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Archive for September, 2010

This Weeks Book Events, SF & LA (week of 9/6)

Sep 6

Posted by The Valet in Events | 1 Comment

Yep, you read that right, SF & LA in one post. I’m not going to lie, I’m feeling lazy and didn’t really find any events that looked interesting in San Francisco this week so I took the liberty of assuming the case was the same for LA. Although I’m certain I missed some things, my mind has been elsewhere. Read on to find out why. I assure to return, sans laziness, next week or soon there after.

Wow, what a big week this is going to be for me. Unfortunately for you it has nothing to do with the blog, and regrettably will most likely have adverse affects on the blog, for this week at least. So, what’s the “big” deal? Well… after five months of unemployment, four foreign countries visited, countless hours spent on the internet and pondering “what’s next,” I start work on Tuesday!!

I know, I know, you’re dying to know where I’ll be working. Well, I will be working as a member of the account management team at CrowdFlower. Broadly, CrowdFlower utilizes crowdsourcing to complete jobs or tasks using a scalable workforce. While I could explain to you in further detail what CrowdFlower is and what they do it’s much easier for me to just ask you to click on the link (yes more laziness coming through), so do it already! And to help provide CrowdFlower with some street cred, and because I know many of my readers are music lovers, I will tell you that that Arcade Fire website that’s making the internet rounds, you know The Wilderness Downtown, is actually utilizing CrowdFlower. Again, check the website and more specifically the awesome company blog to see just how they are involved.

As you can imagine as I embark in this new gig my reading time as well as many other things will probably take a hit, so please bear with me as I get my bearings. Feel free to leave a comment regarding any events this week, I will be doing so should I find anything!

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Sep 2

Posted by The Valet in Fiction | 3 Comments

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Alright, here’s the deal, I resisted reading this book. Not only has it been a best seller for a long time now, I also felt (ok, judged) that this book was a “lady book” much in the way that “Eat, Pray, Love” is. Why? Well, honestly I don’t think I’ve ever seen a male reading it, and I assure you I have seen a ton of people reading this book, all women. So… when my mother and father recently visited me here in San Francisco and brought me a copy of it I was more than a little dubious. But, my dad did confide in me that he read it and actually enjoyed it. Not only that but the copy they brought me is an advanced reading copy (ARC) that does not have the tell tale, obnoxiously bright, yellow cover. Instead it has a much more subtle, and better, cover that is white with debossed (the opposite of embossed) text with shadowing (picture below). It was much easier for me to carry this book around as opposed to the latter.

Better cover? I think yes.

I’m going to start by giving you my bottom line: I don’t understand the hype. I’ve read my fair share of murder/love stories and honestly this one was no different from the others. Sure, there were some new twists to this “genre,” the financial angle, but I’ve read better and more enjoyable. As far as I can tell, the whole reason behind the hype and the only reason that this book resonates with women readers is that one of the protagonists is a tough woman who doesn’t take sh*t from anyone and abhors any sort of violence, physical or emotional, afflicted on women. I get that, but, this isn’t the first time we’ve ever seen a heroine like her.

I’m going to do my best to avoid spoiling this book for anyone who hasn’t read it so bear with me. While the book is, for the most part, about the life and times of a one Lisbeth Salander, the heroine aka the girl with dragon tattoo, it is also about a journalist named Mikael Blomkvist who it just so happens is the hero in the story. There are several different story lines told in the book but the most relevant and interesting would be that of the case which Mr. Blomkvist is put upon by a Henrik Vanger, an industrialist. Mr. Vanger has asked Mr. Blomkvist, who has just been found guilty of libel, to investigate the 40 year-old disappearance his great-niece Harriet.

One way or another, a separate story line, the heroine of the story gets roped into helping Blomkvist with the mysterious disappearance. With her introduction to this story line the story quickly picks up and the progression of the case quickly spirals into a much larger web than had been perceived. Lisbeth’s involvement in the case however creates waves and therefore some turmoil for Blomkvist and several other characters. This is as a good place as any to stop with the summary, anymore information runs the risk of ruining the book. That’s not the end of my review though.

More, more, more

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