La Princesse des glaces - Camilla Läckberg

I loved this book.  It's a translation from the Swedish into French.  The title can be translated as The Ice Princess.  Now, as far as translations go, my thinking is this: If I can't read a book in its original language, then I'd rather read the English translation, just because it'll be less work for me.  When I was in France last fall, though, and when I saw this book and was immediately intrigued (in part because of the cover, I won't lie), I checked on amazon.com (thank you, iPhone) and saw that it wasn't translated into English.  So, I bought the French translation.  It has since been translated into English, though, and has recently come out here.  So check it out.

It's a mystery, set in a small town in Sweden.  Erica has returned home to her small town following her parents' death, when there is a murder that takes place; a childhood friend of Erica's named Alex.  The police are of course involved, but so is Erica, trying to find out what happened and why.  Along the way, though, many more secrets turn up and there's a lot we learn about this small town.

I was completely intrigued as I read this book.  I kept mentally trying to put all of the pieces together, and then kept second guessing myself.  "What if it's this?  No, it can't be.  Oh, but it could be THIS!  Or can it?  Maybe it's THAT."  And I loved that.  And there are a lot of pieces to be put together!

I really enjoyed getting to know the characters, too.  There are things that happen, like with Erica's sister, that aren't directly related to the murder mystery.  But they didn't feel like they didn't belong; I actually really cared about that storyline as well.  And the way the author describes Erica's parents' house, where she and her sister grew up...I want to go see that house.  She really communicated not just the structure of it, but also the spirit and character of the house.

So.  Great story.  I didn't figure out whodunit and was surprised, but it made sense.  Other mysteries were involved and one really blew me away once I figured it out.  I think she's written six more stories written in this small town, and I'm sure they'll be out in English very soon...and I can't wait.

Foucault's Pendulum - Umberto Eco

I've wanted to read this book for years.  Seriously.  It's always been like some legendary book that's really hard but really amazing - at least, that's the impression that I had gotten somewhere in my life.  I don't even know where.  So it was with excitement and nervousness that I picked up this book.  And - wow.  Here's a quote from early on in the book:

With six letters - Iahveh - he had seven hundred and twenty permutations at his disposal.  The repetitions didn't count, because Diotallevi had said that the two hes must be taken as two different letters.  Belbo could have chosen, say, the thirty-sixth or the hundred and twentieth.


Huh?

Okay, let's try this one.

"In Isaiah 9:2, for instance, there's the word "LMRBH," lemarbah - which, note the coincidence, means to multiply - but the mem in the middle is written as a final mem."


Um, yeah.  Of course it is.

Essentially, I think that this book is waaaaay over my head.  I made it to page 62 before being thoroughly confounded and confused and, well, feeling like a complete moron.  Maybe someone made a movie out of it that I can try watching?