TV - 2010 Fall Premieres

(Beware of the Spoiler Monster - I won't warn you again!)

Sunday Night:
Well, "The Gates" (ABC) wrapped up quite nicely, yet still managed to leave a few dangling leads.  Hopefully ABC will choose to bring this show back next summer.  I thoroughly enjoyed it during this past summer season!

Monday Night:
"Chuck" (NBC) - Hooray for the return of Chuck!  This was a great premiere episode, reminding us of why we love Chuck as he runs around the world searching for his mother.  Sarah is off being a spy, the CIA rebuilds the Buy More to use as a new undercover base and to entice Chuck to return to the game.  Suddenly Sarah's mission and Chuck's search cross paths and all hell breaks loose!  And apparently Ellie has a surprise...

The Event (NBC) - Intriguing new show about the event.  Or something.  We don't yet know what that means.  But I loves me some Jason Ritter, even with the scrappy-looking-beard-wannabe-thing!  The mixed-up order was a little confusing at first, but helped build the suspense. But the last few minutes were bang-up spectacular!!  Can't wait to see/learn more about this "Event" thing!

Recorded, but not yet watched - Castle, Gossip Girl (premiered last week).  This are both returning shows which I love, so I'm sure they'll be great.

Teaser Tuesday - The Girl who Played with Fire

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just:
* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title and author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their To Be Read (TBR) Lists if they like your teasers!


I've been so busy reading (and a few other things) that I haven't had much time to post updates, but I didn't want to miss out on TT! I've almost finished The Girl who Played with Fire, so my teaser comes from it again:

"During the journey the giant had handled her as if she weighed nothing at all. He ripped the tape off her mouth when the van stopped. He lifted her and carried her inside without the least effort and dumped her on the cement floor, paying no heed to her protests. When he looked at her his eyes were ice cold." -The Girl who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson.

Booking Through Thursday (1)

Today’s question is suggested by Mae.

“I couldn’t sleep a wink, so I just read and read, day and night … it was there I began to divide books into day books and night books,” she went on. “Really, there are books meant for daytime reading and books that can be read only at night.”
- ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera, p. 103.

Do you divide your books into day and night reads? How do you decide?

In truth, I had never thought of doing this before. And in reading through the responses I was fascinated that there were actually people who this!  I will sometimes be in the middle of multiple books at the same time and read whichever one happens to be closest to me at the time, but I had never considered having specific books for nighttime and daytime.

Although I do have very specific opinions about what music and songs are OK to listen to in the winter, and which ones are suitable for summer.  ;o)

What about you?  Do you divide your books into "read by day" and "read by night"?

Teaser Tuesday - The Girl Who Played With Fire

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their To Be Read (TBR) Lists if they like your teasers!

Here's mine:
"Reluctantly she came to the conclusion that it was no surprise he kept the drawer locked.  She did not like the situation, but she could not think of any immediate pretext for waking him and scaring the shit out of him." -The Girl who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Millennium Trilogy, by Stieg Larsson, Translated from Swedish to English by Reg Keeland
1. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 09.09.10 * * * *

As I've said before, I was not looking forward to reading this series.  I've heard the hype, everybody loves it, yada yada best book ever blah blah. But it just didn't sound like it was up my alley, so to speak, so I never picked it or borrowed it from the Library.  I just didn't care, and I didn't think I would enjoy it.

Boy, was I wrong!

This is a fascinating, complex, and extremely well written novel, filled with interesting and vibrant characters that you want to know more about.  It starts out slow - almost glacially slow - but that doesn't last long, thank goodness!

It starts with financial journalist and co-owner of the Millennium Magazine, Mikael Blomkvist, watching his career crumble to dust after losing a libel lawsuit.  When a stranger approaches with a job offer that may help clear his name and credibility, he reluctantly agrees to research a decades-old mystery - the disappearance of a young teen-age girl - under the guise of writing a biography of a prominent industrial family.  Mikael begins, not expecting to find anything that wasn't caught in the original investigation, but with the help of Lisbeth Salander he realizes that not everything is as it appears. She's a strange girl with tattoos, piercings, and a ton of issues - but she's also a genius, has a photographic memory, and is one of the best computer hackers alive.  Together they stumble on several clues that were never recognized as such at the time of the disappearance, and eventually their probings and questions start hitting too close to home and their own lives become endangered.


