The Girl Who Played With Fire & More Books

I'm following up on my last post, regarding both a change in format to our book club and the movie version of the second book in the Millennium trilogy.

For starters, I'd like to hear what everyone has been reading over the summer. Feel free to comment on a book that you've liked (or didn't like) and why.

I've been reading a book called "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao", written by Junot Díaz. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2008. Very interesting read. It's ostensibly about the life of a Dominican boy born in New Jersey in the 1970s, but it's just as much a commentary about the lasting impact of Rafael Trujillo, the dictator who ruthlessly ruled the Dominican Republic from 1930 to 1961.

I also had a chance to see The Girl Who Played With Fire at the movies last week. As with the first movie, it makes a solid attempt to be true to the book, but it is hard to cram all of the details into a 2-hour film. The result, while visually interesting, is that the movie fell a bit flat, in my opinion. Not nearly as well-paced as the first film, and with a lot less depth overall.

Has anyone else seen it?

The Movie and Some Changes

Once again, it has been too long since we've had any activity on this blog, so I thought that I would take advantage of the fact that I finally got to see the movie version of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" to post here again.

I don't know who else has seen the movie, but I have to say, I felt that they did a really good job of representing the book, in all the unpleasant details. I'll look forward to seeing the next film in the series, which I believe is already showing in some theaters.

I've also heard that they're going to make an English version of the movie. Something tells me that it just won't be the same. But we'll see.

Anyway, in other news, the last time that Heather and I met with the board, we discussed making some changes to our format on this blog in order to get more activity and make it more interactive. One of the ideas is to include Skype conferencing to discuss books. We've also talked about including movies, especially when they are related to books that we've read!

Another idea, which I've wanted to get some feedback on, would be to free up everyone on the blog to discuss whatever you're reading, rather than choosing a specific book to read. That way, we can all hear about all the different books that people are reading, what they like and dislike, recommendations, etc.

I'd be interested to hear what you think, so please feel free to comment below or to post your own thoughts at any time.

Look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

-John

Checking in, and a new movie!

Hello Fellow CATI book readers,

We haven't had any activity on the blog for a while, so I thought that I'd check in to see how everyone is doing. Please feel to post at any time.

I've actually been busy reading a few other books over the past couple of weeks, including Anathem, by Neal Stephenson, and Victorian Firebrand, by Richard Reeves (still currently reading). I haven't gotten to our current book yet, but I'm interested to hear from those who have already finished it.

I also wanted to include this link to Rotten Tomatoes (a movie website), where "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" movie has gotten some very positive reviews. Has anyone seen the film? I'd be interested to find out how it compares to the book. I'm planning on seeing it in the near future.

Cheers,

John

And our next book is...

...The Girl Who Played With Fire. Back by popular demand, we'll be reading Stieg Larsson's second book in the Millennium Trilogy.

Let's take a week or so for everyone to get their hands on a copy, then feel free to start posting comments on the blog.

Happy reading!

-John

Reminder: Vote on the next book!

Hi! A quick post to remind everyone to vote on our next book. Just go to the blog and click on your choice. We'll have the results in soon.

Thanks,

John

Vote On The Next Book

Vote for the next book you would like to read with the CATI Book Club. Descriptions are listed below and the poll is in the right hand column.

Turing's Delirium ~ Edmundo Paz Soldan
The landlocked South American nation of Bolivia, now politically stabilized, has long alternated democratically elected presidents with coup-installed dictators. Those coups provide the backstory for Paz Soldán's propulsive sixth novel (after The Matter of Desire): the character of the dying president, known only as Montenegro, is drawn from the two reigns of Hugo Banzer Suárez, dictator from 1971 to 1978 and an elected president from 1997 until illness and civil unrest forced his resignation in 2000. In this ultracontemporary thriller, looming revolution is fomented not by a restless right-wing military, but by a tiny clique of cyberterrorists led by genius adolescent hacker Kandinsky, an instinctive though not particularly ideological foe of transnational corporations. Charged with exposing Kandinsky and his incognito cohorts is the secretive state security organization the Black Chamber, established by Montenegro in his dictator days to spy on leftists—and whose mysterious first director, Albert, may well be a figure from Hitler's Third Reich.

