Book Review: Classics Part 1


The last couple of weeks I have been reading a couple of classics. I liked them and I want to keep up with reading the classics. With this post I am hoping to start a new series of posts, with short reviews of the classics.

This time I will be reviewing A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling and Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
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Title & Author: A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Series: Sherlock Holmes
Rating:

Synopsis

‘There’s a scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life, and our duty is to unravel it, and isolate it, and expose every inch of it.’

From the moment Dr. John Watson takes lodgings in Baker Street with the consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, he becomes intimately acquainted with the bloody violence and frightening ingenuity of the criminal mind.

In A Study in Scarlet, Holmes and Watson’s first mystery, the pair are summoned to a south London house where they find a dead man whose contorted face is a twisted mask of horror. The body is unmarked by violence but on the wall a mysterious word has been written in blood.

The police are baffled by the crime and its circumstances. But when Sherlock Holmes applies his brilliantly logical mind to the problem he uncovers a tragic tale of love and deadly revenge…

I have read A Study in Scarlet before. I can’t remember anything from it because I was around 12 years old when I did. But now that I reread it again, I started to recognise some of the things I was reading. I enjoyed it very much. The characters of Holmes and Watson have been very well written and the murder seems very far fetched I did like how everything came together in the end.


Title & Author: The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Rating:

Synopsis

Run with them. Or fear them–

Bagheera the Panther: A silken shadow of boldness and cunning.

Kaa the Python: A thirty foot battering ram driven by a cool, hungry mind.

Baloo the Bear: who keeps the lore and the Law, and teaches the Secret Words.

Rikki the Mongoose: The young protector who sings as he slays.

Akela and Raksha the Wolves: Demon warriors of the Free People.

Shere Khan the Tiger: The dreaded enemy of all.

And Mowgli the Man-cub: The orphan baby raised by the wolves, taught by Baloo, trained by Bagheera and Kaa. The sorcerer who knows the ways of the jungle and speaks the language of the wild…

I received The Jungle Book for my birthday last year from my best friend and never got to reading it. Now that I read it I am happy I did. The first part of the story is as we know and love it from the Disney movie The Jungle Book. And the rest of the book it felt like they were mostly just short stories about nature. Which was what made me lost interest. Because the novel is well written, but I had expected more from the first part.


Title & Author: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Rating:

Synopsis

A mysterious seaman hides at a country inn; cut-throats raid a sleepy English village; suddenly, young Jim Hawkins becomes the owner of a map leading to a lost tropical island and a fortune in stolen gold. Three adventures–Jim, Squire Trelawney, and Dr. Livesey–set out to find the treasure. — But they trust the one they should most fear, Long John Silver. Charming, brave ruthless, murderous, Silver fills the squire’s ship with pirates. And on the desolate, fever-infested island, the quest for gold becomes a deadly war of hide and seek. Desperate defenders against merciless killers battling over a cursed treasure won with blood, buried with blood, sought with blood. Incredible wealth that Jim and his friends can only claim…

I loved Treasure Island, it just doesn’t hold up to the stories being written today. It was a fun story, with great characters and some development. But I feel there are better ones these days. It was well written.

Let me know what you thought of these books!
If you have any requests for which book I should talk about next, please let me know in the comments down below.

For now, let books enrich your life!

A Study in Scarlet
The Jungle Book
Treasure Island

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