I have tried to re-invent my Blogger self last year with a blog about running, I failed. Turns out, running is something I enjoy while at it but not something I am passionate talking and writing about. I was not looking for a new blog project but stumbled upon it because I got angry with myself for having mislaid my little book of quotes. I have always been a bookworm and I have been keeping notes of quotes from my favourite books in notebooks for ages. The oldest notebook is about 25 years old and I looked for it last week because I only fragmentally remembered a quote from Italo Calvino’s “Il barone rampante” and wanted to reread it. The notebook remains missing and I thought I should maybe start going digital with my quotes for easier access. So here we are.
The name of the blog “The Omnivorous Reader” refers to an author I only discovered very recently thanks to binge watching the series “Elementary, a modern take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. So after binge watching I indulged in some binge reading. The Complete Sherlock Holmes has 1169 pages and in one of the very final stories, The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane, Holmes describing himself as an omnivorous reader stuck in my mind. I love reading and this enjoyment covers almost all genres, so in that sense I am an omnivorous reader, too.
And for any other lovers of the Elementary or Sherlock TV-series I can highly recommend reading Conan Doyle. I was really surprised how “modern” Conan Doyle’s storytelling is, given that his works date back over a century (1881, A Study in Scarlet). It’s got everything the TV-series have – and I presumed added when bringing the stories to this day and age – drugs, martial arts, knowledge of tattoos… It seems the TV writers only had to exchange the horse-drawn coach with cars and telegrams with mobile phones.
But how did you know, Mr. Holmes?
I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for trifles.Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane in The Complete Sherlock Holmes
Edinburgh, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s home town
The Omnivorous Reader 