Although I'm not one to jump at buying door-stop bestsellers just because they're bestsellers, I couldn't resist buying this when I was on my hols in Tasmania. I'd heard nothing but very good things about Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy and, besides, was really drawn by book one's title: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The shop assistant in Hobart's Angus & Robertson raved about it too and promised me that I'd quickly get caught up in the lives of some very interesting characters and that I wouldn't be disappointed. Prophetic words, because I did and I haven't been. It's a fast-paced book and a lovely read, and I was glad of the lazy holidays so that I could spend more hours hooked into it than might otherwise have been possible.
Also like the fact - I read somewhere - that because it's considered hard by marketing departments (!) to sell books if the author has a foreign-sounding name (!!), Quercus decided to get word-of-mouth recommendations happening by handing out a phenomenal number of freebies. It's an approach that seems to have worked. Over 26 million copies have been sold around the world.
Only heard good things about the films too, but am going to resist seeing them until I've read books two and three.
