Happy Birthday, Everyday eBook. On November 15, 2011, we welcomed EverydayeBook.com into the digital space. Since then, we’ve covered hundreds of books, recommending to you, our dear followers and readers, some of the best of what we’re reading -- through prose, interviews, author-penned pieces, and more. In honor of our first birthday, we’d like to take a look back at some of the posts from our early days that we think you may have missed and that we’re particularly fond of. Happy eReading!

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Tom Brokaw
By Tom Brokaw
Tom Brokaw has been delivering the news in his distinctive style for decades. His career has taken him all over the world, and has brought him into countless American living rooms nightly. Now, Brokaw gets a little personal on Everyday eBook.

An Introduction to The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith
By Alexander McCall Smith
Beloved author Alexander McCall Smith welcomes us into the fantastic world of Precious Ramotswe and The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency.

On the Success of Stieg Larsson’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
By Edward Kastenmeier
With over sixty-five million copies sold, and fans worldwide spanning ages, classes, and sexes, it’s clear that the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy is not only an enormous commercial success, it has directly impacted our culture. But why?

How to Read Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace in 5 Easy Steps
By Jennifer Ridgway
Is it worth it? What’s it actually about? Here are a few recommendations for those on the fence about whether or not they should read what may be the most famous Russian novel.

Gone Girl: A Q&A With Gillian Flynn About Her Sharpest Object Yet
By Kristin Fritz
Gillian Flynn, author of Sharp Objects and Dark Places, sat down with Everyday eBook upon the release of her latest mind-blowing novel to talk about inspiration, the dark side of marriage, playing favorites, and more.

A Murakami Primer: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
By Courtney Allison
With the widely publicized release of 1Q84, it’s worth taking a look back at Haruki Murakami’s earlier works. Let's start with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, a rabbit-hole into Murakami’s world. It’s kind of like "Lost." But in book form. And weirder. Think raining fish.

Lee Child’s Jack Reacher: Rogue Shark or Jack the Knife?
By Christine McNamara
Lee Child's main man is like a shark in more ways than one. Oh, you've not tested the waters he swims in yet? Well get ready to dive in.

6 Must-Read Books for ‘Downton Abbey’ Fans
By Juliet Simon
If you’re taken with the drama, history, and romance in this series and are craving more, try capturing that feeling in book form; it lasts longer than an episode and will transport you just the same.

Perfectly Paired with Wine and Cheese: Julia Child’s My Life in France
By Richard Callison
'Last Saturday, I conveniently found myself at home opening a bottle of wine and tackling one of my favorite dishes, Coq au Vin, from the Mastering the Art of French Cooking cookbook. Nothing gets me in the mood for French cooking more than spending a couple of hours revisiting France through Julia Child's eyes, so before I rolled up my sleeves, I cracked open my well-worn copy of her memoir, My Life in France.'

Remembering Lois Lowry’s The Giver
By Naina Sharma
'I was nervous when I picked up Lois Lowry’s The Giver recently. I was worried that what had seemed profound and poetic as a child would become trite and lack depth as an adult. Luckily, the book, and my memory, did not disappoint.'

About This Book:

Stieg Larsson's #1 bestselling mystery featuring Lisbeth Salander is now a major motion picture directed by David Fincher, starring Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara, from Columbia Pictures/Sony. In theaters December 2011. The first volume in the Millennium Trilogy, and an international publishing sensation, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo combines murder mystery, family saga, love story, and financial intrigue into one satisfyingly complex and entertainingly atmospheric novel.

Excerpt:

A Friday in November

It happened every year, was almost a ritual. And this was his eighty-second birthday. When, as usual, the flower was delivered, he took off the wrapping paper and then picked up the telephone to call Detective Superintendent Morell who, when he retired, had moved to Lake Siljan in Dalarna. They were not only the same age, they had been born on the same day–which was something of an irony under the circumstances. The old policeman was sitting with his coffee, waiting, expecting the call.

“It arrived.”

“What is it this year?”

“I don’t know what kind it is. I’ll have to get someone to tell me what it is. It’s white.”

“No letter, I suppose.”

“Just the flower. The frame is the same kind as last year. One of those do-it-yourself ones.”

“Postmark?”

“Stockholm.”

“Handwriting?”

“Same as always, all in capitals. Upright, neat lettering.”

