THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATOO

I saved this trilogy for our travels in Europe. So much has been written about these books, and then there are the movie versions...

My curiosity was with Stieg Larsson's untimely death at age 50. A heart attack before any of these books were published.

I do recommend these books, although it took a very long time for me to feel any compassion or understanding for Lisbeth Salander. I find it very interesting that Larsson reportedly based her character on a grown-up Pippi Longstockings-type...

THE ELEGANCE OF THE HEDGEHOG

Chapter 2: The Miracles of Art

My name is Renée. I am fifty-four years old. For twenty-seven years I have been the concierge at number 7, rue de Grenelle, a fine hôtel particulier with a courtyard and private gardens, divided into eight luxury apartments, all of which are inhabited, all of which are immense. I am a widow, I am short, ugly, and plump, I have bunions on my feet and, if I am to credit certain early mornings of selfinflicted disgust, the breath of a mammoth. I did not go to college, I have always been poor, discreet, and insignificant. I live alone with my cat, a big lazy tom who has no distinguishing features other than the fact that his paws smell bad when he is annoyed. Neither he nor I make any effort to take part in the social doings of our respective kindred species. Because I am rarely friendl—— though always polit—— I am not liked, but am tolerated nonetheless: I correspond so very well to what social prejudice has collectively construed to be a typical French concierge that I am one of the multiple cogs that make the great universal illusion turn, the illusion according to which life has a meaning that can be easily deciphered. And since it has been written somewhere that concierges are old, ugly and sour, so has it been branded in fiery letters on the pediment of that same imbecilic firmament that the aforementioned concierges have rather large dithering cats who sleep all day on cushions that have been covered with crocheted cases.

Similarly, it has been decreed that concierges watch television interminably while their rather large cats doze, and that the entrance to the building must smell of pot-au-feu, cabbage soup, or a country-style cassoulet. I have the extraordinary good fortune to be the concierge of a very high-class sort of building.
The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Muriel Barbery

A delightful story--sweet and gritty; poignant. Redemption and romance. An especially good read when traveling in Paris.

SUITE FRANÇAISE

Hot thought the Parisians. The warm air of spring. It was night, they were at war and there was an air raid. But dawn was near, and the war was far away. The first to hear the alarm were those who couldn't sleep--the ill and bedridden, mothers with sons at the front, women crying for the men they loved. To them it began as a long breath, like air being forced into a deep sigh. It wasn't long before its wailing filled the sky. It came from afar, from beyond the horizon, slowly, almost lazily. Those asleep dreamed of waves breaking over pepples, a March storm whipping the woods, a herd of cows trampling the ground with their hooves, until finally sleep was shaken off, and they struggled to open their eyes, murmuring, "Is it an air raid?"
Irène Némirovsky