The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Writer: Stieg Larsson
Genre: Fiction

Mikael Blomkvist has lost a libel suit against billionaire  Wennerström and is facing a jail term. He is professionally beaten and decides to step down from his magazine - Millennium, as a board of director. At around the same time he gets a freelance assignment from the ex-CEO of Vanger Enterprises, Henrik Vanger. The case involves tracing disappearance and possibly murder of Henrik's great-niece Harriet some 40 years earlier. Blomkvist agrees because Henrik has lured him with the offer of Wennerström's head on a plate after the stipulated time.

Blomkvist moves to Hedeby and starts the work on his book of Vanger Family history wherein he is actually tying to solve Harriet's disappearance. What seems to be a cold case at one point of time soon turns into mad hunt for probably a serial killer who has been working without remorse for decades. And in this work he gets the help from Lisbeth Salander, a freaky introverted but talented computer hacker.

Together they uncover one of the deadliest secrets of their time and solve the Vanger case. Also Blomkvist, with Salander's help manages to finally blow the lid off Wennerström affairs, thereby having his vengeance towrads the end of the book.

I feel the title of the book is misleading because its more about Blomkvist than about Salander but the first book in the Millennium Trilogy is riveting enough to make you reach for the next one.  

The Blind Watchmaker

Writer: Richard Dawkins
Genre: Non Fiction/Evolutionary Biology(to be precise)


Is the complexity of a human body reason enough to believe in the existence of the supreme? Richard Dawkins thinks otherwise and he has used arguments in favour of Darwin's theory of evolution to explain his point of view. He reiterates on the Theory of Natural selection as the reason why we are what we are!


My favourite argument in the book is something that goes like this - To explain the origin of the DNA machine by invoking a supernatural designer is to explain precisely nothing, for it leaves unexplained the origin of the designer. You have to say something like 'God was always there', and if you allow yourself that kind of lazy way out, you might as well just say 'DNA was always there' or 'Life was always there' and be done with it.


How do you refute this? My answer to that is, probably it is easier for normal humans to digest the fact that there exists a supernatural being (who always exists and is not be questioned) and then lead lives than understand evolution and theory of natural selection as the reason to existence. Right now my mind is caught in two worlds because I am a believer who can never convince anyone apart from me why I believe in god.


It’s a heavy book and you need lots of patience to sit through his grinding examples and explanations. A strict no for casual readers and highly recommended for people who want to tread the path of some unusual reading.


I personally like God Delusion more though.