Book Review - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

I have a confession to make - I tend not to read the books that are SUPER popular. I have no idea what has caused me to develop this particular character flaw, but I have muddled along without really having reason to reexamine my world view in relation to SUPER popular books. Until now. I had not planned to read this book until it was selected by our book club and for the first hundred pages or so, I felt like I would have been totally fine with never picking the book up. Then it happened...all the strings came together and I could not put this book down (seriously - I read 400 pages in one night)!!! The two main characters are a contrast that work well together. Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist picking up the pieces after a libel suit, and Lisbeth Salander, a young tattooed brilliant computer hacker - who was inspired by the authors musings on what would have happened to Pippi Longstockings as she became an adult, become entwined in resolving the decades old disappearance of a girl from a prominent family.

(From Publishers Weekly)
Starred Review. Cases rarely come much colder than the decades-old disappearance of teen heiress Harriet Vanger from her family's remote island retreat north of Stockholm, nor do fiction debuts hotter than this European bestseller by muckraking Swedish journalist Larsson. At once a strikingly original thriller and a vivisection of Sweden's dirty not-so-little secrets (as suggested by its original title, Men Who Hate Women), this first of a trilogy introduces a provocatively odd couple: disgraced financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist, freshly sentenced to jail for libeling a shady businessman, and the multipierced and tattooed Lisbeth Salander, a feral but vulnerable superhacker. Hired by octogenarian industrialist Henrik Vanger, who wants to find out what happened to his beloved great-niece before he dies, the duo gradually uncover a festering morass of familial corruption—at the same time, Larsson skillfully bares some of the similar horrors that have left Salander such a marked woman. Larsson died in 2004, shortly after handing in the manuscripts for what will be his legacy.

One Good Dog by Susan Wilson - Book Review

Submitted by Kathy E.

Available March 2, 2010!!!

LOVED IT! i like that the guy had the business world by the tail, but no intact personal relationships.
i hated that the dog was born into a life of illegal dog fighting.
i LOVED that these two "losers" in life found each other when they didn't know what they really needed!
man meets dog, dog meets man and i won't tell you the rest of the story, read it, it is great!

From Publisher's Website:

“One Good Dog is a wonderful novel: a moving, tender, and brilliantly crafted story about two fighters—one a man, one a dog— hoping to leave the fight behind, who ultimately find their salvation in each other. Susan Wilson’s clear and unflinching style is perfectly suited for her story that strips away the trappings and toys we all hide behind, and exposes our essential need to give and accept love in order to thrive.”—Garth Stein, New York Times bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain

Adam March is a self-made “Master of the Universe.” He has it all: the beautiful wife, the high-powered job, the glittering circle of friends. But there is a price to be paid for all these trappings, and the pressure is mounting—until the day Adam makes a fatal mistake. His assistant leaves him a message with three words: your sister called. What no one knows is that Adam’s sister has been missing for decades. That she represents the excruciatingly painful past he has left behind. And that her absence has secretly tormented him all these years. When his assistant brushes off his request for an explanation in favor of her more pressing personal call, Adam loses it. And all hell breaks loose.

Adam is escorted from the building. He loses his job. He loses his wife. He loses the life he’s worked so hard to achieve. He doesn’t believe it is possible to sink any lower when he is assigned to work in a soup kitchen as a form of community service. But unbeknownst to Adam, this is where his life will intersect with Chance.

Chance is a mixed breed Pit Bull. He’s been born and raised to fight and seldom leaves the dirty basement where he is kept between fights. But Chance is not a victim or a monster. It is Chance’s unique spirit that helps him escape and puts him in the path of Adam.

What transpires is the story of one man, one dog, and how they save each other—in ways they never could have expected.