Tag: Graham Moore

Book Recommendation – The Last Days of Night

When I was in elementary school we did a play about Thomas Edison. It was a musical called The Electric Sunshine Man. I don’t remember too much about it except that I was a cowboy in one of Edison’s moving pictures. Big role! I was on stage for like 3.7 seconds.

I digress. Back to Edison.

In 2017, Benedict Cumberbatch starred as Thomas Edison in the film “The Current War.” That “war” was also the topic of “The Last Days of Night” by Graham Moore.

The current war revolves around the electric light bulb and the debate over AC and DC current. I do not believe that the Cumberbatch film was based on this book. The book is based in fact, however, it is historical fiction. The time lines are adjusted a bit for the book. Much of the book and dialogue came from journals, court transcripts, and other writings. At the close of the book, the author lays out for you the things that were fact and the things where he took some liberties.

The main characters in the book are George Westinghouse, Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison and lawyer Paul Cravath.

Here is the Goodreads synopsis:

New York, 1888. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy. The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make history–and a vast fortune. A young untested lawyer named Paul Cravath, fresh out of Columbia Law School, takes a case that seems impossible to win. Paul’s client, George Westinghouse, has been sued by Thomas Edison over a billion-dollar question: Who invented the light bulb and holds the right to power the country?

The case affords Paul entry to the heady world of high society–the glittering parties in Gramercy Park mansions, and the more insidious dealings done behind closed doors. The task facing him is beyond daunting. Edison is a wily, dangerous opponent with vast resources at his disposal–private spies, newspapers in his pocket, and the backing of J. P. Morgan himself. Yet this unknown lawyer shares with his famous adversary a compulsion to win at all costs. How will he do it?

In obsessive pursuit of victory, Paul crosses paths with Nikola Tesla, an eccentric, brilliant inventor who may hold the key to defeating Edison, and with Agnes Huntington, a beautiful opera singer who proves to be a flawless performer on stage and off. As Paul takes greater and greater risks, he’ll find that everyone in his path is playing their own game, and no one is quite who they seem.

If you are a history buff like me, I think you will enjoy this book. It was certainly interesting to see a side of Edison that is not portrayed in the history books.

4 out of 5 stars

Book Recommendation: The Sherlockian – Graham Moore

I just finished Graham Moore’s The Sherlockian. I don’t recall if I stumbled on it because of other Sherlock Holmes themed books I have read or if it was something I saw on Goodreads. I picked it up Friday at the library and found it hard to put down.

Here is a synopsis from Goodreads:

In December 1893, Sherlock Holmes-adoring Londoners eagerly opened their Strand magazines, anticipating the detective’s next adventure, only to find the unthinkable: his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, had killed their hero off. London spiraled into mourning — crowds sported black armbands in grief — and railed against Conan Doyle as his assassin.

Then in 1901, just as abruptly as Conan Doyle had “murdered” Holmes in “The Final Problem,” he resurrected him. Though the writer kept detailed diaries of his days and work, Conan Doyle never explained this sudden change of heart. After his death, one of his journals from the interim period was discovered to be missing, and in the decades since, has never been found.

Or has it?

When literary researcher Harold White is inducted into the preeminent Sherlock Holmes enthusiast society, The Baker Street Irregulars, he never imagines he’s about to be thrust onto the hunt for the holy grail of Holmes-ophiles: the missing diary. But when the world’s leading Doylean scholar is found murdered in his hotel room, it is Harold – using wisdom and methods gleaned from countless detective stories – who takes up the search, both for the diary and for the killer.

In the acknowledgements of the book, the author states that the book is loosely based on real events. Many characters in the story are real (Arthur Conan Doyle, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde) while others are compilations, in a sense of many people.

What I really enjoyed about the story is the back and forth from present day to Doyle’s England. The intertwining of the past and present really made the book a fun read.

I had no idea that Bram Stoker (who wrote Dracula) and Arthur Conan Doyle were friends in real life! I did know that Doyle hated his Sherlock Holmes character so much that he killed him off.

Whether you are a Sherlock Holmes fan or just love a good mystery, I think you’ll enjoy The Sherlockian.