The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

Read through Panama City Beach library. Set in Sweden, it's a murder mystery, family saga, love story and financial intrigue. Mikael Blomkvist is a journalist hired to get to the bottom of a young girl's disappearance, and Lisbeth Salander, the 24 yr old computer hacker who assists him with the investigation. It was reommended on Book Browse,

The financial intrigue part did not appeal to me, nor the computer antics used to uncover fraud and corruption. Mikael was innocuous enough to sort of glide through this story, whereas Lisbeth was a very interesting character, and I enjoyed the murder mystery part of the story. Interestingly enough, there were a number of murders, but the young girl Blomkvist was searching for ended up alive on a sheep ranch in Australia. 

To me, there are some things I had trouble with.  First, Lisbeth is brutally raped near the beginning of the book, but it appears to have had no affect on her, as she seduces Mikael quite casually shortly after they meet. Mikael has a girlfriend(?) who is married, and everyone knows about the other.  Is this Swedish casual sex, or a way to get lots of readers?

Stieg Larsson, the author, was murdered shortly after delivering the manuscripts for the second and third novels in this series. THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE will be published next summer.  Well, maybe, but I doubt it....

Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

I arrived in PCB on Monday, December 15 and on Dec. 16 I wasted no time in getting to the library to reserve all the books I had listed for reading while 'm here in Florida. I was sitting at the computer, entering my hold requests when I heard a member mention the book title above.  The librarian said she had that particular book in her hand right at that moment: she was in the process of phoning someone who had requested the book.  Just at that time, I realized I should give the library my new phone number, and went up to the desk to do that, and saw that the person the librarian was calling was me! Someone had returned the book to the library, I had entered my hold request on it, another person had requested it, and I was being called- all within moments, it seemed.

The book's title comes from the society that was inadvertently formed during the German occupation of the Channel Islands during the war, and from a pie that a book club member prepared for the club- with unusual ingredients because of food rations. One of the members contacts a newspaper columnist in England one year after the war, and the book continues from there.  The whole book is written in letters between the columnist, her agents, her new friends in Guernsey, and so on.  I didn't know the Germans had occupied Guernsey, so it was interesting from that aspect.

I'd give it three stars.

Books to Read

I've been reading books off my own shelves- Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin, Seth's An Equal Music, because I don't want to buy anything before Christmas and I have a list all prepared for Panama City.

Blind Assassin was the first Atwood I've read in well over ten years- I've been saying I don't like her- she requires too much from the reader.  I still think so, but in a different way.  BA had some far-out, almost science fiction stuff- which I skipped but the basic story of the two sisters, Lily and Laura, was fascinating, and I enjoyed the way MA dropped a little hint now and then as to what was actually unfolding amidst all those pronouns- who is "she" and who is "he"? She also writes with a good sense of humor- I loved the way their housekeeper uses platitudes almost incessantly in her speech.

Shirley has loaned me Lady Oracle" so I'll read that in the spring when I am recovering from my feast of reading from PCB library.

Sandra loaned me Colleen McCullough's A Creed For the Third Millenium", but it's just not my thing.  Again it takes place in the future, and it's just too bleak a landscape for me!

An Equal Music is a book I've had for a few years, and tried to read but couldn't get into.  We'll see how it goes this time.

I've read six out of eight stories by Alice Munro - they're all right, but I'm just not a short story person.  I like to really get into a book, savour it, become part of it.  Short stories are too brief and minimal for me, although I very much admire the craft of the writer.

Rush Home Road

I ended up being disappointed with this novel. The first 200 pages were great, but as disaster piled upon disaster, I began to feel manipulated, and frankly, bored by it all. There were just too many coincidences, some unrealistic plot developments, and too much treacle. The novel is worth reading for the historical aspects of a black community in Southern Ontario, the prejudice towards them, and most particularly the women. Lori's second novel, The Girls, was infinitely better, and far more believable.

Wally Lamb!

Wally Lamb has a new book coming out this week: THE HOUR I FIRST BELIEVED. 800 pages! I'll have to put it on my Christmas List!

Sunday, October 26

It's a wet, cold day, so I'm reading...absolutely immersed in RUSH HOME ROAD, by Lori Lansens. It's set in the Chatham area of Ontario, with two story lines centred around Adelaide Shadd, who is fifteen when she's locked out of her parents' home the day the news arrives that her younger brother has been drowned. Go forward some fifty years or more to young Sharla Cody, child of a neglectful mother, who finds a home, love and security with Addy, now living in a run-down trailer park.

Lori wrote THE GIRLS, one of my favorite novels, and one I've passed on to many others.

Seeing THE STONE ANGEL the other night, and re-reading the novel a week earlier, reminded me of what a great writer Margaret Laurence was. I'm off to Skate Canada this week with Shirley, so I'm taking along THE DIVINERS with me.

I also recently finished Joseph Boyden's THROUGH BLACK SPRUCE, set in Moosonee, Toronto, Montreal and New York. He's an amazing story-teller....not sure the ending was the best, but, as often happens, I need to re-read it. When I enjoy reading a novel as much as this one, I tend to read it more quickly - as you might a letter - and I need to go back and savour it a little more.