It was composed of short stories and normally, I wouldn't mind but it didn't fit with my time frame and became draggy for me. But, when I was really into a story it was lovely read before bedtime.

3.5 stars read.

The Adventures and Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes is a collection of short stories detailing the many mysteries Sherlock takes on, making this a fast-paced and relatively easy read. The book started out great but as I read more and more cases, I found that it got slightly more predictable when it came to guessing the person behind the crime or even their motivations behind it. It got a little boring towards the middle of the book where the stories started to sound like the ones I've read earlier, as though it was just another version of a earlier crime. But hey maybe that just points to how predictable people actually are and sleuthing is just as easy as Sherlock makes it out to be.

Reading about the Sherlock and Watson duo and their interactions helped make the stories a little bit more enjoyable. With everything said, I am looking forward to reading The Hounds of the Baskervilles!

Once again sharing my favourite parts of the book:

n  ’My dear Holmes,' said I, 'this is too much. You would certainly have been burned had you lived a few centuries ago.'

I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his process of deduction. 'When I hear you give your reasons,' I remarked, 'the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours.'

'As a rule,' said Holmes, 'the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to identify.'

'My dear fellow,' said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, 'life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the stranger coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes the wonderful chain of events, working through generations and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalists and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.'

'It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'

'There are many men in London, you know, who, some from shyness, some from misanthropy, have no wish for the company of their fellows. Yet they are not averse to comfortable chairs and the latest periodicals. It is for the convenience of these that the Diogenes Club was started, and it now contains the most unsociable and unclubbable men in town. No member is permitted to take the least notice of any other one. Save in the Strangers' Room, no talking is, under any circumstances, allowed, and three offences, if brought to the notice of the committee, render the talker liable to expulsion. My brother was one of the founders, and I have myself found it a very soothing atmosphere.'

'There is nothing in which deduction is so necessary as in religion, said he, leaning with his back against the shutters. 'It can be built up as an exact science by the reasoner. Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in the flowers. All other things, our powers, our desires, our food, are all really necessary for our existence in the first instance. But this rose is an extra. Its smell and its colour are an embellishment of life, not a condition of it. It is only goodness which gives extras, and so I say again that we have much to hope from the flowers.'n

I loved reading Sherlock's adventures as told through he eyes of Dr. Watson!
They are intriguing stories, although I certainly did not expect them to be like this. They are short stories and I mean extremely short, about 25 pages in length, and have been quickly and masterfully solved by Holmes. This was a surprise to me as mystery stories (in my mind) usually are more complex and take a lot longer to solve. Yet Holmes is a genius with an eye for the little details which reveal far more information, as he tells Watson: "It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important;" (39) and referring to Watson's inability to make the same deductions: "You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear" (8).
His way of thinking is contagious. I began to pay attention to the little details as well, both in the stories to see if I could figure out the mystery before Holmes and after I put the book down and went about my day. He is an intriguing and peculiar character, whose personalities and idiosyncrasies are slowly disclosed throughout the various short stories. It seems that one of the overarching mysteries of these short stories is figuring out who Sherlock Holmes is. Watson certainly tries to do so as he narrates the book, yet are there parts where he merely "sees" and fails to "observe"? Only the reader who has let Sherlock be their mentor can answer that question.

My comfort food!!!

On a cold, rainy, stormy night, there's almost nothing better than curling up with a cup of hot tea and discovering, once again, that "Once you have ruled out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