With that, the subject was exhausted, and not another word was exchanged for almost a minute. The retired policeman leaned back in his kitchen chair and drew on his pipe. He knew he was no longer expected to come up with a pithy comment or any sharp question which would shed a new light on the case. Those days had long since passed, and the exchange between the two men seemed like a ritual attaching to a mystery which no-one else in the whole world had the least interest in unravelling.

The Latin name was Leptospermum (Myrtaceae) rubinette. It was a plant about ten centimetres high with small, heather-like foliage and a white flower with five petals about two centimetres across.

The plant was native to the Australian bush and uplands, where it was to be found among tussocks of grass. There it was called Desert Snow. Someone at the botanical gardens in Uppsala would later confirm that it was a plant seldom cultivated in Sweden. The botanist wrote in her report that it was related to the tea tree and that it was sometimes confused with its more common cousin Leptospermum scoparium, which grew in abundance in New Zealand. What distinguished them, she pointed out, was that rubinette had a small number of microscopic pink dots at the tips of the petals, giving the flower a faint pinkish tinge.

Rubinette was altogether an unpretentious flower. It had no known medicinal properties, and it could not induce hallucinatory experiences. It was neither edible, nor had a use in the manufacture of plant dyes. On the other hand, the aboriginal people of Australia regarded as sacred the region and the flora around Ayers Rock.

The botanist said that she herself had never seen one before, but after consulting her colleagues she was to report that attempts had been made to introduce the plant at a nursery in Göteborg, and that it might, of course, be cultivated by amateur botanists. It was difficult to grow in Sweden because it thrived in a dry climate and had to remain indoors half of the year. It would not thrive in calcareous soil and it had to be watered from below. It needed pampering.

The fact of its being so rare a flower ought to have made it easier to trace the source of this particular specimen, but in practice it was an impossible task. There was no registry to look it up in, no licences to explore. Anywhere from a handful to a few hundred enthusiasts could have had access to seeds or plants. And those could have changed hands between friends or been bought by mail order from anywhere in Europe, anywhere in the Antipodes.

But it was only one in the series of mystifying flowers that each year arrived by post on the first day of November. They were always beautiful and for the most part rare flowers, always pressed, mounted on watercolour paper in a simple frame measuring six inches by eleven inches.

The strange story of the flowers had never been reported in the press; only a very few people knew of it. Thirty years ago the regular arrival of the flower was the object of much scrutiny–at the National Forensic Laboratory, among fingerprint experts, graphologists, criminal investigators, and one or two relatives and friends of the recipient. Now the actors in the drama were but three: the elderly birthday boy, the retired police detective, and the person who had posted the flower. The first two at least had reached such an age that the group of interested parties would soon be further diminished.

The policeman was a hardened veteran. He would never forget his first case, in which he had had to take into custody a violent and appallingly drunk worker at an electrical substation before he caused others harm. During his career he had brought in poachers, wife beaters, con men, car thieves, and drunk drivers. He had dealt with burglars, drug dealers, rapists, and one deranged bomber. He had been involved in nine murder or manslaughter cases. In five of these the murderer had called the police himself and, full of remorse, confessed to having killed his wife or brother or some other relative. Two others were solved within a few days. Another required the assistance of the National Criminal Police and took two years.

The ninth case was solved to the police’s satisfaction, which is to say that they knew who the murderer was, but because the evidence was so insubstantial the public prosecutor decided not to proceed with the case. To the detective superintendent’s dismay, the statute of limitations eventually put an end to the matter. But all in all he could look back on an impressive career.

He was anything but pleased.

For the detective, the “Case of the Pressed Flowers” had been nagging at him for years–his last, unsolved and frustrating case. The situation was doubly absurd because after spending literally thousands of hours brooding, on duty and off, he could not say beyond doubt that a crime had indeed been committed.

The two men knew that whoever had mounted the flowers would have worn gloves, that there would be no fingerprints on the frame or the glass. The frame could have been bought in camera shops or stationery stores the world over. There was, quite simply, no lead to follow. Most often the parcel was posted in Stockholm, but three times from London, twice from Paris, twice from Copenhagen, once from Madrid, once from Bonn, and once from Pensacola, Florida. The detective superintendent had had to look it up in an atlas.

After putting down the telephone the eighty-two-year-old birthday boy sat for a long time looking at the pretty but meaningless flower whose name he did not yet know. Then he looked up at the wall above his desk. There hung forty-three pressed flowers in their frames. Four rows of ten, and one at the bottom with four. In the top row one was missing from the ninth slot. Desert Snow would be number forty-four.

