"Pick up one book, preferably beginning with the first, Roseanna, because they are best read in chronological order, and you become unhinged. You want to block out a week of your life, lie to your boss, and stay in bed, gorging on one after another, as though eating packet upon packet of extra strong mints. I began to worry that I was in love with Martin Beck, the main policeman."
- Karen Meek
from Bookmarklet
The Tin Drum, By Günter Grass trans Breon Mitchell<br />Self's Murder, By Bernhard Schlink trans Peter Constantine<br />A Minute's Silence, By Siegfried Lenz trans Anthea Bell - Reviews, Books - The Independent - http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...
Poison, Shadow and Farewell (Your Face Tomorrow, part 3) By Javier Marías trans Margaret Jull Costa - Reviews, Books - The Independent - http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-en...
"Nick Stafford's first novel "Armistice" and "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets Nest" by Stieg Larsson are reviewed by this week's panel, Boyd Hilton, Jenny Colgan and Stella Duffy."
- Karen Meek
from Bookmarklet
I've just listened to this. Both authors are published by Quercus and fortunately Nick Stafford had the time/opportunity to read all 3 Stieg books in a week before the show as the other 3 reviewers had not read either of the first two inthe series. As Jenny Colgan said it was a bit like coming in on Return of the King and not having read the first two. No mention of the translator...
more...
- Karen Meek
"not an original heroine"??? Whatever one may think of Salander, original she certainly is! Thanks for the update, Karen. How can they have a radio show about books that only one of the participants have read? How hard can it be for the major broadcaster in a country to find people who have read these very popular books and have something to say about them? And shame on them for not mentioning the translator.
- Maxine
I phrased it badly :). All the reviewers had read Hornets' but not Tattoo or Fire. Except for Nick Stafford the guest author. Stella said that Denise Danks had a hacker protag and she (Stella) wrote about a bisexual one years ago.
- Karen Meek
TGWKTHN was a strange book for them to do on that show. I listen every week and they always do 2 new release books (i.e. out that week) and 99% of the time they have the author on the show as well. I think perhaps they mistakenly tried to jump on a bandwagon and shouldn't have. As for their comments all but Duffy were actually quite positive about the Larsson book and frankly she came...
more...
- Bernadette
Thanks Bernadette for expressing some of my thoughts :). Last week they told Matt Hilton that his writing wasn't as good as Lee Child's which is about the most negative comment I'd heard since starting to listen to these.
- Karen Meek
Sounds as if they were just trying to be clever (on both occasions). I agree with Bernadette that Lisbeth's preferences are barely relevant to the main plots - certainly in GWKTHN (they are slightly more relevant in the previous two but Duffy hadn't read those!). Honest maybe but I don't like uninhibited rudeness - and from what people say this was also quite spiteful/jealous.
- Maxine
Just read these in the paper edition - might try the Fyfield though I've gone off Sarah Fortune a couple of books ago - prob won't bother with Burke or Leonard. Elsewhere in the paper version (Sat) there is "Winter Chillers" in which Melissa Katsoulis reviews The Winter Ghosts (Kate Mosse) Ghoul Britannia (Andrew Martin) and Lost (Gregory Maguire). There is also a mini "Guardian length" brief of Winterland by Alan Glynn by Kate Saunders (v positive).
- Maxine