Read 50 books in 2009.

I failed because I had not enough time this year because of all of my jobs.
I will restart this goal with 30 books in 2010!

Ahern wades into the Christmas fiction fray with a winning tale of magic and redemption. Lou Suffern is a busy man, and his family’s growing weary of constantly taking the backseat to his career. On a whim, he offers Gabe, a homeless man he meets outside his office, a low-level job, and the uncharacteristically kind gesture plays out in a very unexpected way when Lou learns that Gabe has the power to be in two places at once. As the holidays draw nearer, Gabe tries to make Lou realize the importance of his family, but slow-to-change Lou might not come around to Gabe’s way of thinking until it’s too late. Ahern’s an accomplished storyteller, and her writing chops elevate this far above the normal holiday fare. There’s magic, but it’s not campy, and the sentiment is real. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

My opinion:
A modern fairy tale about the important things of life – what a message for christmas! Had to cry at the realistic and very sad ending…

It’s a story about a women who finds a secret about gates to other realitys and how to deal with it.

My opinion:
The story was boring and I fought with this book for nearly a month. Happy to be finished now, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

This book is the sequel of ‘Gut gegen Nordwind’ and it was a present from by best friend who loved this book and the first one very much. I’m not that much into it, but it’s agood idea to find out what happens if you met an e-mail-friend in real life.

In the third volume in the explosive trilogy that has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide, Lisbeth Salander confronts political corruption from her hospital bed while a killer lurks next door

My opinion:
I’m so sad, that it’s over. I’m so sad that this great author can’t publish another book. Read this trilogy! It’s simply great stuff!

Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, July 2009: The girl with the dragon tattoo is back. Stieg Larsson’s seething heroine, Lisbeth Salander, once again finds herself paired with journalist Mikael Blomkvist on the trail of a sinister criminal enterprise. Only this time, Lisbeth must return to the darkness of her own past (more specifically, an event coldly known as “All the Evil”) if she is to stay one step ahead—and alive. The Girl Who Played with Fire is a break-out-in-a-cold-sweat thriller that crackles with stunning twists and dismisses any talk of a sophomore slump. Fans of Larsson’s prior work will find even more to love here, and readers who do not find their hearts racing within the first five pages may want to confirm they still have a pulse. Expect healthy doses of murder, betrayal, and deceit, as well as enough espresso drinks to fuel downtown Seattle for months. —Dave Callanan

From Publishers Weekly
Fans of intelligent page-turners will be more than satisfied by Larsson’s second thriller, even though it falls short of the high standard set by its predecessor, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which introduced crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist and punk hacker savant Lisbeth Salander. A few weeks before Dag Svensson, a freelance journalist, plans to publish a story that exposes important people involved in Sweden’s sex trafficking business based on research conducted by his girlfriend, Mia Johansson, a criminologist and gender studies scholar, the couple are shot to death in their Stockholm apartment. Salander, who has a history of violent tendencies, becomes the prime suspect after the police find her fingerprints on the murder weapon. While Blomkvist strives to clear Salander of the crime, some far-fetched twists help ensure her survival. Powerful prose and intriguing lead characters will carry most readers along. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

My opinion:
After finishing part 1 I had to buy the sequel at once. It’s not as good as the first book, but if you fell in love with Lisbeth Salander, you have to go til the bitter end with her. Great characters, great studies about the way our economies work – or even fail!

Wikipedia:
“Män som hatar kvinnor” (Swedish for “Men who hate women,” renamed in the English translation as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) is an award-winning novel by the late Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson, the first in his “Millennium Trilogy”.

At his death in November 2004 he left three unpublished novels that made up the trilogy. It became a posthumous best-seller in Europe.

