*Have You Heard? * Audiobooks For Your Listening Pleasure* The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Posted June 15, 2016 by RobbieLea in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

*Have You Heard? * Audiobooks For Your Listening Pleasure* The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo by Stieg LarssonThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1) by Stieg Larsson
Also by this author: The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest (Millennium, #3)
Published by Books on Tape, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard on November 22nd 2011
Genres: Mystery/Thriller/Suspense
Pages: 672
Format: Audiobook
ISBN: 0307949486
ASIN: B001G8MA4O
Goodreads
five-stars

The Girl in the Spider’s Web, the new book in the Millennium Series, is available now!
Murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue combine into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel.
Harriet Vanger, a scion of one of Sweden's wealthiest families disappeared over forty years ago. All these years later, her aged uncle continues to seek the truth. He hires Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist recently trapped by a libel conviction, to investigate. He is aided by the pierced and tattooed punk prodigy Lisbeth Salander. Together they tap into a vein of unfathomable iniquity and astonishing corruption.
From the Trade Paperback edition.

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#StiegLarsson #MilleniumSeries #PublishingWorld  @SimVan @BOTLibrary @StiegLarssonRIP

listeninglady

When writing a review, my goal is always to give readers my honest opinion about a book. One of the hidden treasures, however, is often the discovery of little known information about the authors, the narrators, or even the histories of the books themselves. Until I sat down to write my review of author Stieg Larsson‘s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first book in his Millennium Trilogy, I had no idea that the entire series was published posthumously! In case I’m not the  only person in the universe who was unaware that Mr. Larsson died suddenly in 2004, a year before his work was published, click on the link above to read all about it.

I’ve seen promotional material for this book and the other books in the series for years, but, for some reason, they just didn’t appeal based on the book descriptions. It was special pricing of the audiobook that finally tempted me to start listening and I’m thankful I did! The fact that I enjoyed the book and the characters so much has caused me to grieve for the loss of this man and his talent. The plot is complex and the characters will definitely stick in your head. There is mystery, suspense, darkness, and conniving the likes of which can only be found in a family so large that disgraced journalist and magazine publisher Mikael Blomqvist must request a written list of their names from Henrik Vanger when he takes on the task of investigating a mysterious disappearance in the guise of writing a family history. Listeners will be challenged to keep all the characters straight, but the ones who are most important to the story line will be easy to remember because they are so compelling and well-developed.

Simon Vance is a perfect narrator for this book. It threw me a bit at first that, even though most of the characters are Swedish, they have English accents. I  am so grateful for this seeming discrepancy, because they are much easier for my American ears to understand. Each one has a distinctive voice and I particularly liked Mr. Vance’s voice for the enigmatic Lisbeth Salander, who is actually the girl with the dragon tattoo. Despite her tragic life, Lisbeth is not a pitiable person and the narrator successfully portrays her as cocky, independent, and confident in her considerable abilities. Happily, Simon Vance is also the narrator for the rest of the trilogy as well as a fourth book, The Girl in the Spider’s Web.

If you haven’t read this book, I would definitely recommend it in audio format.  There is a lot of detail, especially at the beginning, as the author lays the groundwork for the story and I think it’s much easier to absorb while listening to someone else read rather than reading it yourself. The other books in the trilogy are The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. I’m sure you won’t be surprised to learn I’ve already downloaded the second book so I can continue the series. In September of 2015, The Girl in the Spider’s Web was published using Larsson’s characters Mikael Blomqvist and Lisbeth Salander. It was written by author David Lagercrantz with the blessings of the Larsson family if not Stieg Larsson’s partner, Eva Gabrielsson. The drama between Larsson’s family and Gabrielsson following his death makes for interesting reading I can’t help thinking the controversy stirred up by Stieg Larsson’s untimely death would make a pretty good book although the plot might be a bit tame for Mikael and Lisbeth!?

five-stars

About Stieg Larsson

Stieg Larsson (born as Karl Stig-Erland Larsson) was a Swedish journalist and writer who passed away in 2004.

As a journalist and editor of the magazine Expo , Larsson was active in documenting and exposing Swedish extreme right and racist organisations. When he died at the age of 50, Larsson left three unpublished thrillers and unfinished manuscripts for more. The first three books ( The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo , The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest ) have since been printed as the Millenium series. These books are all bestsellers in Sweden and in several other countries, including the United States and Canada.

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