To keep me calm while dealing with Christmas and, oh yes, the wedding stuff, I've been indulging in my favorite kind of recreational reading, psychological thrillers.
Here are a couple that I really liked.
First, "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" by Stieg Larsson.
Larrson was a Swedish writer who died in 2004 at age 50. He left three astoundingly popular thrillers called the Millennium Trilogy. This is the first of the three.
Every person I've talked with who's read the book loved it. One man told me that he read it in two days. This is amazing because it's long, (600 pages) convoluted, meticulous, extraordinarily complicated and thoroughly Swedish.
I didn't start out loving it. It took me almost 200 pages. A family tree chart appears around page 172. Mark this page. It will help you later.
I plan to read the next in the series as soon as I get my Christmas tree down which should be about March.
The next (and older)book, "The Beach House" by James Patterson, one of the most popular novelists in the world, was different. Easier. We listened to half on CD in the car, then got the book from the library. I finished it in one sitting.
I've read a few others in the past month, but these were the best.
***
