#may read

A Study In Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle

Genre: Crime

When Dr John Watson takes rooms in Baker Street with amateur detective Sherlock Holmes, he has no idea that he is about to enter a shadowy world of criminality and violence. Accompanying Holmes to an ill-omened house in south London, Watson is startled to find a dead man whose face is contorted in a rictus of horror. There is no mark of violence on the body yet a single word is written on the wall in blood. Dr Watson is as baffled as the police, but Holmes's brilliant analytical skills soon uncover a trail of murder, revenge and lost love . . .

Review

I became a big fan of BBC’s Sherlock and thought it would be interesting to see where the awesomeness started.

I gotta admit, I fangirled loads when I saw the parallels to the first episode, and I loved how they took some key points and made their own thing in the series.

I loved this book, seriously. It has a pleasant pace, the characters are nicely done, there were some passages I found quite amusing, and I also liked how Doyle explained the whole background of the crime, took the time to put everything into context.

My May read is The Art of Contrary Thinking by Humphrey B. Neill 📖

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Genre: Historical Fiction

Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Life is hell for all the slaves, but especially bad for Cora; an outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is coming into womanhood where even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a recent arrival from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they decide to take a terrifying risk and escape. Matters do not go as planned Cora kills a young white boy who tries to capture her. Though they manage to find a station and head north, they are being hunted.

In Whitehead s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.

Review

This book is simply amazing. And important and scary and just so well done... ugh... I can't.

The Underground Railroad is a painful reminder of what today's USA are built on - the bones of millions of slaves (and Native Americans). It's shown without mercy what price all these people had to pay. And the US hasn't come as far as you'd hope - the attacks on POCs and prejudices from today bear a frightening resemblance to the past - racism is deeply rooted.

So, that's the educational part of the book - and I say it has to hurt. It's good that the author showed the raw reality of slave life.

Now to the story part - it wrecked me in a good way.

Cora is a character that is just astonishing - she goes through so much shit during the course of the book, she comes close to the breaking point so often and her traumas hold her captive sometimes, but she never gives up. She longs for freedom and it spurs her on, even though at every leg of her journey she seems to have to leave again just when she's settled in and then has to start anew again; I kept hoping that she had finally found a good place to stay at, safe and happy, buuut... well, you would see if you read it.

Also, if you can't handle seeing every person who seems to have a good influence on Cora's life die, you shouldn't read this book - I was an emotional wreck regularly. I know the ending probably came at the right moment and that a real happy ending wouldn't be realistic either, but I just longed for a scene where Cora is shown having found a place to call home, where she can recover from her wounds and find a happier life.

The Time Machine by H. G. Wells

Genre: Science Fiction

Chilling, prophetic and hugely influential, The Time Machine sees a Victorian scientist propel himself into the year 802,701 AD, where he is delighted to find that suffering has been replaced by beauty and contentment in the form of the Eloi, an elfin species descended from man. But he soon realizes that they are simply remnants of a once-great culture - now weak and living in terror of the sinister Morlocks lurking in the deep tunnels, who threaten his very return home.

Review

I apologise beforehand for not having to say much about this book - it's not an insult to it at all in this case. I just enjoyed it so much, especially the nice flow and the focus on descriptions, there's not much else I can think of to praise this book except: Read It!

The pace is very well done, but my main focus was on the way to interpret the things the time traveller saw on his journey. The thought of the working class and the upper class becoming divided evolutionary is quite interesting - the workers are being enslaved, banned from the surface so the world can be all 'shiny', so to speak. But the upper class thus forgets how to do things independently, they have everything done for them. And ultimately, there are the attacks of the Morlocks at the Eloi - those who'd been pushed under the surface are striking back.