Let me start out with the warning that this is definitely not a book review due to the fact that I'm far from competent enough to write something of that sort. I would just like to recommend a book that I read recently and loved very, very much.
The name of the book is ''The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" (or Man who hate woman-Man som hatar kvinnor) by the Swedish journalist and writer Stieg Larsson. It is a part of the Millennium trilogy, the other two books being "The Girl Who Played With Fire" and "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest" (I'm currently reading the last book of the trilogy).
This book had been sitting on my shelf for a pretty long time (8 months) and I probably wouldn't have read it if it wasn't for my father who brought it with him to Greece. While he was reading it I was reading Umberto Eco's "The Island of the the Day Before"-which wasn't really my cup of tee, so I turned to my dad for some books. He gave this one to me and said that I should be patient in the begging-which is kind of slow-but that the book is magnificent. And he was so right. There's no other word to describe it-I loved it.
It is a crime novel but Stieg Larsson also tackles some very important topics like moral bankruptcy, violence against woman, racism, responsibility of criminals and the state of contemporary Swedish society in general. There's nothing better than an amusing book that also has a deeper meaning behind it. One more thing that I like is that usually when I read a crime novel I guess what is the outcome (not always, but some parts at least), which for example happened while I was reading "Windmills of the Gods" by Sidney Sheldon (a good book non the less), but this time I was completely dumbfounded. The ending was unexpected to say the least.
No wonder that the trilogy sold 27 million copies world wide. Oh and I also got a free movie ticket for the film adaptation when I bought the books. Can't wait to see it.
Ps: They are also making an English language movie adaptation with Daniel Craig as the lead. Yeah. Not so sure about Daniel Craig as Kale Blomkvist, but oh well...