Without warning he began to weep. He surprised himself with this sudden burst of emotion after almost forty years.

PART 1
Incentive
December 20-January 3
Eighteen percent of the women in Sweden have at one time been threatened by a man.

Chapter 1
Friday, December 20

The trial was irretrievably over; everything that could be said had been said, but he had never doubted that he would lose. The written verdict was handed down at 10:00 on Friday morning, and all that remained was a summing up from the reporters waiting in the corridor outside the district court.

"Carl" Mikael Blomkvist saw them through the doorway and slowed his step. He had no wish to discuss the verdict, but questions were unavoidable, and he—of all people—knew that they had to be asked and answered. This is how it is to be a criminal, he thought. On the other side of the microphone. He straightened up and tried to smile. The reporters gave him friendly, almost embarrassed greetings.

"Let's see . . . Aftonbladet, Expressen, TT wire service, TV4, and . . . where are you from? . . . ah yes, Dagens Nyheter. I must be a celebrity," Blomkvist said.

"Give us a sound bite, Kalle Blomkvist." It was a reporter from one of the evening papers.

Blomkvist, hearing the nickname, forced himself as always not to roll his eyes. Once, when he was twenty-three and had just started his first summer job as a journalist, Blomkvist had chanced upon a gang which had pulled off five bank robberies over the past two years. There was no doubt that it was the same gang in every instance. Their trademark was to hold up two banks at a time with military precision. They wore masks from Disney World, so inevitably police logic dubbed them the Donald Duck Gang. The newspapers renamed them the Bear Gang, which sounded more sinister, more appropriate to the fact that on two occasions they had recklessly fired warning shots and threatened curious passersby.

Their sixth outing was at a bank in Östergötland at the height of the holiday season. A reporter from the local radio station happened to be in the bank at the time. As soon as the robbers were gone he went to a public telephone and dictated his story for live broadcast.

Blomkvist was spending several days with a girlfriend at her parents' summer cabin near Katrineholm. Exactly why he made the connection he could not explain, even to the police, but as he was listening to the news report he remembered a group of four men in a summer cabin a few hundred feet down the road. He had seen them playing badminton out in the yard: four blond, athletic types in shorts with their shirts off. They were obviously bodybuilders, and there had been something about them that had made him look twice—maybe it was because the game was being played in blazing sunshine with what he recognised as intensely focused energy.

There had been no good reason to suspect them of being the bank robbers, but nevertheless he had gone to a hill overlooking their cabin. It seemed empty. It was about forty minutes before a Volvo drove up and parked in the yard. The young men got out, in a hurry, and were each carrying a sports bag, so they might have been doing nothing more than coming back from a swim. But one of them returned to the car and took out from the boot something which he hurriedly covered with his jacket. Even from Blomkvist's relatively distant observation post he could tell that it was a good old AK4, the rifle that had been his constant companion for the year of his military service.

He called the police and that was the start of a three-day siege of the cabin, blanket coverage by the media, with Blomkvist in a front-row seat and collecting a gratifyingly large fee from an evening paper. The police set up their headquarters in a caravan in the garden of the cabin where Blomkvist was staying.

The fall of the Bear Gang gave him the star billing that launched him as a young journalist. The downside of his celebrity was that the other evening newspaper could not resist using the headline "Kalle Blomkvist solves the case." The tongue-in-cheek story was written by an older female columnist and contained references to the young detective in Astrid Lindgren's books for children. To make matters worse, the paper had run the story with a grainy photograph of Blomkvist with his mouth half open even as he raised an index finger to point.

It made no difference that Blomkvist had never in life used the name Carl. From that moment on, to his dismay, he was nicknamed Kalle Blomkvist by his peers—an epithet employed with taunting provocation, not unfriendly but not really friendly either. In spite of his respect for Astrid Lindgren—whose books he loved—he detested the nickname. It took him several years and far weightier journalistic successes before the nickname began to fade, but he still cringed if ever the name was used in his hearing.

Right now he achieved a placid smile and said to the reporter from the evening paper: "Oh come on, think of something yourself. You usually do."

His tone was not unpleasant. They all knew each other, more or less, and Blomkvist's most vicious critics had not come that morning. One of the journalists there had at one time worked with him. And at a party some years ago he had nearly succeeded in picking up one of the reporters—the woman from She on TV4.