The Girl Who Played with Fire ~ Stieg Larsson
Stieg Larsson's seething heroine, Lisbeth Salander, once again finds herself paired with journalist Mikael Blomkvist on the trail of a sinister criminal enterprise. Only this time, Lisbeth must return to the darkness of her own past (more specifically, an event coldly known as "All the Evil") if she is to stay one step ahead--and alive. The Girl Who Played with Fire is a break-out-in-a-cold-sweat thriller that crackles with stunning twists and dismisses any talk of a sophomore slump. Fans of Larsson's prior work will find even more to love here, and readers who do not find their hearts racing within the first five pages may want to confirm they still have a pulse.


The Exception ~ Christian Jungersen
Iben, Malene and Camilla work in Copenhagen for the Danish Center for Information on Genocide. Even before Iben and Malene receive death threats with Nazi overtones, the three friends had been ostracizing the new librarian, Anne-Lise. Though evidence suggests Serbian war criminal Mirko Zigic has been sending the death threats, the paranoia and fear of the three friends converge to make Anne-Lise the target of rising suspicion. Victimizing is part of human nature, Anne-Lise's doctor tells her when she seeks advice, and the novel hauntingly pursues this idea to its deepest implications. Can people fighting genocide display the same traits as war criminals? What does it mean to be evil?

An end...and a new beginning

Hello fellow CATI bookworms!

I think that we have all finished, or nearly finished, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, so starting next week, please feel free to comment on all aspects of it. I'm interested to see what kind of discussion we get going.

In the meantime, I've been receiving suggestions for the next book to read. Heather is putting together a way to vote online, which we hope to have ready next week.

If you're having any technical issues posting or receiving updates, please let us know and we'll try to get them worked out.

Have a good day,

-John

End date for discussion

I see that posts and comments are increasing on the blog, which is great, so I'd like to set a date for everyone to finish the book. That way, we can discuss all the details without worrying about spoiling it for others.

How does February 15th sound?

My visit to Blomkvist's neighborhood / Comments on the translation

I've finally read enough of the book to post about it. I have a good American friend who lives in Stockholm. My husband and I visited her in summer of 2008, so I am able to picture a lot of the places in and near Stockholm that are mentioned in the book. Sergels Torg is mentioned once so far-that's the square in the heart of Stockholm. So much of Stockholm was strikingly beautiful, so I was shocked at how unattractive Sergels Torg was, even reminiscent of Communist block buildings. Ahlens department store, also in the book, is a very large store right next to Sergels Torg. In central Stockholm in general, there are a lot of upscale furniture shops with that modern look we attribute to Ikea. When we visited my friend, she lived in Karlaplan, a nice part of Östermalm in central Stockholm. Now she lives in Södermalm, the southern island of Stockholm proper-literally just down the street from our character Mikael Blomkvist!

Visiting my friend got me interested in Swedish culture and climate. When we were in Stockholm, it was very close to the summer solstice, or Midsommar as they call it, which is a big holiday celebrated by all. The tradition apparently is to get out of Stockholm and spend several days in a country cottage. Unfortunately we just missed Midsommar, but we did enjoy the long, long hours of sunlight. It didn't turn twilight until around 10:30 at night and never got completely dark. The descriptions in the book of small town Sweden have further convinced me to go up to Norrland, or somewhere north of Stockholm in Sweden and Norway the next time we visit (who knows when that will be). I think Stockholm at Christmas would also be charming, but all the Swedes I talked to advised me against going then, saying the only time to visit Sweden is in the summer. I'd get tired of the dark winters too, but I'd love to experience it for a brief time.

As for the English translation, a few things caught my eye. For one, the word "gaol" (as John pointed out) keeps throwing me off. The translator used British spelling, but the temperature is in Fahrenheit. I didn't realize that the British press actually uses both Fahrenheit and Celsius. Also, I guess the translator included a few Swedish words in order to infuse more foreignness into the story? For example, he used the word "skål", which means "cheers". You can figure that out by context, but it may not be immediately obvious. That reminds me of another book I read recently, Labyrinth, which had a whole lot of untranslated French in it. I could only pick out a few words in several sentences, so I was often lost. However, this book was originally written in English, so the effect was definitely to create a sense of foreignness, not to preserve some effect of the original.

Let's get started?

Happy 2010 to one and all!

Just checking in to see if anyone else has had a chance to start reading the book. I'm about 200 pages into it, but I'm going to hold off on comments until there are others on this journey as well.

Hope to hear from you soon.

-John