About this Event
The Mysteries to Die For Book Club is led by Elsie Souza, reading M**der, mayhem, and marvelous prose. January's selection is the first stop in our four-month international reading journey through the world's most captivating mysteries. From Nordic noir to British whodunits, each book reveals how crime and storytelling cross borders, and what our favorite detectives can teach us about culture, justice, and the human heart.
This month, we're reading Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg - a literary thriller that launched Denmark onto the international mystery map. When a young boy falls from a Copenhagen rooftop, Smilla Jaspersen, a glaciologist with Inuit heritage, suspects foul play and begins a relentless investigation that leads from the icy streets of Denmark to the frozen expanse of Greenland. Atmospheric, cerebral, and quietly devastating, Hoeg's novel is a haunting meditation on identity, isolation, and the cold truths that surface beneath the ice.
We will meet in person at our store location at The Mark, 117 S. Pineapple Ave. The book club is $21, which includes a copy of Smilla's Sense of Snow to be picked up at Bookstore1 any time before our meeting. Themed refreshments will be served!
ABOUT THE BOOK:
It happened in the Copenhagen snow. A six-year-old boy, a Greenlander like Smilla, fell to his death from the top of his apartment building. While the boy’s body is still warm, the police pronounce his death an accident. But Smilla knows her young neighbor didn’t fall from the roof on his own. Soon she is following a path of clues as clear to her as footsteps in the snow. For her dead neighbor, and for herself, she must embark on a harrowing journey of lies, revelation and violence that will take her back to the world of ice and snow from which she comes, where an explosive secret waits beneath the ice. . . .
PRAISE FOR THE BOOK:
“Splendid entertainment . . . the suspense novel as exploration of the heart. Høeg may yet be offered a chair in the corner of literary heaven reserved for great suspense novelists.”—The New York Times Book Review
“A superbly constructed thriller . . . a combination of suspense narrative, Hemingwayesque prose, exotic settings, and [a] spellbinding central female.”—People
“A book of profound intelligence . . . in the league of Melville or Conrad. Høeg writes prose that is as bitter, changeable, and deep-fathomed as poetry. . . . [It] demands to be read aloud and savored.”—The New Yorker
“[An] enchanting, snowcapped, finger-biting Danish suspense novel . . . nothing but satisfaction.”—Chicago Tribune
“First-rate . . . a serious and absorbing novel”—Jane Smiley, The Washington Post Book World
“Like John le Carré and Graham Greene before him, Peter Høeg has given a thriller moral and political resonance.”—Los Angeles Times
“An extraordinary quest, filled with danger, violence, and moral dread . . . Peter Høeg has shown himself to be a writer of real stature.”—The Times (London)
“A wonderful book . . . hugely satisfying . . . a thriller like no other.”—Newsweek
“Smilla’s Sense of Snow comes in the guise of an absorbing thriller . . . but it is also a poignant story of love and loss and alienation. One never wants to stop reading.”—The Orlando Sentinel
“A mystery, but one of the kind that Martin Cruz Smith and Scott Turow write, full of fascinating details, thick with life, peopled with characters in whom the reader may believe absolutely. One of the best novels to come out of continental Europe in quite a while.”—Los Angeles Daily News
“No question, the best thriller I’ve read . . . Høeg shocks and seduces and terrifies all at once.”—New Woman
“Smilla’s Sense of Snow is a considerable achievement, a riveting suspense tale.”—The Wall Street Journal
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Peter Høeg is an internationally renowned Danish author who entered the North American literary scene with Smilla’s Sense of Snow. Since its publication, Høeg’s new works, such as The Woman and the Ape – have appeared in English translations alongside older works such as Tales of the Night. Once a sailor, and currently an actor and dancer as well as a writer, Høeg lives in Copenhagen.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Bookstore1Sarasota, 117 S. Pineapple Ave., Sarasota, United States
USD 22.47