"You took a real hit in there today," said the one from Dagens Nyheter, clearly a young part-timer. "How does it feel?"

Despite the seriousness of the situation, neither Blomkvist nor the older journalists could help smiling. He exchanged glances with TV4. How does it feel? The half-witted sports reporter shoves his microphone in the face of the Breathless Athlete on the finishing line. "I can only regret that the court did not come to a different conclusion," he said a bit stuffily.

"Three months in gaol and 150,000 kronor damages. That's pretty severe," said She from TV4.

"I'll survive."

"Are you going to apologise to Wennerström? Shake his hand?"

"I think not."

"So you still would say that he's a crook?" Dagens Nyheter.

The court had just ruled that Blomkvist had libelled and defamed the financier Hans-Erik Wennerström. The trial was over and he had no plans to appeal. So what would happen if he repeated his claim on the courthouse steps? Blomkvist decided that he did not want to find out.

"I thought I had good reason to publish the information that was in my possession. The court has ruled otherwise, and I must accept that the judicial process has taken its course. Those of us on the editorial staff will have to discuss the judgement before we decide what we're going to do. I have no more to add."

"But how did you come to forget that journalists actually have to back up their assertions?" She from TV4. Her expression was neutral, but Blomkvist thought he saw a hint of disappointed repudiation in her eyes.

The reporters on site, apart from the boy from Dagens Nyheter, were all veterans in the business. For them the answer to that question was beyond the conceivable. "I have nothing to add," he repeated, but when the others had accepted this TV4 stood him against the doors to the courthouse and asked her questions in front of the camera. She was kinder than he deserved, and there were enough clear answers to satisfy all the reporters still standing behind her. The story would be in the headlines but he reminded himself that they were not dealing with the media event of the year here. The reporters had what they needed and headed back to their respective newsrooms.

Excerpted from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. Copyright © 2011 by Stieg Larsson. Excerpted by permission of Vintage, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Read what the editor of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo has to say about the trilogy's staying power.

Choosing which mystery writer to read these days is a bit like choosing a dining experience. In addition to the myriad of cultural offerings, we may choose a sit-down, takeout, standing casual, or bite on the fly. Reading a Stieg Larsson novel, for instance, is a seven-course meal, requiring some time and patience, yet resulting in a deeply rich and satisfying experience. James Patterson is a lot like fast food, tasty but quickly and easily devoured. And then there’s David Baldacci, who always delivers a full, hot plate. His latest, The Innocent, is steak, rare, with potatoes and gravy, all-American, all-heart.

Will Robie is a political assassin. Hired by the U.S. government, he is ordered to kill individuals who conspire against the United States. Robie is tough, savvy, and courageous. He takes enormous risks and no prisoners, pursuing these most heinous villains. Meticulous planning and precise executions have granted him a perfect record. Now, with his long, violent career beginning to catch up with him, Will struggles to hold on to that small, buried, diminishing piece of himself that reassures him that he is, in fact, still human.

But when elements of his latest assignment go suddenly and tragically awry, the hunter becomes the hunted and circumstances soon spiral south. With federal bureaucracies of little help, Robie teams with the unlikeliest of partners, deepening the mystery and creating more problems than solutions.  The result is classic Baldacci: a maze of bread-crumb clues keeping you riveted to the page as each precious minute ticks toward its deadly ultimatum.

Many authors of this genre tend to write with a speed-driven narrative, and often fall prey to arrested character development. Baldacci strikes a better balance between speed of story and intricacy of character, his Camel Club series serving as a prime example. And where devices such as red herrings (misleading clues) are employed by many mystery writers, Baldacci relies more on shrewd plots and hairpin turns to keep you guessing, while tottering on the edge of your seat. Overall, it is the deeper intelligence of his writing that keeps me coming back for more. His talent for weaving so many disparate and delicate strands into a perilous web of deception is masterful, resulting in a remarkable, intellectually satiating experience. In doing so, I am left most impressed with the genius of his thinking, plotting and craft. A Magnolia cupcake on the fly? Baldacci is more like a favorite restaurant you return to time and again. Bon appetit!

