Audiobook5 hours
"There Are Things I Want You to Know" About Stieg Larsson and Me
Written by Marie-Francoise Colombani and Eva Gabrielsson
Narrated by Cassandra Campbell
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
()
About this audiobook
There is only one person who can tell Stieg Larsson's story better than he can, and that is his lifelong companion, Eva Gabrielsson. This is her book.
The keys to the "Stieg Larsson phenomenon" all lie with Stieg Larsson the man. No one knew him like Gabrielsson. Here, she tells the story of their 30-year romance; of Stieg's lifelong struggle to expose Sweden's neo-Nazis; of his struggle to keep the magazine he founded, Expo, alive; of his difficult relationships with his immediate family; and of the joy and the relief he discovered writing the Millenium trilogy. Above all, this is a love story, and we come to understand, reading "There Are Things I Want You to Know" About Stieg Larsson and Me, that if there was another secret besides Larsson's own imagination and convictions, it was his absolute love for his companion and her nurturing of their privacy and shared passions.
The book is told as a series of short vignettes, with titles ranging from "Speaking of Coffee" and "Stieg's Journalistic Credo" to "Goodbyes" and "The Fourth Volume." Gabrielsson speaks with rare candor and dignity, inspired only by the truth as she knows it. "There Are Things I Want You to Know" About Stieg Larsson and Me is thus short and to the point, poignant in its account of two soulmates and the life they shared and deeply insightful into the man everyone wants to know better, and about whom so little is known.
"I would have preferred to have never written this book. It speaks of Stieg, of our life together, and of my life after his death," writes Gabrielsson early in her book. It was written because she alone can tell his story.
The keys to the "Stieg Larsson phenomenon" all lie with Stieg Larsson the man. No one knew him like Gabrielsson. Here, she tells the story of their 30-year romance; of Stieg's lifelong struggle to expose Sweden's neo-Nazis; of his struggle to keep the magazine he founded, Expo, alive; of his difficult relationships with his immediate family; and of the joy and the relief he discovered writing the Millenium trilogy. Above all, this is a love story, and we come to understand, reading "There Are Things I Want You to Know" About Stieg Larsson and Me, that if there was another secret besides Larsson's own imagination and convictions, it was his absolute love for his companion and her nurturing of their privacy and shared passions.
The book is told as a series of short vignettes, with titles ranging from "Speaking of Coffee" and "Stieg's Journalistic Credo" to "Goodbyes" and "The Fourth Volume." Gabrielsson speaks with rare candor and dignity, inspired only by the truth as she knows it. "There Are Things I Want You to Know" About Stieg Larsson and Me is thus short and to the point, poignant in its account of two soulmates and the life they shared and deeply insightful into the man everyone wants to know better, and about whom so little is known.
"I would have preferred to have never written this book. It speaks of Stieg, of our life together, and of my life after his death," writes Gabrielsson early in her book. It was written because she alone can tell his story.
Related to "There Are Things I Want You to Know" About Stieg Larsson and Me
Related audiobooks
Birdy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bartleby, the Scrivener (version 2) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Jungle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDirtbag: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dad's Maybe Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEmma: A Fragment of a Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWilliam Wilson Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Moving the Mountain Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe World Is Round Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Wild Things Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bartleby the Scrivener Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5B. J. Harrison Reads The Ballad of Reading Gaol Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Herland (Unabridged) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Farewell Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bound: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond the Chocolate War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Waste Land, The (version 2) Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sleeper Awakes, The (Unabridged) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oneida: From Free Love Utopia to the Well-Set Table Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Looking Backward: 2000-1887 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This Is My Jail: Local Politics and the Rise of Mass Incarceration Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Periodic Table Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5What Diantha Did Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCelebrity Chekhov Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Care of the Self: Volume 3 of The History of Sexuality Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Changeling Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Biography & Memoir For You
And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leave the World Behind: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The House in the Cerulean Sea Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fairy Tale Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Local Woman Missing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Twisted Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: One Introvert's Year of Saying Yes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5From Blood and Ash Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Divine Rivals: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hang the Moon: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How Y'all Doing?: Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Overstory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Good Girls Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Elon Musk Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5If He Had Been with Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Five Years: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Later Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dead Zone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nothing to See Here Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dutch House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ivy League Counterfeiter Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Year of Magical Thinking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All the Sinners Bleed: A Novel Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Stolen Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for "There Are Things I Want You to Know" About Stieg Larsson and Me
Rating: 3.518518525925926 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
54 ratings4 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Interesting information about their relationship and the family dynamics. The family rejected her and will not accept her or give her any money or property.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I recently won a Twitter contest by Tantor Media and when I was allowed to choose an audiobook I could not pass up this selection. Since I had recently finished the Dragon Tattoo series I was interested in knowing a little more about the man behind it. This book did not disappoint.
Although they never married Eva Gabrielsson was Stieg Larsson’s lifelong companion. Sharing thirty-two years together Ms. Gabreilsson is able to relate some of Mr. Larsson’s childhood and early life with the reader as well as the kind of man he was as an adult. The reader learns about his career ambitions and the road his life took in that respect. She also shares his strong moral beliefs on a variety of subjects.
Any book dealing with his life cannot omit what happened after his sudden death in 2004 at the age of fifty. Ms. Gabrielsson not only writes about her understandable grief but also discusses the difficulties surrounding the Millennium series (with family, lawyers and the government) with a grace that I feel I could not muster under similar circumstances. Although admittedly one sided, since she is the author of the book, I feel she deserves kudos in that department.
In reading other reviews of this book I realize many people were disappointed that it was not more of a tell all (behind bedroom door type secrets) but I do not believe that was Ms. Gabrielsson’s mission in writing this book. As it stands this book was an interesting insight into the man behind the phenomenal success of the Dragon Tattoo books, but also an opportunity to get to know a little bit about a woman who is quite amazing in her own right. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I really enjoyed spending time with Eva and felt her pain as she told her story. She's a great lady who deserved much better than she got after her husband died. Their love and the life they shared makes for a great love story.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I liked this book more than I thought I would. It's a quick read, and presents a moving portrait of a woman in mourning.I'm not a big fan of Stieg Larsson or the Milennium trilogy (I've read only The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and don't have much interest in reading the other two). I was interested in this book because of the controversy regarding Larsson's estate. The author died suddenly, without a will, and without ever marrying his live-in companion of over thirty years, Eva Gabrielsson. Therefore, the millions Larsson has earned posthumously due to the success of his crime novels have gone to his father and brother, not to his companion. Gabrielsson's understandably bitter, She blames mysterious enemies ("they") who overworked her late lover to the point of early death. She even performs an ancient Norse ritual to inflict curses on these people, whoever they are (but, as she admits, Larsson did not take good care of himself and that his mother and grandfather both died young, from heart problems, just like Larsson did. His heart attack at the age of fifty is much more likely to be the natural result of these factors than the workings of mysterious enemies). She gives a number of excuses why they never found an opportunity in 30 years to get married. Although she never says this, I suspect that the main reason is that they just didn't believe in marriage, Predictably, she claIms there was a will that left everything to her, but it was regrettably unwitnessed and therefore not valid.I don't know anything about Swedish law, but it seems to me that if you aren't married, you can't expect the benefits of marriage. If you don't have a properly-prepared will, you can't expect the benefits of having a properly-prepared will. It's too bad, but that's the way the law works.I do sympathize with Eva Gabrielsson. She's lost the love of her life and his money and literary control as well. It's clear her impulse is to blame everyone else (the father, the brother, the enemies) for the situation, rather than the man she loved, who, in my opinion, bears some of the responsiblity as well..