Author: inconstantreader (@janice_e)

“Some Poor Bibliophile”: Free Sherlockian E-Books from Belanger!

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All through the month of April, Belanger Books is offering free Sherlockian e-books each week to help those of us who need more reading material during the Covid-19 lockdown. This week, the books are The Papers of Solar Pons, by David Marcum (hmm, a pastiche of a pastiche), and Sherlock Holmes: Adventures Beyond the Canon, Vol. 1, a 29-story anthology edited by Marcum. For the next 48 hours, C. Edward Davis’s illustrated steampunk novella The Voyage of the Lunar Schooner is free as well. You can download this week’s books here. Check back with their blog each week for more free books!

We’d be remiss if we promoted the giveaway without mentioning Belanger’s current Kickstarter project, Sherlock Holmes and the Great Detectives, which has already reached nearly five times its original goal with 20 days to go. If you’re interested in stories about the Master teaming up with other great detectives from the Victorian and Edwardian eras, take a look.

Virtual Meeting a Success, Another Planned!

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The NMSOBC just gathered virtually on Zoom for the first time. Fourteen of us saw one another for the first time in a while and discussed “The Man with the Twisted Lip.” We enjoyed presentations on whether the story takes place in a different universe from the rest of the Canon (Jim Cassetta), the social history and geography of the story’s locations (Elinor Gray Howell), and wood in Victorian England (Ken Meltsner).

Given the success of the meeting, we decided that, since the ongoing pandemic will prevent us from gathering to commemorate the “death” of Sherlock Holmes with a memorial service, we will instead have another virtual meeting, where we will talk about “The Final Problem.” Details are on our Events page; keep an eye on that or our Facebook page for any changes or updates.

Sherlock Holmes’s Linguistic Contribution Endures: The Dog That Didn’t Bark

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“Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”
“To the curious incident of the dog in the night time.”
“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.

—“The Adventure of Silver Blaze,” 1892

Reading an article that I won’t link here because this is not a political blog, I was led to this legal writer explaining the usefulness of the argument to lawyers:

Briefly Writing, July 25, 2012

Given Holmes’s suspicious attitude toward lawyers (“He was a lawyer. That sounded ominous.”–SCAN), one wonders how he would have reacted to their adoption of one of his most famous Sherlockisms.

Note: I just observed the oddity that night-time is spelled as two words when Holmes says it, but hyphenated in the police detective’s reply. Shame on you, Strand copyeditors.

“He Cannot Escape Us Now”: Escape Your Confinement with Sherlock Holmes

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The gentlefolk behind the upcoming Sherlock Holmes: The Musical present, for all those admirers of the Master who are stuck in their houses, a digital Sherlock Holmes escape room. Certainly a welcome diversion from the pandemic.

Some of you may be unfamiliar with escape rooms. In their physical incarnation, a group of people is locked in a room and given an hour (usually) to get out by solving a connected, generally themed set of puzzles. For the digital version, you will have to use your imagination to escape from sheltering in place. It consists of both text and videos, and it should appeal to anyone who loves both Sherlock (in any of his incarnations) and puzzles. Give it a try!

“Let Us Consider Our Data”: April Meeting to Be Held Virtually

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In light of the Covid-19 quarantine, we have suspended all in-person meetings. We have decided to try having our April meeting over Zoom. We’ll skip the business meeting and just have presentations and discussion of “The Man with the Twisted Lip.”

All members who are on the email list should receive the necessary information. If you don’t get it or need technical assistance, you may contact Janice Eisen at her email or through the NMSOBC Facebook page.

This is an experiment, so wish us luck!!!