While celebrating the great dads in our lives today, let's consider how lucky we are. Witty, kind, intelligent, our fathers are a noble group. But in fiction, that's not always the case. Not all literary father figures have the principles and compassion of, say, an Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. Writers from Shakespeare to Stephen King have penned some of the most villainous patriarchs on paper, so while we can take comfort in our real-life fathers, we've rounded up some fictional doozies right here. So, have a laugh and a shiver while perusing this bunch -- it'll make you appreciate the decent dads in your own life even more.

Humbert Humbert in Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
Winning the award for worst stepfather is Humbert Humbert. He married to be near his wife's twelve-year-old daughter with whom he was sexually obsessed, then kidnapped and molested her on a demented road trip. How she got away is another twisted chapter.

King Lear in King Lear, by William Shakespeare
A master manipulator, King Lear favored and rewarded his two daughters who flattered his ego, giving them control of his kingdom, while disinheriting his daughter, Cordelia, who truly loved him -- leading to her murder and his own death.

Lord Asriel in The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman
Power-hungry and single-minded in his quest to overthrow God in a parallel universe, Lord Asriel lied to his daughter for most of her life, masquerading as her uncle, and stopped at nothing, including risking her life, for his dark cause.

Alexander Zalachenko in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
Talk about a traumatic childhood: Lisbeth Salander's father, Zalachenko, was a criminal mastermind who periodically appeared in her home to brutally beat, rape, and emotionally torment her mother while she watched. Spoiler alert: At the ripe old age of twelve, Lisbeth got her revenge.

Capulet in Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare
Papa Capulet was determined to keep his daughter, Juliet, from her true love, Romeo, because he wasn't deemed suitable -- and we know how that one turned out. Goes to show that when it comes to snuffing out teen romances, daddy doesn't know best.

Darth Vader in Star Wars: A New Hope, by George Lucas
This half man, half cyborg is one bad dude, and the definition of a deadbeat dad. In his quest to be a sinister overlord and rule the galaxy, he paid no attention to his kids, Luke and Leia -- except when he was trying to kill them.

Pap in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
There's a good reason Huck took off down the river with Jim. Huck's father, Pap, was the mean town drunk who dished out harsh physical punishment, locked him up, and disappeared for months. Jim was a much better father figure, indeed.

Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller
Willy is not violent, just a loser dad and a poor role model. He misleads his sons with misguided lessons about life and love, and imparts delusional ideas about the ticket to success, which end up being the key to his own tragic demise.

Jack Torrance in The Shining, by Stephen King
Stashing your family in a haunted mountain resort while you get violently drunk and become possessed does not make one father of the year. This terrifying dad went after his son in a crazed manner, but thankfully King put the breaks on before truly freaking us out.

Now -- aren't you that much more thankful for your own father?

Jens Lapidus has been hailed as the next Stieg Larsson and from his electrifying crime novel, Easy Money, it is clear why. Lapidus' gritty story is set in Stockholm and depicts an underworld of Euro-mobsters and their unending desire for drugs, power, cash, and revenge. Connected with this sinister set is a group of rich, young things on the party scene, and it would appear a penchant for violence does not discriminate whether you're wearing Prada or prison couture. Our narrators are the criminals from both of these worlds, who expose a tangle of double lives and double-dealing. As they risk everything, we fall into their shadowy world and experience a taste of their intoxicating ride.

I began wondering what made the author create such disturbingly despicable yet somehow sympathetic characters. Luckily for me, Jens Lapidus took the time to answer a few of our burning questions about what went into the making of this novel.

Everyday eBook: Why did you decide to tell this story from the perspectives of the criminals rather than taking a more traditional route where we follow a detective unraveling a crime?

Jens Lapidus: I want to expand the borders of the traditional Scandinavian crime fiction. I figured that since we have people in Sweden for whom committing crime is something natural, and a part of their lifestyle, it must be fascinating to see crime from their eyes. In my job as a defense lawyer, I encounter a lot of people from the Stockholm underworld, and I wanted to tell their story; I wanted my readers to get into the heads of people they rarely understand. This approach received an enormous response among the reading public in the Scandinavian countries and many other countries around the world.

EE: Both the glittering nightlife and the seedy underworld seem extremely authentic. What kind of research did you do?

JL: I get a lot of my research for free, from my job. Having said that, the client-attorney-privilege is a holy principle to be upheld. This means that there are many stories I will never be able to tell. It also means that in the future I might find it impossible to continue to write the tales from the Stockholm gutter the way I do. Then I am thinking of switching to ... I do not know ... love stories, perhaps?

