Lisbeth Salander with a British accent? I think not

If you love Stieg Larsson's novels, may I suggest not attempting to listen to them.

I discovered, while listening to the more than a day's worth of audio that comprises Larsson's "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest," that there are some novels that really don't lend themselves to audiobook.

As you may have gathered from previous posts, I like to entertain myself on long car trips by getting in a little "reading." I chose Larsson's novel as an option for a 28-hour roundtrip to St. Louis recently. But it didn't make the cut.

So I started listening to it on a shorter trip - a three-hour tour as Gilligan might say. And when that trip was done, I still had nearly a day's worth of book to listen to.

I thought, "No problem. I'll just listen when I'm in the car on shorter trips and maybe before I go to bed or while I'm working at my desk and I'll have this book back to Pottstown Regional Public Library in no time."

STIEG LARSSON

Well, two renewals and two additional $1 rental fees later, I did finish the novel, which was every bit as exciting as the first two in the trilogy. It's fascinating writing, in that it's such a different kind of thriller than I've read before.

"The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" was Larsson's final book in his Millenium thriller/mystery trilogy, which included "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and "The Girl who Played with Fire."

While the story, which follows the outlandish escapades of unlikely Swedish friends Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist, is the same (completely unabridged) in audio as it is in print, I've concluded that any of Larsson's Millenium books - are best read as words on paper. I don't even think the movies do them justice (the original Swedish versions of the movies, that is).

"Hornet's Nest" is 563 pages in print (Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2010), which translates to 16 CDs - a whopping 25 hours and 13 minutes of audio.

SIMON VANCE

The audiobook is read by British actor Simon Vance, who narrates the first two Millenium novels as well and is quite an accomplished voice actor. (Click here to hear Vance's voice on a YouTube clip from the "Hornet's Nest"audiobook.)

But, I have to say, it jarred with my vision of the story and its characters to hear it told with a British accent. Blomkvist, Salander ... all the Swedish folks who populate the book seemed wrong as Britons. To me.

I don't claim it would've been better read by an American. I'm just saying there was a certain disconnect there for me. It was also more difficult for me to keep straight in my mind the host of characters, of which there are many.

Shame on me. I should have read the actual book. In print.

That said, I recommend the Millenium books for anyone. I think I preferred the third book, as I've heard others say as well, possibly because I had the benefit of the knowledge of the first two. The late author was very clever indeed to come up with this tale, with all its plots and subplots and general intrigue. Indeed, the writing can be cold and the situations violent, the but the underlying story is genius.

Below is the plot summary of "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" from the official Stieg Larsson www.stieglarsson.com/Castles-in-the-Sky, "where Stieg Larsson's spirit lives."

Two seriously injured people arrive at the emergency ward of the Sahlgrensa hospital in Gothenburg. One is the wanted murderer Lisbeth Salander who has taken a bullet to the head and needs immediate surgery, the other is Alexander Zalachenko, an older man who Lisbeth has attacked with an axe.

In this third novel in the Millennium trilogy, Lisbeth is planning her revenge against the men who tried to kill her, and even more importantly, revenge against the government which nearly destroyed her life. But first she must escape from the intensive care unit and exculpate her name from the charges of murder that hangs over her head.

In order to succeed with the latter, Lisbeth will need the help of journalist Mikael Blomkvist. He is writing an exposing article that will shake the Swedish government, the secret service and the whole country by its foundations. Finally there is a chance for Lisbeth Salander to put her past behind her and finally there is a chance for truth and justice to prevail.

Two perfect and very different summer reads

Summer is the best time of year, inevitably, to lose yourself in a book. TV sucks, that little voice that's telling you to cut the grass or do the dishes shuts up, and the weather's perfect to sit outside and dive in to a novel - the thicker the better.

In the past couple of weeks, I managed to lose myself in two such novels. In addition to reading in the great outdoors during daylight hours, I managed to stay up into the wee hours several nights running to get deeper into "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," by Stieg Larsson and "The Help," by Kathryn Stockett.

"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" is a fast-paced thriller along the lines of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code." Quickly you are drawn in to the story of a Swedish journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, who is to be imprisoned (in a white collar prison) for libeling a wealthy industrialist.

In the year he serves his jail term, he finds himself taking some time away from the magazine he runs with two friends to take on an assignment of an odd sort out in the Swedish hinterland. He is hired to clandestinely investigate a decades-old murder, with very little to go on and most of the witnesses part of a powerful Swedish family, with a cover story of writing a history of the family of the murder victim.

The enigmatic and antisocial Lisbeth Salander, the actual girl (24-year-old) with the dragon tattoo, among others, becomes his research assistant, and together they find themselves in dangerous territory. That's an understatement to the shocking violence - much of it against women (there's your warning) that comes with that territory.

As my friends who'd read it told me, this book is brought to a slow boil over the first 150 pages or so and then you literally don't want to put it down. Stick with it, several pals said. And they were right.

There are few things for which I'd willingly and happily give up sleep, and a good book is one of them. This one kept me up a few nights in a row.

Eventually, I'll probably pick up Larsson's other two books in his Millenium trilogy: "The Girl Who Played With Fire" and "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest." They are the last books we see from Larsson, a onetime Swedish journalist, who died of a heart attack in 2004 before they were published to sensational international popularity. What a shame!

The next book I read, at the suggestion of my boss, Nancy, and borrowed from our free little book corner libary at work, was a welcome change of pace:

"The Help," a completely different story in pace and style and, well everything, is set in the American south in the 1960s. It's remarkable in that it's Kathryn Stockett's first novel, and because of the ease with which she gives voice to several different black women in domestic positions for white families in segregated Jackson, Miss.

Stockett, who grew up in Mississippi with a black maid herself during the novel's time period, tells a tale of love, racism, social mores of the time, and an era of injustices and great change in the area of civil rights. She writes from several different perspectives: Maids Aibileen and Minny, and privileged white writer "Miss Skeeter." Each voice rings true and compelling, with the brave and loving Aibileen my favorite of the storytellers.

Skeeter convinces Aibileen, Minny and a number of other maids to lend their anonymous voices to a book about how black maids are treated in the south at that time - circa 1962. At a time when "the help" is raising their employers' children, they are not allowed to use restrooms inside the houses, eat at the same table, use the same dishes or even share a library - let alone a school. Rosa Parks and Medgar Evers are among those fighting for equal rights who are mentioned in this novel.

Aibileen and Minny agree to help Skeeter, at great risk to themselves and their families, because it's the right thing to do, they feel.

As Aibileen puts it: "Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, We are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as I'd thought."

I won't spoil things by telling you what the outcome of that book project is, but suffice to say this novel is every bit a thriller as "Tattoo" was. And yes, I was up all night finishing it.

I haven't found the next book worth staying up for. I have "Shanghai Girls" by Lisa See and "The Gravedigger's Daughter" by Joyce Carol Oates on tap for fiction reads. We'll see about a personal finance book...