Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings

It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts with:

• Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
• The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Today I'm featuring a current read, The Girl Who Lived Twice by David Lagercrantz.  The excerpts shared are from a hardcover version borrowed from the library.

Beginning:  Prologue

A beggar nobody had seen before appeared in the neighbourhood that summer.  No-one knew him by name, nor seemed to care much about him, but to a young couple who passed him every morning he was the "crazy dwarf."

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Page 56: None of them looked all that pleased to see him, and Blomkvist kept his eyes on the table, drank his wine, and thought of Lisbeth Salander.

 

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My thoughts:  This is book #6 in the Millennium Series, which began with the much celebrated first book, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  The original author, Stieg Larsson wrote the first three books in the series before his untimely death.  The current author has continued the series beginning with book #4, The Girl in the Spider's Web.  I've been enjoying the stories created by both authors, and the continuing saga of Lisbeth Salanader, one of my all-time favorite brave, take-no-prisoners feminist character.  Sadly, this may be the last book in the series.

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From Goodreads: Lisbeth Salander--the fierce, unstoppable girl with the dragon tattoo--has disappeared. She's sold her apartment in Stockholm. She's gone silent electronically. She's told no one where she is. And no one is aware that at long last she's got her primal enemy, her twin sister, Camilla, squarely in her sights.

Mikael Blomkvist is trying to reach Lisbeth. He needs her help unraveling the identity of a man who lived and died on the streets in Stockholm--a man who does not exist in any official records and whose garbled last words hinted at possible damaging knowledge of people in the highest echelons of government and industry. In his pocket was a crumpled piece of paper with Blomkvist's phone number on it.

Once again, Salander and Blomkvist will come to each other's aid, moving in tandem toward the truths they each seek. In the end, it will be Blomkvist--in a moment of unimaginable self-sacrifice--who will make it possible for Lisbeth to face the most important battle of her life, and, finally, to put her past to rest.

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This Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings post was originally composed and/or compiled and published by Catherine for the blog, bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution. Sharing this original post on Twitter, Google+ and/or other blogs with appropriate recognition is appreciated.

Friday Focus: The Friday 56 & Book Beginnings

It's Friday . . . time to share book excerpts with:

• Book Beginnings on Fridays hosted by Rose City Reader, where bloggers share the first sentence or more of a current read, as well as initial thoughts about the sentence(s), impressions of the book, or anything else that the opening inspires.  
• The Friday 56 hosted by Freda's Voice, where you grab a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% of an ebook), find one or more interesting sentences (no spoilers), and post them.

Today I'm featuring my current read, The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye by David Lagercrantz, translated from the Swedish by George Goulding.  The excerpts shared are from a library copy.

 

Beginning:  Prologue

Holger Palmgren was sitting in his wheelchair in the visitors' room.

"Why is that dragon tattoo so important to you?" he said.  "I've always wanted to know."

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Page 56: "''So what was it?'"

 

"No idea.  All I know is that it ended as quickly as it started, a few days later.  He totally fell apart."

 

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My thoughts:  This is the latest book in the Millennium Series, created by Stieg Larrsson, which began with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  The book was an instant success, as were the other two he wrote in the trilogy.  Unfortunately, Larrsson died shortly after turning in the manuscripts for the trilogy (and had planned 10 books in the series)--before their publication and huge success.  When it was announced that another author would continue the series, I was skeptical that the quality and integrity would remain intact.  To my delight, Lagercrantz has lived up to the challenge, having written books 4 and 5. 

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From Goodreads:  From the author of the #1 international best seller The Girl in the Spider's Web: the new book in the Millennium series, which began with Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  

Lisbeth Salander - the girl with the dragon tattoo, the brilliant hacker, the obstinate outsider, the volatile seeker of justice for herself and others - has never been able to uncover the most telling facts of her traumatic childhood, the secrets that might finally, fully explain her to herself. Now, when she sees a chance to uncover them once and for all, she enlists the help of Mikael Blomkvist, the editor of the muckraking, investigative journal Millennium. And nothing will stop her - not the anti-Muslim gang she enrages by rescuing a young woman from their brutality; not the deadly reach from inside the Russian mafia of her long-lost twin sister, Camilla; and not the people who will do anything to keep buried knowledge of a sinister pseudo-scientific experiment known only as The Registry. Once again, Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist, together, are the fierce heart of a thrilling full-tilt novel that takes on some of the most insidious problems facing the world at this very moment.

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This Friday Focus post was originally composed and/or compiled and published for the blog, bookclublibrarian.com.  It cannot be republished without attribution.  Retweeting and sharing on Google+ are appreciated.    

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph #129

It's Tuesday . . . time for . . .

                                                      

First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday Intros hosted by Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea, where bloggers post the first paragraph(s) of a book they are currently reading or planning to read sometime soon.

Today I'm featuring my current read, The Girl in the Spider's Web by David Lagercrantz, borrowed from the library.

  

Goodreads Page 

PROLOGUE

ONE YEAR EARLIER

This story begins with a dream, and not a particularly spectacular one at that.  Just a hand beating rhythmically and relentlessly on a mattress in a room on Lundagatan.

Yet it still gets Lisbeth Salander out of her bed in the early light of dawn.  Then she sits at her computer and starts the hunt.

What do you think?  Would you continue reading?

 I waited quite a while for my turn at this book.  I loved the first three books in this series, which were written by Stieg Larsson.   Thus, I opened this book by a new author with a bit of trepidation.  Could he continue the characters and story line in the same superior way?  I am a little over 100 pages in, and the answer for me is a resounding yes.  

First Chapter ~ First Paragraph #129 was originally published by Catherine for bookclublibrarian.com.  This post cannot be republished without attribution. Retweeting and sharing on Google+ encouraged.