Swedish kick

I have been on a Swedish kick lately. Everything from the cities, the houses, names, books, pictures -- anything to do with Sweden I am all over it. This is a fairly new and recent obsession. I admit I've never really thought about this particular country before. But now that it's caught my attention, it's doing a good job holding it.

a Stockholm plaza

a summer home in Sweden by Peter Carlsson for Hus & Hemm

And what the obsession all started with:

I picked this book up on a whim in the airport bookstore. Actually it was more than just a whim. I had seen people reading this book for months -- a lady sitting on a bench in Union Station, a man on the metro. It's cover had graced book shelves for long enough that I could no longer resist. I did, however, leave the bookstore without buying. I went and sat at security and waited for Mark's plane to land, but I kept casting sideway glances back into the bookstore where I could see it perched on its shelf. After ten minutes of contemplation, I gave in. With $7.99 no longer in my wallet and the book in my hand, I left the airport bookstore.
I'm still surprised that I actually bought the book. As a rule, I do not buy books on a whim. I only buy books that I have read and love. They then get added to a valued collection of books that I can truly say are good. I also am obsessed with book covers. I believe that every good story should have a good cover to go along with it. So that was two strikes against the book. I had not read it before and the cover was just so-so.
It started off good. My attention was caught. Towards the middle, the story started to drag. I kept reading, though, anxious to find out what was going to happen. When things started happening, they really started happening. I stayed up way too late and read furiously. It was the kind of book that makes me sad to leave when I'm finished with it. I finished it on Sunday night and barely made it to Tuesday before I had bought the second book (The Girl Who Played With Fire). The Entertainment Weekly review on the front cover says, "A gripping, stay-up-all-night read." I believe it. I felt bad for pulling my bookmark (a polaroid of my handsome Mark) out of Richard Wright's Black Boy to start it. But Black Boy will be here when I finish it. Right now I'm on my Swedish kick, so Steig Larsson it is.