# Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - April 2025 edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [March 30, 2025, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359 "2025-03-30T20:38:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DZedNConfused](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dzednconfused/32/15991_2.png) [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/1 "2025-03-30T20:38:46Z")
Spring is he— oh wait - false alarm in many parts of the US. More snow dumped at the ski resorts, so that’s good. April is also the 40th anniversary of my 20th birthday! Oh what a niave child I was then… voracious reader but wow gosh was I stupid. 😆 So Whatcha all readin? (Other than _How to Build a Bunker in Your Yard for the Coming WWIII_) Kindle: _The Empress of Salt and Fortune_ by Nghi Vo. It’s very good, though I wish there was more world building. Audio: _The Framed Women of Ardmore House_ by Brandy Shillace. Most of the reviews of this book seem to be variations on “I’m autistic and I don’t act like that!” Okay, honey but what about the book? I’m a quarter in and enthralled. Print: Realized I hadn’t finished my reread of _Stiletto_ by Daniel O’Malley and the fourth book is due out soon! So I unearthed it from the pile and am packing it with me to my kid’s appts (they’re an adult so I just sit around waiting rooms a lot) _Khadaji was one of the earlier members of SDMB, and he was well-known as a kindly person who always had something encouraging to say, particularly in the self-improvement threads. He was also a voracious, omnivorous reader, who started these threads 'way back in the Stone Age of 2005. Consequently, when he suddenly and quite unexpectedly passed away in January 2013, we decided to rename this thread in his honor and to keep his memory, if not his ghost, alive._ ---
**Author:** ![DZedNConfused](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dzednconfused/32/15991_2.png) [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2025, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/2 "2025-03-30T20:40:33Z")
Last month: [Well that’s wrap on March, and it’s cold again](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2025-edition/1014943/73) ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/3 "2025-03-31T01:43:26Z")
I finished _The Boys of Riverside_ by Thomas Fuller, nonfiction about an all-deaf champion high school football team in California. I liked it, even though I’m not a football guy. There’s also a lot about deaf culture and society’s changing response to it. Still reading Mark Twain’s fictionalized memoir _Life on the Mississippi_. I’m up to the part where he’s learning from the irascible Horace Bixby how to become a riverboat pilot. Good stuff. I’m also listening to an audiobook of Scott Turow’s debut novel, _Presumed Innocent_. Hadn’t read it since it first came out in 1987, and I’d forgotten quite a bit of the plot, but it holds up very well indeed. Fully-realized characters; interesting legal wrangling and courtroom scenes. The late Edward Herrmann was the reader and he did a good job. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/4 "2025-03-31T13:50:29Z")
Started this morning on [The Haunted Collection](https://www.amazon.com/Haunted-Collection-I-Lee-Mountford/dp/B09TMZ2M7Q/), Volume 1 by Lee Mountford. I picked up all three volumes at the library this weekend, all of them 800 page doorstops. I thought they were story collections, but they’re actually a whole series of novels about a haunted house. Despite these novels being right up my ghostly alley, and the author being quite prolific, I’ve never heard of him before. Red flag? So anyway, I’m reading along and I notice that no matter how minor the character, we are given a full description of their clothing and appearance from head to toe. Okay, that’s surely a red flag. I don’t need to know what the barista has on. Reading, reading…oh, you say the baby points and says “man” every time she sees one? Gosh and golly, I wonder what will happen when you leave the baby alone in a spooky room and watch her with a baby monitor? Yee-up. So I’m kind of hate-reading at this point just to feel smug and superior to this guy in England who’s published like twenty books. I should be done soon. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/5 "2025-03-31T13:57:51Z")
