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The Girl Who Played with the Hornet’s Dragon

May 25, 2010 in book review, international, Uncategorized by Claire | 3 comments

Stieg Larsson’s third and final book in the Lisbeth Salander series has just been published and is, predictably, #1 on Amazon’s bestselling list (I just checked: you get only the most current news on bookstorepeople.com).  The New York Times just ran an amazing piece on the late author and the battle over his estate, which I recommend you read if you’re interested in his back story or you just like to see lots of photos of healthy looking Swedes in little round glasses.  (Are little round glasses a requirement for Swedish citizenship?  I’m just wondering.)

Anyway, all the real life intrigue you could want is in that piece: the mystery of whether Larsson’s girlfriend really ghost-wrote the book (she was a better writer than he was, according to some of those interviewed), whether his death was an assassination because he was a well-known journalist with a crusade against the right wing, and whether a fourth book is forthcoming (a large part of it supposedly has been written–but whether by Stieg or his girlfriend is up for debate).

Me, I’m just going to talk about the books, all of which I’ve read.  I think I mentioned in my post about Italy that my husband scored a copy of the European edition of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest over our vacation there.  (Side note: it’s “hornet’s nest” in the American edition.  Anyone care to debate where the apostrophe should go?)  I grabbed it and read it before he could (which gives you a fair amount of insight into our relationship and, yes, he is long-suffering), for one reason and one reason only:

Those three books are pretty much the best vacation reading ever.

Which isn’t to say I love them.  I don’t actually.  I have huge problems with all three books, the main one being that while Lisbeth Salander is a fantastic, brilliant, fascinating character, no one else in the books is memorable.  Really.  Even the “hero,” Mikael Blomkvist, never came alive for me.  He’s handsome, I guess, because every woman in the books wants to sleep with him, and he’s a player because he goes ahead and sleeps with them all, and he, like Larsson, is a crusader against evil conspiracies . . .  but I never believed in him.  Not the way I did in Lisbeth.  Which, by the way, is why I liked the second book best and the third one least: the second one had the most Lisbeth, the third one the least amount of her.

As for all the other characters . . . I don’t know.  They just didn’t make an impression on me.  Blomkvist’s long term girlfriend is married to a guy who’s bisexual and they all seem okay with the various relationships which is kind of cool (and seems very European to me) but I never got a good feel for her.  She was smart and tough: I know because Larsson basically tells you so.  But I didn’t care about her, or about almost anyone in the book except Lisbeth.  But I LOVED her. Read the rest of this entry »

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Garrison & Garrison Books – San Miguel de Allende, Mexico

May 23, 2010 in book review, bookstore, essay, international, translation, travel, used books by Kim | 6 comments

San Miguel de  Allende is the Mexico of dreams.  Old world charm without the glitz of the beach resorts or the overwhelming problems of the border towns.  It’s an ex-pat haven, approximately 10% of the population are foreigners, mostly Northern Americans, but the ex-pats seem to adopt the Mexican culture rather than attempt to change it.  It’s a city of culture:  music, art, religious ceremonies, great food, and, of course, literature.  The library serves as place to lend books and a community center.   The week we visited there was a classical guitar concert, a literary lecture and a Tennessee Williams play.

San Miguel is a town to meander around.  The colonial buildings open into court yards containing stores, restaurants and galleries.  And if the door is closed?  So much the better because the doors of San Miguel are beautiful, so much so there is a book, aptly named The Doors of San Miguel de Allende, by Robert De Gast, documenting them.

Wandering through the streets, we stumbled upon Garrison & Garrison Books, an English language used bookstore.  It’s fairly tiny store with about 8 bookshelves, a book table and a few tattered but comfy chairs.  The flyers for ex-pat events showed the store was a bit of a community center itself.  The store offers the traveler a variety of literature, mystery or airplane reads.  There is also a selection of local interest books, among them said Doors book.  Before leaving for Mexico, I looked for Life in Mexico by Frances Calderon De La Barca the Scottish wife the Spanish Ambassador from Mexico from 1839-1845, a book of lively letters, but was told that it was out of print.  It was sitting on the table in Garrison & Garrison, I was thrilled until I noticed the size.  It was a doorstop book that I couldn’t imagine carrying around all day and then home in  my luggage.  Every time I was in a taxi that drove by Garrison  & Garrison, I was tempted to ask the driver to pause just for a minute while I ran in to buy a book the weight of a newborn child.

Recommended Reading for San Miguel de Allende

Not willing to endure an aching back from hauling around Life in Mexico, I did read two books that added flavor to my visit.  To make progress on the Essay Challenge, I chose DH Lawrence’s Mornings in Mexico.  Traveling in the San Miguel area while reading Lawrence’s essays created a dialogue between what I was seeing and what I was reading.  The essays were written in the 1920s and described a world that is much changed 80 years later, but there was an essence of the place that Lawrence experienced and I sensed.  The courtyard life Lawrence describes in “Corasmin and the Parrots” as he ponders evolution is very Read the rest of this entry »

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Going for a (Maximum) Ride

April 16, 2010 in bookstore, international, travel, young adult by Claire | 6 comments

James Patterson, you owe me

It started in the airport.

No, I take that back.  It started weeks before that, at the school library, where my teenager (for reasons I never was clear on) checked out the first book in Patterson’s Maximum Ride series.  And then the second and the third and the fourth . . .

Note to anyone interested in reading them: they don’t end.  They just keep coming.

