Bill's Bulletin Board
By Bill Rea

I have many books on various shelves in my home.

Several I have read, and several others I have not yet gotten around to, but hope to eventually, at some point in my life.

Some I have read parts of and wish to pursue the rest in due time. There were works of various philosophers that I was obliged to read sections of during my university days, there is also the book known as the Holy Bible, passages of which I have perused from time to time. Those examples are among several that I wish to read in some detail at some point.

I also have a habit of picking up books here and there. Whenever I'm in a book store, I routinely check out the bargain tables. I've plucked a good share of gems from such displays. I have also been known to check out the used book displays in the local libraries, and have thusly added to the local coffers, either buying a book that has appealed to me, or something that I figured would appeal to my wife.

Like most readers, there are certain authors I enjoy more than others, although the truth is I'm more usually attracted by subjects, as opposed to who did the writing. I have several books about the Titanic, a subject that has always interested me. I also have a number of biographies of such people as Napoleon, Catherine the Great and Billy the Kid. My collection of autobiographies include works of many of the prominent people involved in Watergate. G. Gordon Liddy's book was the most enjoyable reading on that topic, followed closely by John Ehrlichman's.

I'm also in the habit of re-reading books at later times. Some works I have gone through a number of times. It refreshes my memory, and often reinforces whole passages or segments in my mind that I might have previously unconsciously skimmed over.

A major factor that blocks my literary pursuits is the demands of my job. As many of you know, I work a lot of hours, and many of those hours are taken up with reading and writing. So when I get some down time, reading and writing is not always high on my list of priorities.

A lot of people can get some reading done in bed. I've never been able to master the trick. I try occasionally, but the fact is I'm lucky to get through a page before I become weary and have to turn the lights out.

It's when I'm on vacation that I get the bulk of my reading done. So in a week or so, I get maybe 80 per cent of my year's worth of reading for pleasure done. The rest I do in snatches when I get around to it.

I always pack a number of books when I go on holiday, and actually get through a number of them before it's time to come home.

One has gone into my bag for years, and I have not yet got through it, although there are several passages that I have read intermittently. It's actually one of those several books that I picked up at one of the bargain tables I frequently check out.

Its cover identifies it as The Illustrated Sherlock Holmes Treasury (Revised and Expanded).

The master sleuth of Baker Street was vaulted back into my memory recently when one of the too many TV stations we get in our home devoted a whole evening to movies about him, all made in the 1940s, staring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. There were 14 Holmes films these two made together (that number was repeated several times over the course of the evening), and I have probably seen most, if not all of them. During my table-waiting days, when I worked evenings, these movies were shown late Sunday nights, and since I seldom had pressing reasons to be up early in the morning, I usually watched them. True, it was not the best way for a young man to spend his down time, especially since the films were not the greatest. The acting was suspect, with Rathbone coming off a little too sanctimonious for my liking. And Dr. Watson was always supposed to be an intelligent, well-educated and literate man who, if we believe the stories, wrote works that have never been out of circulation. Yet Bruce portrayed him as a bumbling bubble head.

As proof that these movies are not the greatest, I point out I taped them the night they were on, with the idea of watching them later. Beth and I have spent a couple of evenings trying to get through them, but we keep falling asleep.

Also, since many of these movies were made during the war, the plots were contemporary, as were the settings, and the stories took on more of a pep rally theme. I guess there's nothing wrong with using with using a popular fictional character to drum up moral during a war, but I'm enough of a traditionalist to keep Holmes and Watson in the Victorian settings where they belong.

Thus, I have always preferred the more recent TV versions, with Jeremy Brett as Holmes. A pity he died so young.

Despite my neglectful reading habits, I have gotten through several of the Holmes shorts stories and one novel. The Red-Headed League is perhaps my favorite.

Alas, this is among many of my books that I will have to get through at some point, and I probably will. I have vacation time coming this year.