Larsson writes beautifully, (although I'm not sure how much of the flow is due to the original author and how much is due to the translator), and even the slow parts flow rather nicely.  There were several scenes that I wasn't really sure why they were included - hearing the details of Mikael's endless walks around the island and his shopping trips in the village weren't really strictly necessary, but I suppose they did contribute something to the general pacing of the novel.  Mikael spends months researching but not really learning anything, and wondering if he should just give up, and you do sort of feel his lethargy.  Once the pace of the story picks up though, it grabs you by the back of the neck and compels you to follow at breakneck speed, scrambling to keep up.  I stayed up far too late, too many nights in a row simply because I couldn't put the damn book down!


Larrson's writing skills are also evident in his creation of Lisbeth, a girl with so many contradictions, flaws, and annoying habits that one doesn't expect to like her at all.  She's ruthless and uncaring, and doesn't let anyone close to her.  Her sections of the story tend to be written in tense, short, machine-gun burst  sentences that I think give the reader a feeling of what it's like to be in her head.  Oddly, I came to love her part of the story the most.


Basically this was an amazing story where nothing is what is seems, everything and everyone are suspect, appearances are deceiving, and perspectives are vital to understanding.  What seems like a threat may just be a kindness, or the kind act a threat.  The novel explores themes of sexuality, crime, mental illness, friendship, and the damaging effects of neglect and violence against women.  It's not an easy read, and makes you really think about the story and the themes it represents.  This is not the type of book that I would typically re-read, which is why it only gets 4 stars, but this is definitely a story that should not be missed!


If you've read this book, please leave a comment below and tell me what you thought!

Currently Reading: that "Dragon" book.

If you're keeping track, then you know that I'm currently reading "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson.  I should finish it tonight and will be able to talk more about it after I'm done.  But, just a couple of side notes:

First, the majority of the story takes place on a fictional island (Hedeby Island), next to a fictional city (Hedestad) in Sweden, several hours north of Stockholm.  Much reference is made to various points on the island, and the small bridge to the mainland plays a pivotal role in the story.  Plus there's lots of discussion about what family member lives in which house on the island, which house has what views, and who lives next door to whom.  It would have been really nice if there had been a map of some sort to help keep it all organized. 
But wait!  In the original version, there WAS a map of both Hedestad, and Hedeby Island, but for some reason they were not included in the English translation of the novel.  However, the person who did the translation was kind enough to provide English versions of the maps online, and you can find out more about that and the maps over at Sallysfriends.net, which is a fun website devoted to the Millennium trilogy in general and Lisbeth Salander specifically.

Second, I am so glad that Sony Pictures cast Daniel Craig as journalist Mikael Blomkvist in the english language version of the movie, due out in late 2011.  I loves me some Daniel Craig!!

And third - I don't know how the hell they made this into a movie!  There's so much going on, that is seems like it would take hours to get it all in!  I think I may need to watch the foreign film before the American film is released, just to see how it turned out, and so I'll be able to compare the two films.

Have you read "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" or seen the Swedish film?  What are your thoughts?

Teaser Tuesday: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title and author, too, so that other Teaser Tuesday participants can add the book to their To Be Read (TBR) Lists if they like your teasers!

Here's mine:
"Now we come to the real reason I want to hire you.  I want you to find out who in the family murdered Harriet, and who since then has spent almost forty years trying to drive me insane."
--The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson.

