.

[Nyssa]

Originally Posted by fantasyfan

It is--or most of it--his full name given at birth is Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch. BTW he is going to be the voice of Smaug and also The Necromancer in the coming continuations of The Hobbit.

Nice!*

*Name & movie news.

[JSWolf]

It looks like one of the two books I voted for is going to win. Very nice for a change.

[Bookpossum]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Oh, yes. I realize this is getting a bit afield of the topic, but I couldn't resist sharing this photo I just found:

Lovely! Mind you, Basil Rathbone got pretty close!

I have just been listening to Benedict Cumberbatch in the BBC Radio 4 version of Neverwhere, which I enjoyed very much.

[Bookworm_Girl]

FYI, Sherlock is available for streaming for Amazon Prime Members. I highly recommend this modern adaptation like everyone else. I've already read A Study in Scarlet (and recommend it too), but I voted for it because I'd enjoy a discussion on it with others and wouldn't mind re-reading it.

[fantasyfan]

Well, it's a dead heat at the moment!

Well I am not thrilled with the way the vote is going as I have already read Animal Farm and A Study in Scarlet several times. Of the two I would prefer A Study in Scarlet as it would lead to a entertaining discussion.

I am surprised that no one has yet mentioned the film The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, one of the oddest of the on screen adaptions of the Holmes character I have ever seen. Then I have not ever seen many of the others mentioned here. To me Basil Rathbone will always represent Holmes on film, even though everything else about those films was so lame; the bumbling fool of a Watson and the setting in the years (1939 to 1946) that the films were produced. Give me Victorian England Holmes every time.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

...I am surprised that no one has yet mentioned the film The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, one of the oddest of the on screen adaptions of the Holmes character I have ever seen....

I've mentioned elsewhere my love for that film. It goes completely outside the canon and turns the standard traditions on their heads, but in a way only a Holmes aficionado could truly appreciate. An extremely clever movie.

[Bookpossum]

I remember reading the book long ago. I think it was by Nicholas Meyer.

Edit: And A Study in Scarlet has pulled ahead by one vote!

[crich70]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I've mentioned elsewhere my love for that film. It goes completely outside the canon and turns the standard traditions on their heads, but in a way only a Holmes aficionado could truly appreciate. An extremely clever movie.

I've seen it many times. Mr. Williamson just passed on a yr or so back I believe. The book (and movie) do go outside canon but in a way (IMO) that makes sense. I mean no one really knows what happened while Holmes was gone.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

Well I am not thrilled with the way the vote is going as I have already read Animal Farm and A Study in Scarlet several times. Of the two I would prefer A Study in Scarlet as it would lead to a entertaining discussion.

Your thinking is similar to mine. I have read Animal Farm too, and I'm not sure I care to re-read it. Although I'd probably have a greater appreciation for it now than when I was forced to read it in school.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Your thinking is similar to mine. I have read Animal Farm too, and I'm not sure I care to re-read it. Although I'd probably have a greater appreciation for it now than when I was forced to read it in school.

Freshman year of high school? That's when I read it.

[issybird]

Anyone interested in The Last of the Mohicans needs to read Mark Twain's essay, Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses. I read it at an impressionable age and it cured me of any desire to read his works.

Since people are revealing their voting strategy, I'll admit that I voted for my preference of the two front-runners and the books I really would like to read!

[crich70]

Originally Posted by issybird

Anyone interested in The Last of the Mohicans needs to read Mark Twain's essay, Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses. I read it at an impressionable age and it cured me of any desire to read his works.

Since people are revealing their voting strategy, I'll admit that I voted for my preference of the two front-runners and the books I really would like to read!

I haven't read them either, but they are still extant and you can even buy "The Leatherstocking Tales" as an Omnibus at Amazon so obviously someone wants to read them. Every writer has critics I figure (even the classic authors had their critics in their own day) so each to his/her own.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by crich70

Freshman year of high school? That's when I read it.

No. 8th grade junior high.