What are you reading the week of Sunday, April 19, 2015?
Hi everyone!
It's been a Constable Evan Evans (author: Rhys Bowen) week for me. I've read #s 1 through 4, and started on #5 (out of 10 total in this series). I have the next 5 on order at the library to pick up this coming week.
They're light and fun, and quick to read. Sort of like eating buttered popcorn. The setting in Wales is interesting, with smatterings of Welsh culture and history sprinkled here and there, but there's nothing deep about them. Pleasant enough entertainment, however I think I'll be more than ready to leave off reading any more cozies for awhile once I'm done with these.
So, what are you reading this week?
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Bowen's books are a nice, light read. But not great literature. Although they do stay with me. There is something in her writing that leaves an impression. Sometimes they are just a nice break from heavier stuff. Like Steig Larsson.!
I'm now halfway through The Girl Who Played With Fire. Very heavy stuff. I can see why this one wasn't as popular as the first. The first 100 pages was all about personal sex between the characters. That does not interest me at all. I do enjoy a bit of erotica but this was just too much about people's private lives. Salander's experience is, of course, crucial to the plot, but the others just felt like page-filler.
At long last, though, I'm at the who dunnit part. I am intrigued. I'll keep reading.
Greetings and thanks, scarletwoman, for your post to give us readers a chance to speak. 
I'm happy to do these weekly "what are you reading" posts, but you know I'm just the latest of a long line of Fiction Group members keeping up this tradition. I've only been doing these for a few months or so, however, it's been a pleasure and great fun! Plus, I've gotten many wonderful reading suggestions from the posters in these threads, and I'm truly grateful for all who participate.
I have definitely been enjoying the gentle humor of the Evans books. And, as you say, they are a nice break from heavier stuff, which is what I most often read these days.
Yeah, The Millennium Trilogy definitely qualifies as "heavy stuff". Since I read them back around 2009/2010, I don't remember many details anymore, or what happened in which book. I do remember there being a fair amount of explicit sex - some of it quite cringe-inducing, actually. However, I also remember finding the overall arc of the story fascinating and compelling.
And whatever else might be said about the Stieg Larsson books, they opened up the world of Nordic Noir to millions of English language readers, as the hype around The Millennium Trilogy coming out in English led publishers to madly scramble to find other Scandinavian authors to translate into English. Just for that alone I will be always grateful to Liz Salander.
me, who is practically OCD about reading an author's series in order! 
Anyway, here it is: Hypothermia is actually the last book in which Erlandur himself actually appears. In the next two books of the series, Outrage and Black Skies, Erlandur is totally absent, having split for the Eastern Fjords, where he spent his early childhood, after the events of Hypothermia. While the next two books are both good reads and intriguing mysteries in their own right, and each of them spotlights Erlandur's two closest colleagues and it's interesting to see them in action on their own without Erlandur; for me, no Erlandur still left a big hole.
Since the final episode for Erlandur, Strange Shores, has finally been published, my recommendation is to go straight to that book after you finish Hypothermia. You can always backtrack to the other two afterward, and not lose any of series' momentum by doing so.
Had I not been reading this series at the same rate as they were published, this is what I would have preferred to have done. I think that going straight to Stange Shores immediately after Hypothermia would sustain the strongest dramatic and emotional resonance.
Just my 2 cents...
That's what I will plan to do.
It's too late for Mrs. Enthusiast for she has read Outrage and Black Skies already. And as you say, she did enjoy them even though Erlandur was absent.
Have a pleasant week.
