Sometimes I live in my head and in my own little world so much that I miss when really good books hit the shelves. That happened with the Millenium series: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. The first, TGWTDT, was published in the U.S. in 2008, but I didn't hear about it till last year. I have been seeing the movies at the library but debated whether to read the books first, so never picked them up. I'm so glad I waited! All I'd heard was "they're really good but violent." Yes, on both accounts but I guess I read enough true crime and mysteries that the violence didn't bother me (that much). It is fiction after all.
I'm sure the movie will be good, but this first book in the series is excellent! I stayed up last night reading it till 1:30 then finished it this morning. The heat is back here; in fact, the temp got to 101 yesterday in Phoenix, but the mornings are cool. So, I took my coffee and book out by the pool and finished this book this morning. The Girl Who Played with Fire is waiting for me at the library. I will have to go get it so I can start reading it tonight.
In a tiny nutshell (a pistachio shell), Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander pull off the impossible in Sweden in a plot of corporate corruption and family scandal that keeps you turning the pages. The books were written by the late Stieg Larsson in Swedish and translated to English, which was smooth. No problems there other than the consonant-laden proper nouns that I pretty much glossed over. The only thing that tripped me up were the "weird" spellings, like gaol, skilfull, realised, stuff like that. No biggie, but I noticed.
Oh, and aquavit. I had to look that up since the characters drank it all through the book. According to that authoritative source Wikipedia, "It's a traditional flavoured spirit that is principally produced in Scandanavia, where it was already being produced in the 15th century. Akvavit gets its distinctive flavor from spices and herbs, most often caraway. It typically contains 40% alcohol by volume." Whoa jack! That's some powerful juice.
Have you read these books? Have you seen the movies? Love 'em? Hate 'em? Do tell.
Book Read: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Author: Stieg Larsson
ISBN: 978-0-307-45454-6
I just started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I have to admit it's a page turner. I was seeing it everywhere, and kind of got sick of seeing it so often and didn't want to read it. Ridiculous reasoning of course. After friends telling me Larrson knows how to spin a story well, I finally gave in.:)Thanks for explaining the Akavit.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear you like the book, too! Once I heard about it, I started seeing it everywhere too. It sounded good and I'm so glad I finally picked it up!
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