This is the first of these threads since the passing of our friend Khadaji on January 25th. Khadaji was a very kind and gentle person, and many long term Dopers fondly remember the support and encouragement in his many posts. He was also renowned for this series of ‘Whatcha Readin’ threads which he started every month, and which provided great recommendations and discussions over the years. He was a prolific and passionate reader. If there is an afterlife, I sincerely hope it has provided him with a comfy chair, an inexhaustible supply of books, a good light over his shoulder and his beloved dog KC at his feet. Farewell, dear Khadaji.
I thought there would be no better way to honour his memory than to name this series of threads after him, and continue them.
I have three books on the go right now -
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the BBC Sherlock series written by Mark Gattis, Steven Moffat and Steve Thompson, and I’ve never read through the entire canon. I’m loving every moment.
Right Ho, Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse. I can’t honestly tell if I’ve read this one before or not - I’ve reached the point where the various plots of Jeeves and Wooster have all rather blended. It doesn’t matter; the character of Bertie is so beautifully sketched, and Wodehouse speaks Twit so fluently, that each paragraph is a joy to read.
Mysticism and Logic, by Bertrand Russell. Well, it’s a different kind of pleasure one derives from reading Russell. It’s clearly written and well set out; it’s not his fault he’s up against two other very engaging books…
Vile Bodies, by Evelyn Waugh. Got to the point where Adam has just won a 1000 pounds (in 1920s too! That makes him very rich). Will he get to marry Nina after all? And will Ms. Runcible get satisfaction after the way those *Dowagers * treated her at the customs? The style is disjoint but dry, sardonic humour makes it worth reading…
I started today on The Uninvited, a novel about an anthropologist with Asperger’s Syndrome who begins to see connections between violent crimes being committed by children.
Started Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II’s Most Dramatic Mission, because I was helping a war vet in his nineties clean out his basement and he gave me the book as a reward. He himself had to stop reading it, because he went to school with some of the guys in the book, and the parts about the Bataan Death March were too much for him.
I’d previously been plodding my way through The Pseudo-Science Wars: Immanuel Velikovsky and the Birth of the Modern Fringe. It’s a subject that seems to straddle several of my interests: science, debunking pseudo-science, dim memories from my youth of Velikovsky’s sensational claims, and, of all things, Cold War tensions and McCarthyism. The problem is, it’s pretty turgid; it also suffers from unabashedly repeating itself (perhaps because the author worries you’ve set the book down and need to be refreshed?). I’ll try to finish it in small bites.
I’ve lurked in these threads forever - but I feel like I ought to post at least in this one. A memorial book recommendation post for a very kind Doper.
Starting three off today:
The Disaster Diaries by Sam Sheridan
Nonfic, slightly tongue-in-cheek about all the different possible apocalypses and what ridiculous amounts of varied skill-sets you’d need to survive them all. This one I’m most looking forward to.
The Winter Witch, Paula Brackston.
Fiction, about a somewhat “gifted” woman who has to fight of the prejudice of the village after she marries and moves in with her new husband. I’m hopeful about this one, but not too optimistic. It makes me feel like it’s leaning towards
Slated, Teri Terry (that name - I couldn’t resist)
Young Adult, dystopian post-American society wipes the memory of kids and adults who commit “terroristic acts” as an act of kindness to keep them from being executed for their crimes. Our protagonist keeps getting flashbacks, starts noticing people vanishing, and slowly realizes that maybe “slating” isn’t such a kind process after all. Not really hopeful, but I keep trying - sometimes I get one that’s at least fun for an afternoon.
I’m reading The City & the City by China Mieville. I read it once before. I’m also in the middle of a couple other books but haven’t read either of them in a week or two. One is Children of something or other by Vernor Vinge, and the other is Last Argument of Kings by … Joe Abercrombie? And it isn’t actually February just yet, but I will probably be in the same exact state tomorrow, only further along in City &.
City & is a novel set in a fictional pair of small countries/cities that seem to be somewhere in Eastern Europe. Their areas interlock and people in each “unsee” (pretend, even to themselves, not to see) the ones in the other. The story is of a detective investigating a murder.
