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"I haven't said a word to the bastard since the night I turned thirteen. I was strapped to the bed. It was my birthday present to myself."
~Page 646, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
Title: The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Author: Stieg Larsson
ISBN: 9781849162753
Publisher: Quercus/2009
Pages: 743
The last of the millennium trilogy seemed very long to me. Maybe because I am going through a reading slump. I really wanted to know so much more about Lisbeth Salander yet my reading was pretty slow. This has more narration than action. And tries to tie all the loose ends about Salander.
Starting from where The Girl Who Played With Fire left off, it makes the reader yearn to save her life and protect Salander. She is seriously injured and is in the hospital with no visitors allowed. And she is also accused of couple of murders. In this novel, we learn how much wrong has been done to her since she was 12 years old, a mere girl. All this to save her father from being exposed and along with him, the nexus of certain government officials of Sweden.
Blomkvist along with well wishers of Salander is determined to save her from this nexus. We get to meet Dr. Teleborian, the evil doctor who is instrumental in locking up Salander.
Despite her isolation, and along with the help of her friends, we find Salander again in her elements. This novel has political undertones and of course the courtroom scene is such that one can't waver from it till the end.
I will say this again that Larsson has created memorable character in Lisbeth Salander and not only her, his depiction of the evil characters is also very good. I say Lisbeth Salander is not going to die in the mind of the readers for a very long time to come.
Your assignment this week, if you choose to play along, is to ask your readers for recommendations. Choose a genre–any genre–and ask for recommendations. You can be as general or as specific as you like. Consider it as an “I’m looking for….”
The second part of the assignment is to write a list of recommendations and share them with your readers. Choose a genre–any genre–and share your list of favorites. I think of this as “If you’re looking for….”
“I’m looking for….”
I read varied genres, but somehow I can't read YA much or fantasy. Can anyone recommend some good books on the above genres? I would really appreciate that.
“If you’re looking for….”
I read a lot of Crime Fiction. So one can check my archives for that. But there are some authors I have read before I started blogging. I would like the lovers of crime fiction to check out Erly Stanley Gardner. His Perry Mason books are very very good. The courtroom scenes are superb and the lanky detective Paul Drake is very memorable. Just find hid books and start reading NOW.
Please highlight one of your favorite books and why you would consider it "literary."
I have been reading a lot of Crime fiction for the past two years. However, I used to read varied genres and still do. Literary fiction and classic literature have always been on my reading list. (Despite my current reading slump, I have many of those books lined up on my tbr pile).
How does one highlight only one literary fiction when there are too many to recommend? Out of some of the literary fiction I read in 2010, I recommend the following. Do check out the review to know why I recommend it.
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She said she wanted to be like the trees, that she had read they were most trusting of creatures because they put their roots down in one place, knowing they'd be there for their entire lives."~Page 41
Title: the Language of Trees
Author: Ilie Ruby
ISBN: 978-0061898648
Publisher: Avon HarperCollins/2010
Pages:339
One only has to look at the trees to learn all about roots, being totally grounded or be down to earth. Every part of a tree speaks to us. Reaches out to us. This novel too does that for the reader. Yet we find the novel in the realms of what is nowadays called magical realism. Roots (of ones own self) and flying (that of the mind) go hand in hand.
Grant Shongo is back to his roots in Canandaiga, to deal with his broken heart. His wife has left him and he knows that only solace he will get is by coming back to his childhood home. He also knows that his Seneca blood will not let him rest until he deals with a past tragedy. The spirit of a young boy, haunts him.
Melanie and her sister are unable to get over the death of their younger brother, Luke, which happened more than a decade ago. Almost eveyone who had been connected with Luke, has not been able to get over it. Then Melanie disappears all of a sudden leaving her boyfriend, Lion and their newly born son, Lucas...
Echo O'Connell, too comes back to the place she calls home after 15 years. When she meets with Grant again, she knows that, she can't go back, leaving her first love. But before both can find love love again, they have to face the past, the spirits of the place, the whisperings of the trees. Echo has to let Grant know, what he really is. Only then the healing can overcome the past tragedy, the spirit may leave to rest eternally.
How the lives of Grant, Echo, Melanie are connected by a spirit? Why is Luke not ready t leave yet? The secondary charracters are all essential for the story and have been well etched out by the author. I really loved the language in the Language of Trees, both literally and figuratively.
Yesterday I finished the Millennium trilogy. The first two books I had read as soon as I started them. However, the third one, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest took me while. I am on a reading slump and this is my 6th book since the beginning of September 2010. In the beginning of the year, I had planned to read 150 books in 2010 like in 2009 but I am not sure if I will touch 100 books although I have read 86 books till date. 14 more sound daunting with my reading slump.And I could read that number of books in a month!
Anyways, coming back to the third of the Millennium trilogy, I read it rather slowly but when the courtroom scene started, I couldn't put it down.
Follow Friday, is hosted by ParaJunkee, Book Blogger Hop, is hosted by Jennifer (Crazy-For-Books), and
Follow Friday 40 and over is hosted by Java
Parajunkee asks: Who are your favorite authors??
Too many to name!
Jennifer asks: "What are your feelings on losing followers? Have you ever stopped following a blog?"
It doesn't really matter much. I don't count my followers and I follow via google reader, not via google connect. And yes, I have stopped following many.
I’ve seen many bloggers say that what draws them to certain books or authors is good writing, and what causes them to stop reading a certain book or author is bad writing. What constitutes good writing and bad writing to you?
This is a multi-layered question. What is good for many might be bad for some and vice versa...What is good writing for me? It depends on the genre. If I am reading say Crime Fiction, I like it be able to keep my suspense till the end. Writing has to be edged, fast paced and engrossing. For literary fiction, background descriptions are important. For poetry, I like crisp also imaginative writing. And so on... for the fiction part, I would say good character development and plots are a must. Having said that, it also has to follow the norms of the language. Grammar, punctuations and sentence formations are very important...
Bad writing? Which is too flowery, bad language, repetitive, loose ends, and lack of character development, no plot to speak off. However, many a times, a badly written book gets to be bestseller!
What about you?
Title: On Human Bondage
Author: W. Somerset Maugham
ISBN: 055321392X
Publisher: Bantam Classics/1915
"Dr. Irwin sliced the brain into several sections, recovered one large bullet fragment and another smaller bullet jacket. Andrew placed those into plastic containers."
~~~Page 76
Mailbox Monday has moved over to Knitting and Sundries, for the month of November.
The murder of the Mayor of San Francisco’s daughter sets the stage for this intriguing and spellbinding crime thriller. Two police detectives, Jack Paige and Casey Ford are assigned to catch a cold-blooded rapist and killer. In this gritty, realistic tale of homicide, unrelated mysteries of two murderers seem to come together and make little sense. What does a man rotting away behind the stench-enclosed walls of Angola Penitentiary have to do with an evil and cruel rapist and killer now on the run from California to Texas? What is the relationship to the killing of the Mayor’s daughter?