The Mirror and the Mask: A Jane Lawless Mystery

The Jane Lawless Mystery Series, by Ellen Hart
1. Hallowed Murder 02.13.06
2. Vital Lies (TBR)
3. Stage Fright 02.17.06
4. A Killing Cure 02.28.06
5. A Small Sacrifice 02.28.06
6. Faint Praise 08.19.10 * * * *
7. Robber’s Wine 03.02.06
8. Wicked Games (TBR)
9. Hunting the Witch 03.03.06
10. The Merchant of Venus 03.06.06
11. Immaculate Midnight 03.07.06
12. An Intimate Ghost 03.08.06
13. The Iron Girl 03.17.06
14. Night Vision 02.13.07
15. The Mortal Groove 05.20.08
16. Sweet Poison 08.25.10 * * * *
17. The Mirror and the Mask 08.31.10 * * * *
18. The Cruel Ever After (TBR - Release Date 12.07.10)
(TBR = To Be Read)

The Mirror and the Mask begins on a cold February day, with Jane minding her own business.  Literally, she's at work, dealing with a busted water pipe in one of her restaurants, when a young woman comes in asking for a job.  Annie Archer is in town temporarily looking for her father who disappeared immediately after her mother's death years before.  Jane agrees to give her some temp work, and starts poking into Annie's past to see if she can find the missing father.

Cordelia turns out to be the lucky one who finds him, however.  Turns out Annie's father is a very wealthy business owner in the construction industry, married with two children, and a well-known philanthropist named Jack Bowman.  But something about the whole story feels off to Jane, and when Jack's second wife Susan is found dead at the bottom of the stairs in their home, Jane starts poking a little deeper to see if she can get to the truth.  There is the beginnings of an attraction between Jane and Annie, but Jane is still a little fragile in regards to relationships, and she isn't sure if she can trust Annie with her heart when Annie seems to be less than truthful with several points in her story.

In fact, it turns out that everyone is lying about something, whether it's an affair, an alibi, or their own name.  Both Annie and Jane are searching for answers, but to very different questions.  Who killed Susan?  Did Susan's son Curt finally snap and succeed in killing her (he may have tried once before!) Why did Jack abandon his first family and change his name?

As always, Author Ellen Hart provides plenty of questions, intrigue, and mystery for Jane and the gang to sort out.  This story was a little quieter and not quite as fast-paced as some in the series, and tended to focus more on Annie than on Jane, but all-in-all, a good read.  I gave it 4 stars.  Jane and the gang will be back in the 18th installment of the series titled "The Cruel Ever After" which will be released in just a few months in December 2010.

Next up - I've finally started "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."  People keep telling me that I'll like it, but for some reason I'm feeling some resistance to reading it - I've been avoiding picking it up for days.  But, I've started it, and I'll keep you posted.

TV - The Primetime Emmys

Apparently, I am the only person in the country who actually liked (LOVED would be the more appropriate word) Anna Paquin's dress. I know.  I'm wrong like that. 

Or maybe it was only the critics that hated her look.  The poll on The Huffington Post shows that (at this point, anyway) the majority liked it.

Discuss amongst yourselves...

Life - Anniversary

This post has nothing to do with reading or books.  Really, it doesn't.

Well, maybe sort of...

You see, today is the 10th Anniversary for my partner Bob & I.  We cannot legally marry in Oregon, but nevertheless we've been together for 10 years. Sometimes it seems like it's been much longer than that, and other times it feels much shorter, as if we just met last week.  But throughout this decade-long relationship, he has always been hugely supportive of my need to read constantly, to never go anywhere without a book, and to surround myself with stacks and towers and piles of books. 

The first time he suggested that we put my bookcase and some of the books in storage, he quickly noted the look of horror and terror on my face as I thought about being separated from all my books, and instantly withdrew the suggestion.  He isn't much of a reader himself, and I'm sure that sometimes he wearies of hearing me talk about what I'm reading, or trying to get him to read the latest novel that I've fallen in love with, but he mostly listens and doesn't mock (too much!).  He encouraged me to start this blog, and then encouraged me to continue when I let it lapse for so long.

So while I find it odd that he doesn't dive headfirst into every book he passes, and that he thinks anything over 300 pages is a waste of time (What?!? That's barely a good start!), and he gets bored in Barnes & Noble (Seriously, how is that even possible?!), all the same, I think I'll keep him.

Happy 10th Anniversary, Bob. I love you as much as my books.