The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle

Ah, Sherlock Holmes.

The very name conjures up the image of a dude, who may or may not be followed by a dumpy guy with a mustache, decked out in houndstooth, magnifying glass in hand and looking for clues.  Lately, however, the general public is just as likely to think about Downey Jr.'s grungey, druggy, semi-gay Holmes as they are to think of Rathbone's deerstarker-capped Holmes.

Me, I'm partial to Jeremy Brent, but I'm always open to suggestions.

Contemplating on his inherent awesomeness.

When I was younger, I knew next to nothing about the great detective, other than 'No shit, Sherlock' is quite the put-down. (The combination of a swear and a weird name? Blew my 10-year-old mind!) I wasn't fond of mystery stories back then, so Hound of the Baskervilles was probably the only story in my fourth-grade reading textbook that I didn't read. In fact, the first Sherlock story I read was the fan-novella 'Reichenbach: A Love Story', way back in 2007. After that, reading the entire collection of Sherlock Holmes stories (both Vol. 1 and Vol. II) was inevitable.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

It's been a while, so you would think I've read all sorts of fun stuff, which is true. However, I don't want to get into all the crap when I can gush over great literature.

Pride and Prejudice is one of those books that everyone has read at one point in their academic careers, I think. Austen is a great writer, and Pride is probably her best known work. I know I had to read it once in high school, and while I liked it, it didn't leave that much of an impression on me.

That's not true for other people, judging from the mountain of profession fanfiction in the market today. You could read the entire thing from Darcy's perspective. (the cleverly titled Darcy's Story) You could read what happens if the book's timeline was changed. (Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy: The Last Man in the World is just one example.) You could even see Elizabeth fight against the zombie hordes. (the nerd-ification masterpiece Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) There are literally dozens of books that try to continue, alter, and play with Austen's original story, at least according to Wikipedia, and we should always trust Wikipedia.