The Girl Who Played With Fire – youtube, movie teaser
Filed under: bestseller, Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomkvist, Stieg Larsson, YouTube
The movie is now playing in Scandinavia, and is a great success. See also review of The Girl Who Played With Fire, and a nice blog post about Stieg Larsson and that girl with the dragon tattoo.
Lars Kepler – the pseudonym that aspires to be the next Stieg Larsson
Filed under: About books, crime book, Lars Kepler, Swedish writer
The Hypnotist (Hypnotisören) is the latest huge crime novel in Sweden. The first novel by a new and unknown author, Lars Kepler. Big hype, huge expectations about a new series of novels featuring a new interesting heroine, Detective Inspector Joona Linna. The book was an instant best seller in Sweden. The rights to the book has been sold internationally to more than 30 countries worldwide, including the U.S.
The plot is interesting. A father, wife and daughter are all brutally murdered as part of an attempt to wipe out an entire family. The police have to race against time to find the one surviving daughter before the killer does. The only way they can achieve this, is to convince a doctor, against his better judgment, to hypnotize the son who barely survived the killer’s attack.
Then it was revealed by the media that there is no Lars Kepler. Lars Kepler does not exist. Huge sensation. Lars Kepler turned out to be a pseudonym for two literary authors, husband-and-wife Alexandra Coelho Ahndoril and Alexander Ahndoril, now writing under the pseudonym Lars Kepler. They have so far barely been able to sustain themselves economically by their writing. Now they wanted to make money. And in Sweden, crime fiction writers make big money. And, of course, when in Sweden, do as the Swedes. So they decided to write crime fiction, using a cool name.
According to Jan Guillou, they have achieved their goal already: the book and rights have so far netted them 15-20 million SKR. Not bad. Or?
PS: The Hynotist by Lars Kepler is now finally available for preorder at amazon UK: The Hypnotist
Stieg Larsson on the New York Times bestseller list!
Filed under: bestseller, New York Times bestseller, Stieg Larsson
I was delighted to open the book section of New York Times today, and find the Stieg Larsson’s excellent crime fiction book, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, was now number 4 on the list of paperback fiction bestsellers. I have been unable to understand why this book has not been selling better than it has in the US, as it is one of my all time favorites. Now, however, it seems the publisher is doing a little more promotion of the book, and it seems to be paying off.
Here is the top 10 list:
1. My Sister’s Keeper
2. The Shack
3. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
4. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson. A hacker and a journalist investigate the disappearance of a Swedish heiress.
5. Olive Kitteridge: Fiction
6. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
7. The Art of Racing in the Rain
8. The Time Traveler’s Wife
9. The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho. A Spanish shepherd boy travels to Egypt for treasure.
10. A Summer Affair: A Novel
For a lover of Scandinavian crime fiction, this is a good day. I hope 2009 will contine to be a good year for crime fiction and thrillers from Denmark, Iceland, Sweden, Norway and Finland!
What is the name of Stieg Larsson’s third book?
Filed under: book news, crime book, Lisbeth Salander, Mikael Blomkvist, Stieg Larsson, Swedish writer
For a long time I have been certain that the third book in the Millennium-trilogy by Stieg Larsson would be named Castles in the Sky. That is that name many people use, and which is used at stieglarsson.com.
However, now I am not so sure. Just today I came across translator Steven T. Murray’s page on Wikipedia, and there I found that he was currently engaged in translating the third book of the Millennium-series, entiteled The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest.
This title makes some sense – The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest – all titles with “The Girl Who”, so that it becomes a series by virtue of the naming. Also, Castles in the Sky makes sense from the point of view of the content of the book, but since the book is to a large extent about Lisbeth Salander, so does “The Girl Who Kicke the Hornets Nest“.
Oh well. I guess we will soon know which it is!
PS: See reviews of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and The Girl Who Played With Fire at ScandinavianBooks.com!