Sherlock Holmes es un personaje que siempre me ha llamado la atención. Había leído varios de sus relatos, pero nunca en el orden y la constancia con la que lo he hecho ahora.
En este caso, el libro que leí recoge tanto Las Aventuras como Las Memorias de Sherlock, por lo que trataré de resumir en líneas bien generales, porque no creo que cada relato merezca su reseña propia, las impresiones de estas dos colecciones.
Para comenzar, creo que se debe comprender que cada relato se publicaba periódicamente en una revista, por lo que también es aconsejable leerlos espaciadamente y no de un tirón, de lo contrario, sucede que la fórmula se empieza a hacer repetitiva y se pierde la emoción. Esto al menos me sucedió con las Aventuras.
En cambio, las Memorias me parecieron mucho mejor. Si bien se extraña a Sherlock actuando más que relatando cómo resolvió algún caso, en conjunto me parecieron misterios más interesantes y permitieron un mejor desarrollo del personaje.
Solo agregaré que, por culpa de las adaptaciones, tanto la serie como las películas, quedé decepcionada con el ultimo relato, El problema final, donde conocemos al némesis de Sherlock quien, a mi juicio, no está a la altura del villano que se ha construido en pantalla.
De todos modos recomiendo este clásico, al que se debe ir sin grandes expectativas y leyendo poco a poco para disfrutarlo más.

read many many years ago. love.

3.5 stars.
Sherlock Holmes is such a flamboyant and vivid character. He is iconic and beloved by many. I myself have fallen in love with his personae. He is easily identified by his pipe and magnifying glass and wonderful skills of deduction. His character gets four stars from me.

This book is a collection of short stories featuring Sherlock Holmes and although the perfect length, the stories flail a little for my liking. Entertaining, but the format is the same for each story. A crime, some sleuthing and a resolution. It all felt a bit like an episode “Of Murder She Wrote” which starred Angela Lansbury and would probably be deemed as cosy mysteries. So only 3 stars for the stories.

I will read one of the novels as a comparison to the short stories to see if the plot varies more.

¡Qué aventuras más maravillosas! Me ha encantado este libro de principio a fin. Sin duda, Sherlock Holmes es el mejor detective.
Ya que son muchos relatos, dejo aquí mi rating:

Las aventuras de Sherlock Holmes

Escándalo en Bohemia: 5 ⭐️
La liga de los pelirrojos: 5 ⭐️
Un caso de identidad: 4 ⭐️
El misterio de Boscombe Valley: 4 ⭐️
Las cinco pepitas de naranja: 5 ⭐️
El hombre del labio torcido: 5 ⭐️
La aventura del carbunclo azul: 5 ⭐️
La aventura de la banda de lunares: 4 ⭐️
La aventura del pulgar del ingeniero: 5 ⭐️
La aventura del aristócrata solterón: 5 ⭐️
La aventura de la diadema de berilos: 5 ⭐️
La aventura de Cooper Beeches: 4 ⭐️

Las memorias de Sherlock Holmes

Silver Blaze: 5 ⭐️
La cara amarilla: 5 ⭐️
El oficinista del corredor de bolsa: 4 ⭐️
La corbeta Gloria Scott: 4 ⭐️
El ritual de los Musgrave: 5 ⭐️
El misterio de Reigate: 5 ⭐️
El hombre contrahecho: 5 ⭐️
El paciente interno: 4 ⭐️
El intérprete griego: 5 ⭐️
El tratado naval: 5 ⭐️
El problema final: 5 ⭐️

A really brilliant collection of short adventures with Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. They do feel a bit repetitive after a time, but it is the style Arthur Conan Doyle deploys and how he weaves this narrative that works best of all. Feels a bit like CSI at times, not in content but in context. Where we travel with this detective and his longsuffering friend are irrelevant, they are interchangeable and provide a nice backdrop to the mystery at hand. Some stand out more than others, but on the whole, it is a delightful collection of famed and acclaimed short entries. All work alone, but together they make for a thoroughly enjoyable read.

3,75 stars*

It was lovely to finally continue this series. I have always liked the character of Sherlock Holmes in movies or TV shows. I have read the first two parts of the books years ago, and I remember really liking them. Short stories aren’t always my cup of tea, but these were great. I especially enjoyed A Scandal in Bohemia and The Final Problem. However, there were also stories I didn’t like as much as I thought I would. Overall, I can definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a classic mystery.

Sherlock Holmes is my dude. All I gotta say.