Mark Coggins

This was a good evening's entertainment. Written in the voice of Watson, it captured the feel and spirit of the original tales.

I have a bit of a quibble with the assumption that this case proves certain things about Sherlock's sexuality, but that would be spoilers. Despite the content, it is handled in the way I would imagine an author from the late 1800s would speak of such a subject, if they spoke of it at all.

I will check out some of the author's other stories, this seems like one written for a collection of short stories, or on a dare from some friends or perhaps a writing exercise to see how close one could mimic the original author. Whatever reason, it was a fun read for me.… (mais)

This was a highly entertaining collection of memoir short stories from throughout the author's life. With self-deprecating humor and occurrences that I thought could only ever happen to me, this book was definitely a breath of fresh air. It's so nice to know that I'm not the only crazy, hapless person on this planet. Although I'm not sure that I would dress up like a chicken when greeting my significant other at the train station...yes, the author did that, and even included a photograph as proof!! On the other hand, the story he told about working at his grandfather's "ranch" was totally a situation that I would find myself in. Just like the author, if I'm told to fix something or if I manage to break something (in his case it was a giant tractor), then I do everything in my power to get it done any way that I can...even if with hindsight, the methods used were completely ridiculous and possibly even death-defying... I'm definitely not one to be told that I'm not capable of doing something. Basically, he used tools that were never meant to be used on a machine of that size and had to use quite a bit of elbow grease to make it all work - of course it did in the end. Never doubt the power of belief that you can accomplish a crazy feat with only a few flimsy materials to work with...lol. Oh yeah, and accidentally setting an entire open weed and thorn infested field on fire...very akin to a certain thing that happened a few years ago to me...and...my brother...that...well...I just don't talk about it... Anyway, Mark's stories range from tales of love gone terribly wrong (can definitely relate there), stupid ill-thought out ideas (once again, sounds familiar), and, as I just mentioned, death-defying determination to pull off crazy stunts. There's something for everybody in this collection and I highly recommend it!
As to the author himself, I received a hardcopy in the mail that was signed by him right before he mailed it off and had a hand written note placed between the pages. He even responded very thoughtfully to a question I posed on LibraryThing's author chat. It's such a cool thing to actually interact with the authors of books you read!!

Note: I won this book as part of a Member Giveaway on LibraryThing, but all the comments above are 100% honest.… (mais)