The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson

What good, intelligent fun! Never mind the occasional grisliness and violence (not more than, say, The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris - an excellent read and far superior to the movie, which is overrated and certainly not deserving of winning the big three academy awards that year...but I digress). This novel is superb and impossible to put down. I am not a fast reader, but made my way through its nearly 600 pages in about two days. The title character is as interesting a protagonist as I have encountered in some time. A young woman, multiply pierced, tattooed, skinny, rides a motorcycle and has a knack for investigating people and uncovering secrets - no doubt made easier by her ability to hack into computers. She's a bit paranoid, extremely intelligent, a misfit, tough and finds herself wrapped up in a murder mystery teamed (for the first time in her life) with a relatively mainstream investigative journalist. The setting is a backwater in northern Sweden, some drive north of Stockholm with much of it taking place in the winter. It is, at times, a brooding landscape with a pall cast over the story and town, both by the weather and the secrets simmering beneath the surface of the industrialist family around which the story turns. I highly recommend this book and look forward to the second in the three-book series.

Master and Commander, by Patrick O'Brian

Burdened by a lack of sailing knowledge, sea terminology, 19th century naval warfare tactics and geography I launched into this great read armed with a dictionary specifically written to accompany the novel and its 19 other companions. I saw the movie back a few years; the movie is an amalgam of a number of the O'Brian books. But this first in the series follows Captain J. Aubrey on his first command, of the Sophie, in the Royal Navy in their ongoing war with the French and myriad shifting allies among the mediterranean people. I found the read a pleasure on multiple fronts: nautical terms, life aboard a 19th century man o' war, sea battles and tactics all make for a colorful setting for the character development and relationship between JA and Dr. S. Maturin (ship's surgeon, botanist and all around scientist). A true exercise in pleasurable education. I will surely read the next in line.