EE: The characters of JW and Jorge both have sisters who motivate them. What made you choose the role of sister as the most influential woman in each of their lives?

JL: Family is always important, whether you are a tough gangster or an upcoming drug dealer striving to make it in the posh inner city of Stockholm. I also wanted to show how family relations may be severed by a criminal lifestyle.

EE: Characters with dual natures surface in this novel. For instance, Mrado is the murderous muscle who is also a tender, loving dad. Do you think good and evil can exist simultaneously?

JL: Yes, I do. I do not believe in monsters or angels, black or white. All human beings are somewhere in between. That is not to say that all are the same, but that when you go deeper into a character a more complex personality will emerge. It is simply about human nature.

EE: Your novel depicts Swedes as being biased against non-Swedes. Is this an accurate portrayal and is Stockholm as dangerous as your book (and Stieg Larsson's works) makes it seem?

JL: To some extent there is an indirect structural racism in Sweden. The formal laws and the authorities are not racist, but you will definitely have a more difficult time finding a job if you are born in Somalia than in Gothenburg. Stockholm is like most major European cities -- it can be dangerous and there are a lot of problems with drugs, violence, and prostitution. Having said that, I still believe it is a relatively good and safe place to live. The Russian journalists I met a couple of months ago said: "You are describing organized crime in Stockholm. It is all quite cute."

This book translates perfectly to the big screen. Check out the Swedish film, Snabba Cash, coming soon to theaters. Watch the trailer here.

There’s no ignoring it: Awards season is here, and though it seems only yesterday Ricky Gervais entertained us – a little more tamely than usual – at the Golden Globes this year, the nominations for the next big show are out. That’s right: February 26, the night of the eighty-fourth annual Academy Awards, will be here before we know it. And while others rush to box office windows to get in one more movie before the big day, you can rest easy knowing you’ve seen all that’s worth seeing (right?). So instead, while the rest of the country is elbow-to-elbow in theaters everywhere, take a literary look at the upcoming awards and fill your eReader with these books that have made their way into the spotlight for the 2012 Oscars.

The Descendants, by Kaui Hart Hemmings
Film nominated for: Best actor in a leading role, George Clooney; Best director, Alexander Payne; Best picture, Jim Burke, Alexander Payne, and Jim Taylor; Best adapted screenplay/writing, Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon, and Jim Rash; Best film editing, Kevin Tent

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, by John Le Carré
Film nominated for: Best actor in a leading role, Gary Oldman; Best adapted screenplay/writing, Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan; Best music/original score, Alberto Iglesias

Moneyball, by Michael Lewis
Film nominated for: Best actor in a leading role, Brad Pitt; Best actor in a supporting role, Jonah Hill; Best picture, Michael De Luca, Rachael Horovitz, and Brad Pitt; Best adapted screenplay/writing, Steven Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin; Best film editing, Christopher Tellefsen; Best sound mixing, Deb Adair, Ron Bochar, Dave Giammarco, and Ed Novick

My Week with Marilyn, based on the books My Week with Marilyn and The Prince, the Showgirl and Me by Colin Clark
Film nominated for: Best actor in a supporting role, Kenneth Branagh; Best actress in a leading role, Michelle Williams

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer
Film nominated for: Best actor in a supporting role, Max von Sydow; Best picture, Scott Rudin

Albert Nobbs, by George Moore
Film nominated for: Best actress in a leading role, Glenn Close; Best actress in a supporting role, Janet McTeer; Best makeup, Martial Corneville, Lynn Johnston, and Matthew W. Mungle

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
Film nominated for: Best actress in a leading role, Viola Davis; Best actress in a supporting role, Jessica Chastain and Octavia Spencer; Best picture, Brunson Green, Chris Columbus, and Michael Barnathan

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
Film nominated for: Best actress in a leading role, Rooney Mara; Best cinematography, Jeff Cronenweth; Best film editing, Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall; Best sound editing, Ren Klyce; Best sound mixing, David Parker, Michael Semanick, Ren Klyce, and Bo Persson

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, by J.K. Rowling
Film nominated for: Best art direction, production design: Stuart Craig; Set decoration: Stephenie McMillan; Best makeup, Nick Dudman, Amanda Knight, and Lisa Tomblin; Best visual effects, Tim Burke, David Vickery, Greg Butler, and John Richardson

