Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is most famous for authoring the much loved Sherlock Holmes books.
Our recommended biography of Arthur Conan Doyle is On Conan Doyle written by Pulitzer winner Michael Dirda.
Arthur Conan Doyle: A Life in Letters documents the author beyond being the creator of Holmes. “Some of that public intellectual side of Conan Doyle comes across in these letters, but they are also highly personal and reveal a really endearingly winning personality.” Michael Dirda.
Books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
“I could have picked the first Sherlock Holmes collection as well. I could have picked The Hound of the Baskervilles, which is brilliant. I could’ve picked anything Sherlock Holmes. But if someone said to me, ‘You can only reread one Sherlock Holmes story’ that first story in The Return would be the one for me. It’s both a brilliant locked-room mystery and you have Holmes returning. It’s great.” Read more...
Stig Abell, Journalist
“That’s the thing about the story I love. These dancing stick men are slightly ridiculous, but it ends up so horrible. it’s a very menacing story, with quite a grounded, down-to-earth resolution. It’s short and logical and real, which is not always the case in a Conan Doyle story.” Read more...
Stuart Turton, Novelist
“One of the aims of my little book On Conan Doyle is to urge people to explore Conan Doyle’s many wonderful non-Sherlockian works. Certainly the one that most people should start with is The Lost World. It introduces Professor George Edward Challenger, a self-important but wonderfully funny and committed scientist who discovers a plateau in a South American jungle where dinosaurs still roam the earth. This is based on some actual historical explorations that were going on at the time. The novel obviously inspired Jurassic Park. It is one of the great classic versions of a lost civilisation.” Read more...
The Best Sherlock Holmes Books
Michael Dirda, Journalist
“Most people when you ask them what the best Sherlock Holmes story is will say The Hound of the Baskervilles. It’s one of the four novels featuring Holmes. Probably the best novel in my mind that he wrote, and probably the most atmospheric: the moor in Dartmoor with a convict prison nearby, and with very few potential suspects. I understand that Doyle went there on holiday and had a friend who told him the local lore about a hound from hell. The only downside to the novel is that there were so few people living there that the suspect pool was very limited.” Read more...
David Baldacci, Novelist
“If you’ve never read any Sherlock Holmes books you really need to start with that one because it introduces this rather mysterious and romantic character. At the beginning, Doctor Watson tries to puzzle out the profession of his strange roommate at 221b Baker Street. He makes lists of what Holmes seems to know a lot about and what he doesn’t seem to know about at all – including the Copernican theory. In short, this is an introduction to a partnership and friendship that will be chronicled over 56 short stories and four novels.” Read more...
The Best Sherlock Holmes Books
Michael Dirda, Journalist
“Written in 1922 by the creator of the super-logical character Sherlock Holmes, this to me is a perfect example of very bad thinking. Conan Doyle lost his son Kingsley after Kingsley returned, badly injured, from World War I. And Conan Doyle spent the rest of his life looking for some form of communication from him. He thought that he had found it through several spirit mediums, who fooled him. He was very easily fooled. He was even fooled by a couple of teenage girls who invented the story of the Cottingley fairies in 1917. I myself exchanged a long correspondence with Elsie Wright, who was the main instigator of that hoax. She never quite cracked to me – that is, she never said in so many words that it was a fake. But she did say that I was taking away the fun for people. I don’t think so. I’m just informing them. I think it was a delicious hoax.” Read more...
The best books on Being Sceptical
James Randi, Magician
The Complete Sherlock Holmes
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
It turns out that the brilliant British actor, Stephen Fry, is a Sherlock Holmes books fan, which means that The Complete Sherlock Holmes is also available as an audiobook. Listening to Fry’s introduction and then Conan Doyle’s stories is a wonderful experience. Our favourite story remains the incredibly scary and mysterious The Hound of the Baskervilles but apparently, according to Washington Post book critic Michael Dirda, it’s important to start with The Study in Scarlet.
Narrator: Stephen Fry
Length: 71 hours and 57 minutes
Interviews where books by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were recommended
The best books on Neuroscience as a Career, recommended by Andrew Lees
Are you considering a career in neuroscience? Neurologist Andrew Lees, one of the world’s leading authorities on Parkinson’s and author of Mentored by a Madman: The William Burroughs Experiment, talks about the books that continue to inspire him in his work.
The Best Sherlock Holmes Books, recommended by Michael Dirda
Arthur Conan Doyle wrote 56 short stories and four novels starring his fictional sleuth. Michael Dirda – Pulitzer Prize-winning critic, writer and lifelong Sherlockian – gives us his personal choice of the best Sherlock Holmes books and tells us more about their creator.
The best books on The Pioneers of Criminology, recommended by Douglas Starr
Boston University professor delves into the origins of crime science, using literary and historical works to explain early forensics, phrenology and criminal psychology
The best books on Being Sceptical, recommended by James Randi
Former magician and internationally renowned debunker of paranormal claims James Randi sharpens his knives against proponents of flim-flam, pseudoscience and the so-called paranormal – and tells us where the creator of Sherlock Holmes went badly wrong. He selects the best books on scepticism for Five Books.
The Best Classic Crime Fiction, recommended by Sophie Roell
Since the early stories of the 18th and 19th centuries, crime fiction has been an incredibly popular and enduring genre, the investigation of murder somehow capturing the imagination of millions of readers around the globe. Here, Sophie Roell, editor of Five Books, uses strict but simple criteria to pick out the best classic crime fiction, from the Victorian age through to the 1950s.
The Best Mystery Books, recommended by David Baldacci
The best mystery books are completely unputdownable and addictive, the entertainment they provide more portable than watching TV and so much more satisfying than looking at your phone. Bestselling author David Baldacci, one of the masters of the genre and a passionate advocate for literacy and reading, talks us through some of the best mystery books ever written—as well as the contemporary authors he most admires.
The Best Crime Fiction, recommended by Peter James
The best crime novels grip you right from the first sentence and don’t let go, says bestselling crime author, Peter James. He picks his own favourite crime novels.
The Best Murder Mystery Books, recommended by Stuart Turton
The best murder mysteries set up their stories like a game between the reader and the writer, says Stuart Turton, bestselling author and lifelong mystery fan. Here he highlights five of his favourites, in which detectives make miraculous deductions, or doggedly chase clues until they meet with satisfying solutions.
The Best Classic Crime, recommended by Stig Abell
The crime book genre is massive and caters to all sorts of tastes, but once you find a detective or main character you love, there are few pleasures greater than reading the entire series. British journalist Stig Abell, author of Death Under a Little Sky, picks some of the best classic crime, books he’s read over and over again.
The Speckled Band is also a kind of gothic story. You have a wonderful villain in Dr Roylott, and you have the isolated home, the mysterious sounds and habits of the household. Most Sherlockians, if they had to pick just one story to represent the canon, would choose this one.
From the interview on the best books on Sherlock Holmes
Michael Dirda, Journalist