book clubbing in January

I first read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo last summer (see post). I'd been wanting to read the other books in the trilogy, but I held off since I knew we'd be discussing Dragon Tattoo this month.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

I'm happy to report that Dragon Tattoo was generally well-liked (it even lured someone who isn't a regular to our meeting). It also led to a pretty fully discussion. We talked about:

• the two main characters and how we felt about them
• what we do and don't know about Lisabeth's past
• Mikael's je-ne-sais-quoi appeal
• the Swedish movie and the casting decisions made for the American version
• the novel's pacing and length
• the two storylines
• how we felt about the ending of the novel
• why the author referred to his characters by their last names
• Mikael's relationship to Erika
• the relative merits of listening to the audio version of the novel
• the novel's title and why it was chosen (the original Swedish title translates as "Men Who Hate Women")
• and why we thought the novel was so popular

among other things. What was particularly nice was that one of our book club members had been an exchange student to Sweden. She was able to give us some insight into Swedish culture.