After watching (and loving) the last Sherlock Holmes movie, and the BBC TV show Sherlock, I just knew I had to read the novels and stories. I have had these books for years, so I finally started. This volume contains the novels A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, and the story collections Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes and The Return of Sherlock Holmes. There is not much new I can say about these stories that hasn’t already been said before.
I really liked these stories, and the writing. I love Sherlock for his anti-social behavior, his character, his way of doing things. The cases described here (except for the novels) are pretty short and sweet, making them nice quick reads. Because the stories are so short it matters a lot less that there is a lot of repetition in the stories. A lot of hidden identities, murky histories in far away lands, and generally a lot of story-lines that are very familiar to me, a reader a 100 years after the stories have been published. But if you read them keeping in mind when they have been written, what people read then, they are great stories, and still very enjoyable. Four out of five stars.

Ever since first reading some of Asimov’s works last year I try to find more of his books, as I have liked all of them so far. This one comes from the collection of my father, who had a lot of seventies/eighties science fiction. De stalen holen/Caves of steel takes place in the Robot universe. It’s far in the future, and due to over-population humankind lives in huge cities that are closed of units. They don’t breath outside air, or see the sun. Food, living space, everything is rationed. But it wasn’t always like this, in the past humans went out and colonized thirty planets. Now they (called the Spacers) are back, and are trying to help Earth out of their steel caves, because this way of life will mean the end of humanity on earth. In this world, a murder of a spacer takes place. This could mean a retaliation from Space against the Earthlings, so it is very important that it is solved.
The book is from 1967, and it does show it age in some ways. The over population in the book? Eight billion people. We are at seven billion right now. Some of the technologies pictures being in use three thousand years from now are already ancient to us. But we can’t blame Asimov for that. If we look past that, it is a very good book with an interesting murder mystery. The exploration of the impact of robots, and humanoid robots is very interesting to read. Four out of five stars.

The gimmick of this book is that the publisher won’t tell you what this book is about. They say it is a story of two women, a story that is funny, touching and shocking. I’ll try not to give too much away of the story, except that it is about a Nigerian refugee who comes to the United Kingdom, and a British woman who has met her before.
The story of Little Bee, the Nigerian girl is anything but funny. The whole story was in fact incredibly tragic, but powerful. I don’t know what else to say about this book. Read it. But now I do need something less serious to cheer me up. Four out of five stars.

My hundredth book of the year! This is another one of the books by Ursula Le Guin taking place in the Hainish Cycle. Humans are living in exile on a planet where the seasons last three-thousand years and the native humans are living a nomadic life. However, the humans were left on the planet when an interplanetary war broke out, and it is now six-hundred earth years later. Winter is coming and with it the barbarian Gaäls who are ready to attack all humans, natives and earthlings alike. So now they have to forget their cultural differences and fight the Gaäl together.
The story is short, and covers several topics. Two cultures working together, preparing for a different season, history, the sustainability of alien races on different planets, ethics, love. And all that in in a little over 150 pages. I really liked the story, especially knowing it fits in a bigger universe of stories. Four out of five stars.

I first heard about this story when the movie came out a couple of years ago. When I found this book at a second-hand bookshop last week I couldn’t help but pick it up, to see what it was all about. This is the story of Meggie, a 12 year old girl, and Mo, her father. He is a book collector and book binder, and one day a mysterious character, Dustfinger shows up at their house. Then the adventure starts, and soon Meggie discovers that her father can make characters and objects from books appear in the real world when he reads out loud. This is a problem when Capricorn, a very evil character from the book Inkheart, appears and makes their lives one big adventure.
I liked the story, which was original, and yet familiar, with its crossover between our world and the book world (I am thinking about Thursday Next and her ability to read herself into the book world). However, the story felt a bit too long at its 545 pages. It seemed drawn out, and could have been condensed without losing quality I feel. But, it was a nice story and for children/young adults, I can see why they would love it. It is suspenseful without being scary. Three out of five stars.

I found this book in one of the boxes of ABC’s books per kilo sale, not knowing the book or the writer at all. The fact that this was a twenty-fifth anniversary edition promised something good.
And it was. This is the story of a small but ancient forest in England. Strange things happen and over time the research into the forest consumes Steven and Christian’s father. When Steven returns from France after WWII, his brother is also drawn to the forest, to one day enter and never to return. And the strange things happen to Steven though, culminating in an epic journey.
The book has some very interesting theories about myths,the reasons they are with us and how they survive, all while creating and living it’s own myth.
The story took some time to get started, but at the end I felt the last page came too soon. I believe that there are more books that follow on this one, I hope to find them. Four out of five stars.

Kim Edwards got the idea for this story from a pastor, who told her about a man who found out later in life that he had a twin brother with Down Syndrome that had been sent to live at an institution without him (the brother) knowing. When he found out the brother in the institution had died. In this story Kim Edwards explores what having this kind of secret does to a family.
It’s 1964, a cold winter night, and an orthopedic surgeon, David Henry, and a nurse, Caroline Gill, are the only two people in a local hospital present to deliver the baby of the surgeon’s wife, Norah. The baby boy is early, but healthy. Then another baby comes, his twin, a baby girl. But she turns out to have Down Syndrome. Because David has grown up with a sickly sister, he wants to spare his wife and baby boy the pain, and gives the baby girl to Caroline to put in an institution. Arriving at the institution Caroline can’t bear to leave the child, and to give David a chance to do the right thing, she takes the girl. But David tells everybody the girl died, and Caroline raises her as her own.
The book describes different periods in both children’s lives, from 1964 to 1988, and explores how the secret of the girl’s, Phoebe’s, existence affects everybody in the Henry family and Caroline Gill herself. While tragic, it is a great story to read. I couldn’t put it down and read the whole thing in one long stretch. I loved the descriptions, and those in the family trying to do the best they could. The way Edwards tells the story from different viewpoints I felt sympathy for all characters, even David. Even though it was wrong, he tried to do the best he could. Four out of five stars.