“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson

My sister works at Barns and Noble and finally I asked her about the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It was a book that everyone seemed to be talking about but no one was staying anything. When I asked my sister all she said was that everyone who reads it likes it, there is a lot of Swedish words in it, and you have to make it though the first hundred pages before you are hooked. Then I asked her what it’s about and she finally admitted that she didn’t know.

Well everything that she said was true. A lot of Swedish and the first 100 pages are crucial but once you get through it, instant favorite. Luckily I have had the privilege to spend a significant amount of time in Sweden and so I was fairly familiar with pronunciations and locations but at times it was still difficult for me.

The story is about a rogue background researchers/ security/ private investigator, named Lisbeth, who meets up with a reporter who is working on a private investigation into a missing family member of a Swedish corporate mogul. The duo ends up uncovering the truth about a series of sadistic murders that happened to young women over the last sixty years. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo takes a very deep look into the personal lives of both Lisbeth and Bloomkvest and uncovers the interesting tales behind their family life, values, finances and romances.

I absolutely loved this story and I am looking forward to reading The Girl who Played with Fire.

Must read. 

“The Minority Report” by Philip K Dick

The Minority Report I loved. So I am an inconsistent fan of Philip K Dick. I really did not enjoy the last read A Scanner Darkly but Minority Report was an amazing short story and went deep into the philosophical quandary of pre-crime and the existence of a minority report if pre-cogs did exist. It was very good, and I must admit that I was a fan of the movie. This short story went into a deeper than the movie into the concepts outlined in the movie. The short story was roughly 50 pages long action packed and wonderful. I loved this short story. Must read for every. It will at least offer food for thought for everyone reading. 

“A Scanner Darkly” by Philip K Dick

Okay, so I have been a bit behind on writing about the books that I have been reading. Normally I do my summary and opinions right away to help reinforce the book into my memory bank. I have been pretty busy the last couple of months so I have been failing on this task, but I have still managed to read a couple of things. I will go ahead and write about them now and hope that my memory serves me correctly.

A Scanner Darkly is a book that I have been trying to read for years. After reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? I was convinced that I was going to be a complete Philip K Dick fan. This book however was not one of my favorites. It took me forever to get through and the ending disappointed me. It was kind of difficult for me to follow and then the big ending where all is revealed, didn’t happen because I was still trying to piece together what was happening for the character to get to this point.

A Scanner Darkly is about a cop that has become addicted to Substance D. His department begins to do an investigation on him concerning the drug and at the same time he is assigned a task to investigate a mystery person in the Substance D world. We find out early on that he is this person, but his department does not do. In this book we watch the mental deterioration as Substance D literally rips his brain into two. Amazing concept; but I failed to understand it in its entirety.