The idea is delightfully simple: for 30 days, you post once a day in response to a book-themed question. That’s it. No essays, no footnotes, no need to summon the ghost of Shakespeare, just honest answers, curious reflections, and maybe a few cheeky confessions about your reading habits. I have decided to take part this year, and since I picked a month with 31 days (I know it would have made more sense to use a 30 day one) I am using March 1st to explain what I am doing.

Each day brings a new prompt: favourite characters, memorable endings, guilty pleasures, and the books that made you weep, rage, or fall in love with the written word. It’s a gentle nudge to celebrate your literary life, one post at a time.

So why not give it a go? Dust off your bookshelf, sharpen your wit, and join the challenge. Thirty days. Thirty questions. One slightly eccentric bookworm’s journey through the pages.

DAY 15. – A character who you can relate to the most.

If I had to choose the literary character I relate to most, it would almost certainly be Sherlock Holmes. My relentless pattern‑spotting, my inability to leave a puzzle unsolved, and my quiet suspicion that most people are playing life on “easy mode” all push me firmly into Holmes territory. Not the deerstalker‑hat, pipe‑smoke, Victorian‑fog Holmes, but the sharper, modern incarnation—the one who proudly calls himself a “high‑functioning sociopath” while simultaneously revealing more heart than he’d ever admit. Now, I’m not claiming to be Holmes. I don’t keep severed ears in the fridge (not after the incident in ’06), and I’ve yet to be chased across Wrexham by a criminal mastermind. Or have I? (What happens in the King’s stays in the King’s).

Holmes has that infuriating habit of noticing everything, dust on a shoe, a frayed cuff, the faint ghost of yesterday’s cigar. I relate perhaps a little too strongly. My mind, like his, insists on running at full tilt even when the situation absolutely does not require it. Someone tells a simple story, and I’m already reconstructing the unseen context, motivations, and likely future consequences. It’s not showing off; it’s just how the wiring works. A blessing when writing, lecturing, or unravelling symbolism… and a curse when I’m simply trying to enjoy a quiet pint.

Holmes notices what others miss. I notice what others avoid. A shift in tone. A hesitation. A symbol tucked into the corner of a painting. A ritual gesture someone didn’t realise they made. I’m not looking for these things, they simply arrive, uninvited, like over‑eager guests at a feast. Brilliant for storytelling, ceremony, and creative work. Less brilliant when someone says, “Don’t overthink it,” and I’ve already overthought it six layers deep.

Holmes famously keeps humanity at arm’s length, not out of cruelty, but because he finds the average person’s behaviour predictable, repetitive, and, dare I say it, boring. I wouldn’t go quite that far. I like people. I write for them, teach them, celebrate them. But I do understand Holmes’ quiet disdain for the mundane. Small talk feels like being forced to read the footnotes of a book I didn’t choose. Routine social scripts make me itch. And when someone proudly declares themselves “just normal,” I have to resist the urge to ask, “Why?” Normality is perfectly fine for others. For me, it’s like being handed a beige cardigan and told to enjoy the thrill.

Holmes spirals when he’s bored. He needs puzzles, mysteries, intellectual friction. I understand that intimately. Give me a creative challenge, a symbolic riddle, a myth to reinterpret, a ceremony to craft, my mind lights up like a forge. Leave me without stimulation, and I start mentally rearranging the universe just to keep myself entertained. This is why I write. Why I teach. Why I dive into mythic structures and Masonic symbolism. Why I can’t leave a half‑formed idea alone. Boredom is the enemy; curiosity is the cure.

So yes, of all the characters in literature, I’ve always related most to Mr Holmes.