Recent Read: "The Complete Sherlock Holmes," Volume 1, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

My brother bought both volumes for me for Christmas last year and I think it was one of my favorite book gifts ever. Reading the "Complete" has been so much fun. Doyle was not perfect; Holmes takes cocaine and heroin and has some serious misconceptions about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but I still love these stories. I thought that reading the complete would make them feel repetitive--that they would all feel like the same story. On the contrary, I am facinated and spellbounded by Doyle's ingenuity in coming up with different thoughts and especially different story moods in the backdrop. When he does repeat a similar plot--such as stories about sketchy new jobs and selfish stepfathers--it feels like he's really making a statement about something he sees wrong in the world because he addresses that problem more than once, which is really interesting. One volume down, one to go, and I still can't get enough!