Stieg Larsson wins 2008 Boeke prize in South Africa
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Scandinavian author, Stieg Larsson, took home the prize as the winner of the 2008 Exclusive Books Boeke competition on 7 October 2008.
Larsson’s debut novel is an epic tale of serial murder and corporate trickery spanning several continents and taking in complicated international financial fraud and the buried evil past of a wealthy Swedish industrial family.
It won Sweden’s Glass Key Award in 2005 for best crime novel of the year. … Larsson’s award marks the 10th time in the 14-year history of the Boeke Prize that a debut novel has scooped the award.
The Boeke Prize promotes the enjoyment of discovering books that compel, that are fresh, original and captivating good reads. The judges’ panel comprised 40 book critics across South Africa.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is, as the other two books in the series, a wonderful book. I think Stieg Larsson will be getting many more prizes for it!
Stieg Larsson’s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo on NYT’s bestseller list!
The fantastic The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (see review), written by the deceased Swedish crime writer Stieg Larsson has now, finally, entered the New York Times bestseller list. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo has been one of the best selling books ever in Sweden, and in the other Nordic countries as well.
Hardcover Fiction
| This Week | Last Week | Weeks on List | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE, by David Wroblewski. A mute takes refuge with three dogs in the Wisconsin woods after his father’s death. | 1 | 16 |
| 2 | HEAT LIGHTNING, by John Sandford. Virgil Flowers investigates murder cases linked by a lemon in the mouth of each victim. | 1 | |
| 3 | THE GIVEN DAY, by Dennis Lehane. A policman, a fugitive and their families persevere in the turbulence of Boston at the end of World War I. | 1 | |
| 4 | HOT MAHOGANY, by Stuart Woods. A Stone Barrington mystery set amid the intrigues of the world of antiques and old and new money in New England. | 1 | |
| 5 | ONE FIFTH AVENUE, by Candace Bushnell. The worlds of gossip, theater and hedge funds have one address in common. | 1 | |
| 6 | THE OTHER QUEEN, by Philippa Gregory. The story of Mary, Queen of Scots, in captivity under Queen Elizabeth. | 2 | 2 |
| 7 | THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, by Stieg Larsson. A hacker and a journalist investigate the disappearance of an octogenarian’s niece 40 years ago. | 4 | 2 |
| 8 | TSAR, by Ted Bell. The Kremlin has a brutal killer working for it in America. | 1 | |
| 9 | THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. A journalist meets the island’s old Nazi resisters. | 5 | 9 |
| 10 | THE HOST, by Stephenie Meyer. Aliens have taken control of the minds and bodies of most humans, but one woman won’t surrender. | 7 | 21 |
| 11 | THE BOOK OF LIES, by Brad Meltzer. The murder of the father of Superman’s creator, Jerry Siegel, is linked to the biblical story of Cain and Abel. | 6 | 4 |
| 12 | AMERICAN WIFE, by Curtis Sittenfeld.A pretty librarian marries the alcoholic son of a wealthy political family who somehow becomes president. | 9 | 4 |
| 13 | FAEFEVER, by Karen Marie Moning. MacKayla is caught in the middle as the faes battle in Dublin. | 3 | 2 |
| 14 | INDIGNATION, by Philip Roth. A Newark, N.J., college student in the Korean War era breaks with his parents and goes to a school in the Midwest. | 10 | 2 |
| 15 | ANATHEM, by Neal Stephenson.An order of cloistered mathematicians and scientists must save their Earth-like planet when catastrophe threatens. | 8 | 3 |
| 16 | THE COMFORTS OF A MUDDY SATURDAY, by Alexander McCall Smith. Isabel Dalhousie investigates drug fraud charges. | 1 |
It is a wonderful crime novel. In my opinion, perhaps one of the best written after year 2000. I will be surprised if The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo does not end up on the top of the bestseller lists in the US!
You can read my review of Stieg Larsson’s high powered book The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo at ScandinavianBooks.com!
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