Hot Read

While, I love to cook, taste wine and experience fun adventures with my husband, my true "passion" is the written word.  I can't remember a time when I didn't have a book by my side.  Some of my earliest memories are of a wonderful "old" library in the California Bay Area (probably Castro Valley or Hayward), where I would experience the freedom of my own imagination putting life into someone else's creation (if I close my eyes and think back, I can still "smell" the ink on the pages).  Nothing allows me more pleasure than a stack of books and the time to read.  For my recent birthday, I asked my husband to buy me a novel by Stieg Larsson, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  I didn't know much about the author, but I knew it was crime fiction (my favorite genre) and the title had me hooked from the start.  I finished the 465 pages in just under a week (what took me so long???).....it was riveting material.  The story is actually a trillogy so I went immediately (did not pass "GO") to Barnes and Nobles and bought The Girl Who Played with Fire and I have preordered, through Amazon, the final in the series The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.  One of the two main characters is a grown-up version of Pippi Longstocking (actually Larsson based his creation on the idea of Pippi as an adult....a girl with ADD and very much on the fringe)....Lisbeth Salander is the hero that I have been waiting for all my life.  Very strange, introverted and ready to kick some....well you know the rest.  But, she is also desperately searching for something.....maybe love and acceptance....or maybe not...hmmmmm.  Mikael Blomkvist is the protagonist that is the yin to her yang.  Along with Larsson's eccentric characters frought with indiosyncracies, the story also grabs you and slaps you awake.....one that you can't put down.....I promise.....go out and get your copy today!!!

As a side note, these books were published posthumously (to my deep regret) because Stieg Larsson passed away in 2004 (heart attack in his early 50's).  They were first published in Sweden and then translated into English by Reg Keeland.  The reading is interresting, beyond the crime mystery, because the first novel is set in Sweden and allows the reader a great understanding of the political climate, the culture and the geographic terrain.  For those of you that believe in the mysteries of life, the prologue mentions Pensacola, FL just briefly (my hometown) and then never returns to the states......dodododododododo....