I was just browsing in google on the topic "Depression" and one thing that caught my eye is that most of these sites are all filled in with the pics of women. Pausing here, what exactly does this mean?? Is it that its the women gender who mostly fall in for this disorder and not only that, are we all prone to a more frequent call from this one eyed monster. :-) wondering why I gave this description for this feeling wherein we feel pity on our own selves... If you ask me that exactly is the feeling of a depressed human being - just like a one eyed monster who is incapable of seeing the other side.. the other side of life.

Depression - I dont remember listening to any of my guy friends mentioning this as the reason for any of their action. Contradicting to this, all my female friends and for that matter myself, can always link this word to all the extra shopping, a palatte of pizza and ice cream or chocolate. I am just trying to wonder the reason for this. Why???

Okie lets look at this from a different angle. What happens to a male when he is upset? He might go take a smoke, a drink in the late hours of the day or may be a chat session with his pals over a coffee cup. What happens when a female is upset about something? A long time mourning is for sure along with shopping or extra calories :-) I am more concerned on the reason for this difference here rather than looking at the reactions itself. Women who are considered to have a better mental and spiritual strength than Men are more prone to these psychological disorders. And one question that needs attention here is "Is it because they are more aware of their feelings than the Men?"

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
by Stieg Larsson




Swedish author and journalist Stieg Larsson uses the tropes of both Scandinavian and British crime fiction but he is a one-off or, rather, was a one-off - tragically, he died of a heart attack, aged 50, in 2004.


The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is the first of his Millennium Trilogy to be published in the UK. It is a violent thriller that focuses on a complex financial fraud and a powerful family's sinister secret. It starts slowly, with details of how a Swedish company is ripping off government funding to set up a fake business in Russia. The novel picks up speed when it gets into the complexities of the wealthy Vanger family's past.


Forty years earlier, Harriet Vanger disappeared off the family's private island. Nobody saw her leave, there was no sign of her disappearance and no corpse. Her uncle, however, is convinced that a family member murdered her.

A journalist, Blomqvist, in disgrace after losing a libel case arising from his reporting of the financial scandal, takes on the investigation of the woman's disappearance. Almost immediately, he sees a link with a number of other murders taking place around the same time. The family only pretends to help and Blomqvist doesn't know where to go next.

Then he hooks up with the titular tattooed girl - a very angry punk hacker. The journalist and the hacker are ingenious, believable creations, in conflict with themselves and each other. They form an incongruous but credible bond as everyone they meet is against them. In the end, the novel becomes, among many other things, something of a tender love story.

Larsson's trilogy was published in Scandinavia and continental Europe to great acclaim between 2005 and 2007, after his death. Tattoo (Original title: Men Who Hate Women) won the prestigious Glass Key for the best Nordic crime novel of 2005. The Girl Who Played With Fire (2006) won a Swedish Academy for Detective Novels award. The third, Castles in the Sky, came out early last year.

Larsson, a leading expert on right-wing extremists and neo-Nazi organisations, was editor of Expo, the magazine for a project he had set up to combat racism. He began writing the trilogy after work each evening in 2001. He claimed he enjoyed it so much that he was partway through the third before he even considered sending anything to a publisher.

This is a striking novel, full of passion, an evocative sense of place and subtle insights into venal, corrupt minds. It's sad that a potentially great crime-writing career was ended almost before it began, but at least UK readers can enjoy this and look forward to the succeeding two novels in the trilogy.