Thoughts before reading: It’s got a family tree. I hate books with family trees. If I can’t remember who the characters are, you’re not doing your job properly, Author. Is that a typo I see? This book looks dense. I guess I’ll just borrow this one from Maddie and see how it goes.

Thoughts at page 90: This is is quite good. Bit draft-ish, which is not surprising considering Larsson passed away just after handing in the manuscripts for publication. The characters are totally insane. I’ve always loved a heroine with her own odd sense of morality outside that imposed by society, and Lisbeth Salander is exactly that. Odd, attractive, with a penchant for slogan t-shirts (‘Armageddon was yesterday – today we have a serious problem’), mistreated by a government welfare system that doesn’t understand her and governed by her own fierce independent intelligence, Salander is such a sympathetic character. I like Mikael Blomkvist, too: a journalist down in the dumps after being found guilty of libel. But of course, Larsson shows the depth of his integrity by making him the author of a book on the incompetence of Swedish financial journalists. This will be a pretty good ride.

Page 194: Hilarious Apple computer fetish. ‘Unsurprisingly she set her sights on the best available alternative: the new Apple PowerBook G4/1.0 GHz in an aluminium case with a PowerP.C. 7451 processor with an AltiVec Velocity BlueTooth and built-in C.D. and D.V.D burners.’ Also, quaint punctuation.

Page 201: There’s a section explaining the Swedish government’s social welfare protection system, which Salander is subject to as someone under the social and psychiatric guardianship of the state. It’s oddly placed and reads like a footnote, but it’s fascinating. There’s no doubt what Larsson thinks: ‘Taking away a person’s control of her own life – meaning her bank account – is one of the greatest infringements a democracy can impose, especially when it applies to young people.’ It’s a sobering portrait of the weaknesses of the Scandinavian welfare states. Another thread that runs through the book is the cruelty of violence against women, represented through the vicious rape of Salander by someone who should be protecting her. Each part of the book begins with a statistic: ’18% of the women in Sweden have been threatened by a man’, and the original Swedish title of the book was ‘Women Who Hate Men’.

Page 470: Shit, what time is it? I can’t feel my legs.

Page 504: THIS IS AMAZING.

THE END: Nooooooooooo holy mother of Beatrice. That was SO GOOD. Bring on the next one.