The Invention of Hugo Cabret (“Hugo”), by Brian Selznick
Film nominated for: Best director, Martin Scorsese; Best picture, Graham King and Martin Scorsese; Best adapted screenplay/writing, John Logan; Best film editing, Thelma Schoonmaker; Best art direction, production design: Dante Ferretti, Set decoration: Francesca Lo Schiavo; Best cinematography, Robert Richardson; Best costume design, Sandy Powell; Best music/original score, Howard Shore; Best sound editing, Philip Stockton and Eugene Gearty; Best sound mixing, Tom Fleischman and John Midgley; Best visual effects, Rob Legato, Joss Williams, Ben Grossman, and Alex Henning

War Horse, by Michael Morpurgo
Film nominated for: Best picture, Steven Spielberg and Kathleen Kennedy; Best music/original score, John Williams; Best sound editing, Richard Hymns and Gary Rydstrom; Best sound mixing, Gary Rydstrom, Andy Nelson, Tom Johnson, and Stuart Wilson; Best art direction, Production Design: Rick Carter; Set Decoration: Lee Sandales; Best cinematography, Janusz Kaminski

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë
Film nominated for: Best costume design, Michael O'Connor

In the Sewers of Lvov (“In Darkness”), by Robert Marshall
Film nominated for: Best foreign language film

The Adventures of Tintin, by Hergé
Film nominated for: Best music/original score, John Williams

Drive, by James Sallis
Film nominated for: Best sound editing, Lon Bender and Victor Ray Ennis

Farragut North (“The Ides of March”), play by Beau Willimon
Film nominated for: Best adapted screenplay/writing, George Clooney, Grant Heslov, and Beau Willimon

One of our favorite things about the end of the year in the world of books is looking back over the last twelve months to see what it was that got people reading. The numbers are in, Random House's bestselling eBooks of the year have been announced, and there's something in the mix for nearly everyone!

Laura Hillenbrand's true telling of a World War II story of survival in Unbroken captivated readers everywhere. Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, beginning with The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, continued to thrill readers, and if you've not yet delved into this phenomenal series, winter is a great time to start! Fans of John Grisham and Janet Evanovich were grateful this year for the gift of another novel from each of the prolific authors, with the release of The Litigators and Smokin' Seventeen. George R. R. Martin's A Game of Thrones, which was also adapted into a series for HBO this year, was originally published more than ten years ago but its staying power is evident. Paula McLain's The Paris Wife, a fictional account of the love story between Ernest Hemingway and his wife, Hadley, in 1920s Paris, enchanted readers. The reach of Erik Larson's In the Garden of Beasts extended beyond the history buffs and drew hordes of folks into his story of the first American ambassador to Hitler's Germany. And Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone, the epic story of the twin love children of an Indian nun and British surgeon, sets as its background Ethiopia on the eve of a revolution.

So as the holiday hubbub begins to quiet, settle back and get cozy with any of these great books. After all, before you know it we'll be well into 2012 -- and a whole new slew of fantastic books will begin to appear.

Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, by Stieg Larsson
The Girl Who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson
A Game of Thrones, by George R. R. Martin
The Litigators, by John Grisham
The Paris Wife, by Paula McLain
Smokin' Seventeen, by Janet Evanovich
In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson
Cutting for Stone, by Abraham Verghese

Have you already read your way through all of these titles? Are you looking for something else? Check out the bestsellers in other categories, from romance to business to teen reads and more!

With the Scott Rudin/David Fincher “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” film release this month, as well as the release of the eBook bundle of the entire trilogy, it seems like a good time to reflect on the huge success of the Stieg Larsson books. With over 65 million copies sold, and fans worldwide spanning ages, classes, and sexes, it’s clear that the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy is not only an enormous commercial success, it has directly impacted our culture. But why? What made these books so popular to begin with?

Any discussion of the success of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has to begin with a discussion of Lisbeth Salander – a name that has been on everyone’s lips since the first book first topped bestseller lists three years ago. Lisbeth is often suggested as Larsson’s secret to success. And it’s true that her appeal goes deep. Stieg Larsson makes it almost impossible not to root for her as our heroine. As a culture we abhor abuses of power, but we have an equally strong aversion to the weak and the powerless (see Lord of the Flies). We like the underdog who overcomes. And Lisbeth Salander is that in spades. Powerful abusive forces have consistently tried to make her a victim, and yet she comes to us a fierce warrior princess. (Add to this the fact that for much of the series we’re not exactly sure who has tried to make Lisbeth the victim; that mystery looms in the background like the smoking man from “The X-Files,” a puzzle to be solved with all the others.)

