The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was another pre-release book giveaway I received at the Auntie's bookstore (http://www.auntiesbooks.com) book club bash. It's a "young adult" book, but I thoroughly enjoyed it - other than the fact that the protagonist is a teen-age girl, I didn't feel like it was 'beneath me'.

It's a science fiction book about a world (earth in the future? it's never explained) where different regions have different wealth and resources, and people are confined inside each region. As a yearly 'celebration', children from each region are selected to participate in the Hunger Games - the ultimate in Reality 'television' - they fight to the death, with the winner being guaranteed food for life.

Our protagonist, Katness, lives in one of the poorest regions and is the sole provider for her family, and a proficient hunter (who hunts in the forbidden area outside the fence). Her younger sister is chosen for the games (pretty much a death sentence, since kids from the richer areas are better equipped by their sponsors), so she volunteers in her place. The rest of the book is about her training and the big fight. In the middle of all this, we see a lot of dirty politicians and some of the machinations behind the scenes of the world. Our eyes are opened, along with Katness.

The world created by the author is pretty well thought out, and the characters are pretty well-rounded, if somewhat predictable.

All in all, a fun, entertaining read.

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Meltdown Iceland

Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island by Roger Boyes


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
I'm not really much of a finance-wonk, but I was interested in this book because I visited Iceland the day the people threw out all the politicians who caused the nation's financial collapse and elected a whole new administration. And, knowing some Icelanders personally, I was interested to read what an "outsider" thought of the whole fiasco. (I also enjoyed references to places in Iceland that I've seen)

I was a bit worried that this book would be full of all kinds of boring financial stuff, but it was really interesting. The author really got into the *people* behind the collapse - what motivated them, what went wrong, etc. It really was fascinating - kind of like a soap opera! (Sadly, the results of the collapse were no fantasy...)

The author makes the point that seeing what happened in a small country (total population is just over 300,000) makes it easier to grasp what went wrong world-wide. And I have to say that I have a much better understanding of what caused the global financial collapse after reading this.

The book was short, and very easy to read - not dull or boring, which was a relief! Certainly, it's a niche market book, but anyone who is interested in understanding what happened, without having to wade through pages of graphs & numbers would get a lot out of this book. Plus you really get to understand the Icelandic psyche! So, I quite enjoyed it!

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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This book was a total surprise. I picked it up as a freebie (pre-release copy) at a "book club bash" at our local bookstore (http://www.auntiesbooks.com). It sat on my shelf until April of 2009, when we were headed to Sweden (and Iceland) for a couple of weeks. Since the author was Swedish, I thought "how appropriate!". So I started reading it on the plane and simply ATE IT UP! It's an interesting tale, told in an interesting way. The girl of the title is a computer whiz/hacker, and very anti-social (for reasons we learn later). She gets involved in doing some work for a magazine editor, and we end up with a variation of the locked room mystery. But there's WAY more here than a simple mystery. This book is the first of a trilogy, which in Sweden is called "Men who hate women". While being a very entertaining read, we also see a lot of the violence and repression that men can perpetrate on women, even in a supposedly 'egalitarian' society of Sweden. But it's never preachy. It's just a great, great read, with some of the most interesting characters I've met in a book. Fortunately, when I got to Sweden, the sequel was out (in English). Needless to say, I snatched it up, and read it on the way back! (I'm now waiting desperately for the 3rd book to be released here in the US) Anyway, this has become one of my favorite books/series. I'm just sorry that the author has passed away before he could write more.

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People of the Book: A Novel by Geraldine Brooks


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
A very interesting novel, that is both a historical novel and a current novel. It's about Hannah, an antique book expert. She is called to Bosnia to inspect a Haggadah (Jewish prayer book), to authenticate it. She finds a hair, a wine stain, a part of a butterfly wing and salt water stains as she inspects the book. How each of these items became part of the book is told in separate chapters, from the most recent to the very beginning (and before) of the book. These chapters are interspersed with Hannah's own life - her rocky relationship with her mother, her relationships, etc. At first, this part of the book wasn't that intriguing ("Ho, hum. Another mother/daughter story..."), but as the book progresses, we see more and more into their lives, and see how Hannah, herself, is one of the "People of the Book". As a lover of books (and not just their contents, but the physical *books*, and as someone interested in Jewish culture, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. But you don't have to have those interests to enjoy it. If you simply enjoy historical novels, you'll enjoy this.

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