There’s a reason for that.  Patterson isn’t an author the way, say, I’m an author, or even that a big name like Michael Chabon is an author.  He’s a factory.  He freely admits he works with co-authors on most of the books he writes: he comes up with the idea and the outline and someone else connects the dots, adhering to his style.  According to the New York Times article which describes this process, “since 2006, one out of every 17 novels bought in the United States was written by James Patterson.”

Why are his books so successful?  Well, I’ve started the first Maximum Ride and I can tell you that everything we’ve talked about on this blog as far as the direction kids’ books are moving in is there to the nth degree: constant action, simple language, direct dialogue, exaggerated peril . . .   This isn’t The Secret Garden.  This is hardboiled, exciting and intense thriller-style fiction.  And my boys are eating it up.

Which brings me back to the airport.  So my teenage son is reading the Maximum Ride books and he gets my ten-year-old hooked on them too, right before we head off on our two-week spring break vacation.  My ten-year-old has read the first couple of books and we’ve downloaded another one onto the Kindle.  He’s also bringing a bunch of other books on the trip: my kids read more on vacation than the rest of the year combined.  (Mostly because they watch less TV on vacation than the rest of the year combined.)  His brother is packing the most recent Maximum Ride book, a hardcover called Fang, but there’s a book between the last one Will has and that one, which means there’ll be a gap in his reading. Read the rest of this entry »

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Best Gift for Readers – Politically Incorrect Books

December 14, 2009 in community service, gifts, international, memoir, politics by Kim | 2 comments

ClintonFlagFBI have been following the Clinton Book Shopand it’s owner manager, Rob Dougherty, for over a year now on Facebook and Twitter.  Rob is a strong vocal advocate for buying from your independent bookstore and local businesses, so his interests line up with the goal of Bookstore People.  Clinton Book Shop is in New Jersey, which is several thousand miles from me, so I haven’t visited the store, yet.  I have noticed on updates an interesting club, one I would love to join, called the Politically Incorrect Book Club.  It’s a sellout at Clinton with a waiting list to join.  The club is “committed to the belief that each individual is entitled to openly express their thoughts and perspectives without the fear of being dismissed.”  I think membership should be required of every politician, I nominate the California legislators to sign up first.

Knowing I was writing this post today, I pondered over what makes a book politically incorrect?  Is there a universal definition that people from various view points could agree upon?  Or is one person’s politically incorrect book someone else’s text?  What do you think?

The books Rob recommends touch on a wide variety of topics, from health care to religion to globalization to politics to foreign affairs, this group isn’t afraid to approach any significant topic.  If only the book group could meet via the Internet and we could all join!  Until then, pick up duplicate copies of a few of these books (Rob will be happy to send them to you), one for you and one for a gift, then meet and discuss the topic while respect the views of everyone at the table:

  • The Lives They Left Behind:  Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic,by Darby Penney, Peter Stastny, Lisa Rinzler
  • The Family:  The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power,by Jeff Shariet
  • The Limits of Power:  The End of American Exceptionalism,by Andrew J. Bacevich
  • The Soprano State:  New Jersey’s Culture of Corruption, by Rob Ingle and Sandy McClure
  • A Year Without “Made in China”:  One Family’s True Life Adventure in the Global Economy,by Sara Bongiorni
  • Bad Money, by Kevin Phillips
  • Palestine Peace, by Jimmy Carter
  • The Future of Freedom:  Illiberal Democracy at Home and Abroad,by Fareed Zakaria
  • A Letter to America,by David Boren

Remember, buy two books at an independent bookstore, send us the receipts and you’ll be eligible to win an ABA Gift Card!

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Translated Tuesday – Back to the Coast by Saskia Noort

July 28, 2009 in book review, international, press, translation by Kim | 1 comment

9781904738374Saskia Noort’s Back to the Coast grabbed me within the first three pages:  Maria is a single mom with two kids who just returned from having an abortion.  Before the reader has a chance to empathize with Maria, the threatening letters arrive:         

The letterbox rattled and the mail landed on the floor with a soft thud. . . I hauled myself up and shuffled over to the door, where I picked up the damp pile of envelopes.  Two letters from the taxman, a bank statement, a reminder for my six-monthly dental check-up and a postcard.  A black-and-white photograph of cute pink baby feet.  Tiny feet smelling of little white lambs and baby oil, tiny feet I wanted to kiss and cuddle, tiny feet I was mourning.  What a horrible coincidence.  My womb was still throbbing with pain. . . I picked up the card with trembling fingers and caressed the crinkly toes, the delicate heels.  I swallowed the tears that welled up and turned over the card. 

Maria!  You’re a viper.  A slut.  You murdered your child.  You don’t deserve to have children.  You don’t deserve to have a life.  I’ve been watching your case for years.  Someone ought to punish you, whore!

I’ll be watching you.

 The threats quickly escalate causing Maria to rush to her sister’s for safety.  However, with all good thrillers, there isn’t an escape, just a turn in the plot. 

Back to the Coast takes place in Amsterdam and in a seaside village on the Dutch coast.  The book gives a reader a gentle view of the stereotypical free and easy lifestyle of Amsterdam with Maria, a mother largely unconcerned with a conventional life.  Maria sings in a band, her two children have different fathers, neither of whom she married, and she never turns down a drink.  However, her strong suits are love and compassion.  In contrast, Maria’s sister Ans represents the traditional, taciturn, stern attitude of the Dutch.  Her house is sterile.  Disapproval drips from her.  Her life is a series of filling obligations.  Read the rest of this entry »

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