The other two are sequels. The Vinge novel is science fiction, a sequel to some of his earlier novels collectively known as Zones of Thought. Last Argument is fantasy, a sequel to earlier fantasy novels about the same characters.
I’ve just finished C J Sansom’s Dominion - a spy novel set in an alt-history UK. It’s the first book by Sansom that I’ve read, but I’ll definitely be seeking out some more. Highly recommended.
My current books on the go are Marcus Brotherton’s biography of Shifty Powers Shifty’s War - he was the marksman in Easy company. And I’m still slogging through Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - I’ve read an abridgement but have always wanted to read the full thing. But once again I’m mired in the church history stuff.
I finished The Hunger Games on audio last week and started Catching Fire yesterday. Loved the first book.
Next week, I’ll be listening to Tim Dorsey’s new one The Riptide Ultra-Glide on a trip to Charlotte to start training for a new job. We’ll be in the car approximately 6 hours. (Person going with me is a friend who was a former co-worker who currently works for the company I’m starting with.) She is a huge Tim Dorsey fan as well.
After that one I’ll be on to book 3 in the Game of Thrones series and that one should keep me occupied for a while.
Reading the first one now. Having just a little bit of trouble with the suspension of disbelief, because apparently the 12 districts are no bigger than small cities, yet have sufficient population and industrial/agricultural output to support the high tech life style of the central district. Might have to file this one under allegory and stop worrying about it.
Mary W. Shelley’s Frankenstein. I didn’t attend high school in the USA, so I never had it as assigned reading. I’m reading an e-version and I love how I can highlight a word, name, or phrase, and ask for a definition. If there isn’t one, the progam asks me if I want it to search the Web or Wikipedia.
Accelerando by Charlie Stross is next on my list. I had started The House Without a Key by Earl Derr Biggers, but set it aside, as it wasn’t holding my interest like some of his other works had.
Thanks for starting the memorial thread, Le Ministre de l’au-delà.
For (I think) the first time ever, I actually began rereading a book right after finishing it [Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell] and this time around, instead of taking months, I’m already more than half way through in a week. I love this book.
I also just started In Sunlight and Shadow by Mark Helprin. As I expected, it’s gorgeously written, though at the 100 page mark, not too much is happening. At this point I don’t care. I probably will soon, though.
I did go to high school in the US but was never assigned Frankenstein to read. It was a crappy high school though. I since have read it, and it is good.
Yesterday (Thursday) I started The Magus, by John Fowles. Good so far.
Currently I’m half way through re-reading (after many years) Chronocules by D. G. Compton. It’s a little-known 1970 sf novel.
It’s set in a secretive private research facility in a world slipping towards chaos and disaster, with pollution starting to kill random wildlife, etc. The institute is working on time-travel, on behalf of a billionaire who wants to flee the degenerate and chaotic times he is living in and escape to a bright new future.
I own several of his books and am gradually working my though them - soon I’ll reach a couple I haven’t read before!
He’s possibly best known for writing the book the 1980 film Death Watch was based on. I saw it again at the cinema when it was re-released last year - excellent!
I have reserved a copy of The Great Big Book of Horrible Things at my local library. I am considering wearing black clothing and carrying a tattered black bat-like umbrella while reading this on my morning commute. Maybe no one will sit next to me.
Just finished reading Earth – the Book by Jon Stewart and The Daily Show, which I gave my wife for Christmas.
I’m reading Ayesha – the Return of She which I have had sitting around forever, and never read.
Up are Kim Stanley Robinson’s Green Mars, which I finally got a copy of and E.C. Krupop’s Echoes of the Ancient Skies. I also want to finally read Ursula K. LeGuin’s Always Coming Home (complete with recordings.
I’m also going through Edith Hamilton’s Mythology for the umpteenth time, taking specific notes.
I never participated in these threads, and I don’t intend to, but I just wanted to pop in and acknowledge the lovely tribute to Khadaji in the OP. Brought a tear to my eye, it did. I’m sure the man would be touched and honored.