Edinburgh Napier University

Category: Biography

Arthur Conan Doyle

Arthur Conan Doyle

All the clues are there in the first few pages: the narcotics, the torpor, the scratching on the violin, the trusty but plodding assistant. It’s not long before we’re given a treatise on “the science of deduction and analysis” and the use of the word “elementary”. This is our first introduction to the world’s most famous consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, who made his debut in the long story, A Study in Scarlet, published in 1887.

Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes caught the reading public’s attention with his cold, calculating logic, and he went on to solve many seemingly insoluble cases, always accompanied by his loyal companion, Dr Watson.

So popular is Sherlock Holmes that he has been reincarnated in film many times over, most notably by Basil Rathbone, and more recently by Robert Downey Jnr, and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Doyle’s Life

But he is, of course, a fictional creation, spun from the imagination of Edinburgh doctor, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. After graduating from Edinburgh university and studying in Vienna, Conan Doyle set up his own medical practice in the south of England. It didn’t do well, and to supplement his income he turned his hand to creative writing. His Holmes adventure stories were immediately successful and ensured that Conan Doyle kept writing them until they ran into several volumes.

To Conan Doyle’s lifelong chagrin, the success of the Sherlock Holmes stories overshadowed his other literary work. Who has heard of his 14th century knight, Sir Nigel, or his Napoleonic war hero, Brigadier Gerard? History was Conan Doyle’s great passion, and he wrote many fictional and non-fiction accounts of great historical events, and published his own psychic research into spiritualism.

It’s Conan Doyle’s birthday today. A pub named after him still stands on the corner of Picardy Place, the street in which he was born. Why not pop in and raise a toast? Better still, log into LibrarySearch and discover his many stories, and the films, for yourself:

https://napier.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=44NAP_INST:44NAP_ALMA_VU1

Photo source Sandip Roy

 

By Lesley McRobb

Have a love for reading about authors, you can read about Charles Dickens 

 

Celebrating Edward de Bono

Celebrating Edward de Bono

To celebrate Edward de Bono’s birthday on the 19th May here is a short post about his life.

Who is Edward de Bono?

Edward de Bono was a Maltese/British businessman, born on this day in 1933. He made it his mission to teach his thinking methods to governments and businesses around the world. He wrote 84 books that have been translated into 46 languages, but he’s perhaps best known for his “six thinking hats”.  These six hats – or different aspects of thinking – are colour coded to denote control, creativity, feelings, positivity, caution and factual information.

De Bono believed that by learning how to use these different ways of thinking, we can all become more effective and work with greater collaboration and communication in our personal and professional lives. It was his passion to prove that creative and effective thinking can be taught and learned using structures and systematic techniques.

While his business methods became hugely influential, de Bono was not without his detractors. Some academic critics say his ideas weren’t tested and don’t stand up to scrutiny when they are.

Lateral Thinking

When Edward de Bono coined the term “lateral thinking” in 1967, he wasn’t inventing a new concept. Instead, it was just a different way of looking at an old one.  De Bono took his inspiration from the behaviour of self-organizing information systems and insisted that the best thinking didn’t have to be linear, sequential or logical, but could also move sideways. The term lateral thinking became so popular that it soon entered the Oxford English Dictionary.

Why not make up your own mind? We have his full range of titles which you’ll find by logging into LibrarySearch.

Check out: Teach yourself to think, Simplicity or The happiness purpose to begin opening your mind.

To mark his birthday, I’m going to dip into one or two of his books. I’m new to this thinking lark, so I’m going to start off with the basics:

By Lesley McRobb

Read more on our blog by Lesley like International Haiku Poetry Day

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