As proof if I ever go on a foreign holiday for a fortnight (which hasn't happened for a couple of years sadly) I will normally take around 10-12 books with me and I spend months planning which ones.
I also (somewhat sadly) have the claim to fame that I read 11 books on my honeymoon - including a 700 page fictionalised biography of Herman Goerring! - while most people find other things to do on their honeymoon.


Anyway, I thought I would start a new section as a direct rip-off of the movie thread so we can recommend books we like (I thought about it while mentioning The Damned United under the Last Movie thread).
As I am sure Stranglers fans are serious readers I expect this to be a challenging and never-ending thread. Or it could just contain a succession of phrases such as 'Inside Information' 'No Mercy', 'Stig of the Dump' (at school, when nine) or 'why read books when you could be listening to a bootleg of that gig in Lille in 1983?'
Anyway, to get the ball rolling, the last book I read was....
The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson.
This is the follow up to a book I started reading on the coach on the trip to France/Belgium - The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Both are written by a journalist (sadly now dead) and they are set in Sweden, a country I previously knew nothing about despite the best efforts of the Black and White album, Sven, Mamma Mia and Ulrik-ka-ka-ka.
Both books concern two intriguing main characters - a campaigning journalist and the girl mentioned in the title who is extraordinarily interesting. Branded a psycopath as a young teenager, she is actually something of a genius and she uses her bizarre range of talents to help pin down some very unsavoury characters in Ikea-land. She is a woman who hates men who hate women (if you get my drift) and her punishment for such people is often brutal and inventive. In this book she and the journo are trying to track down people involved in the sex traffic but the girl herself ends up being chased as she has been framed for a double murder. Sounds predictable - but trust me it aint.
Both books - which have been phenomenally successful all over the world - are well-written, intelligent, original and have a real pace and about them and both leave most 'crime' fiction for dead.
You would probably need to read the first book - the Tattoo one - before tackling this second effort but it is well worth doing so. Recommended!
There you go, let's get the (book reading) party started.
PS First one to say 'Stig of the Dump' has to go and listen to Daddy's Riding The Range as punishment. And the first to mention porn has to listen too it TWICE!!!!