A middle-aged journalist, Mikael Blomkvist, publishes the magazine Millennium in Stockholm. He is hired one day by Henrik Vanger, the aged former CEO of a group of companies owned by a wealthy dynasty, in order to chronicle the family history. His real mission, however, is to solve a cold case – the disappearance, some forty years previously, of Vanger’s great-niece when she was sixteen. Blomkvist encounters “the old Miss Marple closed-room scenario” with all the wealthy suspects marooned on the family estate on an island; a village we grow familiar with, full of hostile locals peering out from behind their curtains”. The real main character of the story is Lisbeth Salander, an asocial punk who has been victimized by authorities throughout her whole life. By accident she meets Blomkvist and the unlikely couple become another classic detective pair where the hunters become the hunted.

The opening courtroom drama where Blomkvist as publisher loses a libel case brought by corrupt Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström, has serious repercussions for his Millennium magazine’s future.

Blomkvist reads crime novelists Sue Grafton, Val McDermid and Elizabeth George and enjoys amateur sleuthing and investigative journalism. Later, he is asked to investigate a family mystery by Henrik Vanger, the elderly scion of a wealthy but dysfunctional family. Henrik has questions about the disappearance of his 16-year-old great-niece Harriet 40 years before. Harriet had given Henrik a present of pressed flowers since she was eight years old. On Henrik’s birthday the year after Harriet’s death, he received a present of pressed flowers, and he continued to receive such flowers, which he believes to be sent by the killer, every birthday thereafter from various parts of the world. Blomkvist is certain that he can discover nothing new, but delving into family secrets produces shocking results. When he teams up with Salander they shed disturbing light on the four-decade-long puzzle.

The historic scenario of a locked-room mystery applies since the island on that fateful day was cut-off due to a road-tanker crash on the only bridge that connects the inhabitants to the mainland. Henrik Vanger believes that Harriet (his brother’s granddaughter) was murdered by one of his family members, as the island was sealed from the mainland when she vanished. In disgrace due to losing his libel defense, Blomkvist takes on the Vanger case when the old man offers him not only to help his financially strapped magazine, but also promises to give him information to prove Wennerström is corrupt. His cover is spending a year writing the Vanger family history.

My opinion:
GO! Get that book! READ IT!
It’s a real page-turner and I was addicted to the story the whole weekend. The first thing I will do tomorrow is buying the second part of Larssons Millenium-Trilogy!

Amazon. com:
Terrified. Abused. Who do you trust when the world is against you? Hope is in short supply for Kelsey Brand! Abandoned by her mother and placed in care, 14-year-old Kelsey – along with her younger sisters – is just another forgotten child of the state. Unable to cope with the care home’s harsh regimes, Kelsey attempts to take her own life, leaving her horrifically scarred – and mute. Days later, the body of Kelsey’s mother Grace – a known prostitute and heroin addict – is found butchered on a notorious Luton council estate. And Kelsey becomes a suspect! Enter Lilly Valentine. A tough-talking Yorkshire lawyer with a heart of gold and a will of iron, Lilly has forsaken a glittering career to move south and help vulnerable kids escape the system. Determined to prove Kelsey’s innocence, Lilly ventures into the heart of a dark city with as many secrets as problems. Prostitution, paedophilia, drugs and blackmail: Lily must put her own life at risk to save a silent, terrified child and find the real killer!

My opinion:
Was a short, but not very overwhelming read. I enjoyed the character of Lily Valentine and had some good laughs with her, because of her love for alcohol, sweets and men. That’s what made this book worth a read, but the story itself was a bit lame.

Emmi writes an e-mail to cancel a journal subscription, but there is a wrong letter in the e-mail-adresse and her mail goes off to Leo. With this mistake an e-mail conversation starts between both of them and the conversation turns into a lovestory between the two young(?) people who have never met and will never meet…?

My opinion:
My best friend recommended this book highly to me and normally we like the same stories. So it was no question for me to buy this book. But I was a bit dissappointed. The idea is good, and the conversation between them is challenging and ironic, lovely and sweet, but I was not so overwhelmed as most of the critics are about this book. I’m not sure if I will buy the sequel which was published this spring, definetly not before it comes out as paperback.

The last part of a trilogy about a family in New Zealand during World War I and I have to admit that I’m addicted to such books. But this third part was not as good as part one and two.