DECEMBER

Yes it's December. For the first time all year I have not finished reading the Blogosphere Book Circle book of the month. But I am halfway through. (When I ordered it from the library I was 26th in the queue!)

The November book was The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Swedish author Stieg Larsson.The book was translated to English. In Sweden it was called "Men who hate Women".

Synopsis (from Wikipedia): A middle-aged journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, publishes the magazine Millennium in Stockholm. In the opening courtroom drama, Blomkvist loses a libel case brought by accused Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström, and this has serious repercussions for the future of Millennium. In disgrace, Blomkvist agrees to be hired by Henrik Vanger, the aged former CEO of the Vanger companies, owned by a wealthy but disfunctional dynasty. The old man offers not only to help his financially strapped magazine, but also to give him information to prove that Wennerström is corrupt. Officially, he is to spend a year writing the Vanger family history.

Blomkvist's real mission, however, is to solve a cold case—the disappearance, some forty years previously, of Vanger's great-niece Harriet when she was sixteen.

My favourite character is Lisbeth Salander, an indie punk. A violent and antisocial but extremely intelligent hacker and researcher, specialized in investigations of persons.

This book is totally not my genre - it is essentially a murder mystery with a reasonable bit of violence thrown in but I am loving it.

What really intrigued me was that the author wrote this book and two following books in the Millenium trilogy (as well as notes/synopses for more books) but died before they were published. Post-humously he has sold millions of copies. There has been a lot of controversy around his will - he only left an unsigned will leaving everthing to the Communist Workers Party in Sweden but as it wasn't signed the courts did not recognise it. They ruled that his estate (including future royalties) went to his brother and father. His long time partner received nothing. There's probably a book in there somewhere.

Our December book is "Love in the Time of Cholera". Once again there was a big waiting list for it at the library and although it is now sitting next to my bed I fear it will be required back at the libary before I have a chance to read it. So my December book might get read over the hoiliday break, perhaps.

Happy reading.