And then there is our culture’s modern fascination with fierce women characters who are more powerful than the men around them. Think “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” This is a difficult setup to pull off, though, because we also dislike milquetoast men, so any male character working with such a woman needs to be sufficiently cool and accomplished to maintain our sympathies – and so we have Mikael Blomkvist. Blomkvist is a victim as well, but we’re never in doubt that somehow, someway, he will claw his way out of his plight and reassert himself as a vanquisher of the powerful and corrupt.

I have always thought there was an interesting inversion in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, too. Lisbeth is the diminutive young hacker girl with a photographic memory – someone we’d normally see to be the damsel in distress – yet she turns into an action hero. Then there’s Mikael Blomkvist, the intrepid journalist who turns out to be the boy toy. And with these two, this tension allows for the constant possibility that the woman might seduce the man at any time – which has its own appeal.

In the year of Occupy Wall Street it’s important also to mention the victory of the regular man and woman (to the extent you can call Lisbeth regular) over powerful and phenomenally wealthy forces. Americans (and most of the world) like to see the rich and powerful brought back down to earth.

And one final consideration. It is widely known that Stieg Larsson was an inveterate reader of mysteries. A quick consult of Wikipedia comes up with the following list of his favorites (although I’ve also seen others): Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Elizabeth George, Sara Paretsky, and Val McDermid. Stieg used his knowledge of the genre to great effect in all three books, not just in terms of writing riveting fiction with compelling characters, but also formally. The first book is essentially a locked-room mystery, woven together with a serial killer thriller, all within the frame of a financial thriller. The second book is more a police procedural, and the final text is essentially a courtroom drama blended with a spy thriller. They are all successful styles which readers have come to love individually, but Stieg Larsson managed to blend all of these various styles – and the whole history of mystery – into one superb, woefully short series of books.

But these are just my thoughts. What do you think is the secret to the success of this series? As an editor and a fan of the books, I would love to hear.

The month of May this year was chillier than usual for American readers thanks to Jo Nesbo’s The Snowman, and winter's about to come crashing in with the publication of The Leopard this December. Nesbo’s Norwegian roots and knack for suspense and cold, creepy ambience have invited obvious comparison to the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Millennium Trilogy (in the UK, his books are printed with a seal calling him ‘the next Stieg Larsson’). But like his hero Harry Hole, Nesbo is his own man. He has a near-supernatural gift for giving characters depth and psychological complexity, and while both Harry and Lisbeth Salander will give you papercuts from turning their pages so fast, I find Harry’s issues -- mired not in government conspiracy and brutal abuse but the more mundane culprits Melancholy and Alcohol -- make him more compelling. And even at his most dire, Harry is never without his droll sense of humor.

The sixth book in Nesbo’s Harry Hole series available in English, The Leopard, picks up with Harry living semi-consciously in Hong Kong following his cracking of The Snowman case. Harry is a maverick cop with nine closets’ worth of emotional baggage: lost love, family guilt, anti-establishment angst, alcoholism, questionable hygiene. (Despite this, he is irresistible to the ladies, being something of a cocktail of introspection, Superman, and Steve McQueen.) He has run to Hong Kong to wallow in his various miseries, medicating with opium to stop drinking. While fans of the series have seen Harry in the pits before, he has really hit rock bottom in the opening of The Leopard. He grudgingly concedes to returning to Oslo to help with a new murder case, convinced only by the news that his father has become terminally ill.

And on to the murders. Women in Oslo have been found dead, drowned in their own blood. Clues are scant and Harry has to contend with bureaucratic jurisdictional nonsense within the crime squad to work his magic. More bodies turn up – a hanging in a park and a man crazy-glued to his bathtub. Eventually Harry discerns the victims spent the same night in a tiny ski hostel and that the killer is picking off the remaining guests. Will Harry be able to pull himself together enough to think ahead of the killer and save the next name on the list? The investigation traverses Nordic mountaintops, angry African volcanoes, and the mind of the most certifiably insane villain Harry has yet to pursue. Nesbo flawlessly outpaces your guesses, ratcheting up the stakes with each chapter.

Friendly warning: The murder weapon in The Leopard is one of the most terrifying implements ever committed to the page.