I got inspired by a fellow book blogger who is doing a “[Tommi Reads the World](https://agirlnamedtommi.com/tag/tommi-reads-the-world/)” quest. I’m not that ambitious, plus I’m dealing with chemo brain so I started on a “Ryl’s Literary Tour of America.” First state, Alabama represented by _Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe_, a book I’ve been hearing about since it was first published when I was five.\* It wasn’t bad. It was mainly about the Depression and war years in a small Alabama town and the characters that lived there. The sections in 1985-1987 were very 80s in that Eleanor, the “modern woman,” got her groove back by going to a fat farm and selling Mary Kay, but she wasn’t too obnoxious about it. I was intrigued by the recipes in the back. I hate hate HATE tomatoes, but I’m willing to give the fried green variety a trial once my digestive system settles down. I also hate watermelon but I tried the pickled version and y’all, I would eat my own _head_ if you put a piece of pickled watermelon on it. The next state is Alaska and I need to get its book through interlibrary loan so it’ll be a minute. \*Sorry about any gray hairs I caused to spontaneously erupt. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/6 "2025-03-31T15:52:53Z")
Started listening to _The Texas Murders_ by James Patterson. I’m not a huge fan of Patterson, but I’m enjoying this book through the first hour. ---
**Author:** ![DZedNConfused](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dzednconfused/32/15991_2.png) [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/7 "2025-03-31T18:17:51Z")
I don’t know if you read the reviews on Goodreads but the best laugh I have had this year was the young lady having a complete meltdown because Fried Green Tomatoes was racist! Take care! Hope the tummy settles down soon! ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2025, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/8 "2025-03-31T20:15:37Z")
Meant to add: As always, thanks for the thread, @DZedNConfused! And happy birthday. 🥳 ---
**Author:** ![DZedNConfused](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dzednconfused/32/15991_2.png) [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2025, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/9 "2025-04-01T11:57:49Z")
Thanks!! ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2025, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/10 "2025-04-01T20:51:14Z")
A book set in Alabama in the 1930s has racist elements! Jeeves! Fetch my clutching pearls, I must retreat to my fainting couch! ---
**Author:** ![DZedNConfused](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dzednconfused/32/15991_2.png) [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2025, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/11 "2025-04-01T22:48:26Z")
RIGHT??!! 😆 ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2025, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/12 "2025-04-02T00:51:39Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > Started this morning on [The Haunted Collection](https://www.amazon.com/Haunted-Collection-I-Lee-Mountford/dp/B09TMZ2M7Q/), Volume 1 by Lee Mountford Ditched at page 225. I think that’s a fair try, but I can’t choke down any more. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2025, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/13 "2025-04-02T11:24:48Z")
On audio I’m now reading Robert E. Howard’s _Breckenridge Elkins_ stories. I’d only read one of these before. Although Elkins was the hero of the first novel Howard ever got published in book form (and it cam out after his death), these stories have rarely appeared in paperback. Imagine if Conan the barbarian was a dim-witted cowboy – that’s Breckenridge. Interesting rough humor. I’m alternating this with Stephen King’s **Revival** , which makes for a weird variation in style and tone. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2025, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/14 "2025-04-02T12:11:46Z")
Recently finished _Voyage of the Damned_ by Francis White. Y’all it’s really good. It’s a murder mystery set on a ship with twelve magic people, one of whom is a murderer. Somehow the murderer is getting around the magic people’s magic to kill them and one person, Dee the Fish, has to figure out who with the help of a six-year-old Grasshopper girl. Very funny and entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2025, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/15 "2025-04-02T12:19:39Z")
Started this morning on [Clockwork Boys](https://www.amazon.com/Clockwork-Boys-Clocktaur-War-Kingfisher/dp/1614504164/) by T. Kingfisher. I really needed a good book to wash the taste of that last one away, and this is working well. Next is the sequel, The Wonder Engine. ---
**Author:** ![DZedNConfused](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dzednconfused/32/15991_2.png) [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2025, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/16 "2025-04-02T14:40:27Z")
You WILL love them! Her Paladins books take place in the same Universe. ---
**Author:** ![Frodo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/frodo/32/302_2.png) [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2025, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/17 "2025-04-02T14:41:14Z")
+1 ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2025, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/18 "2025-04-02T14:45:41Z")
Never doubted! @DZedNConfused, thanks for reminding me about those, I just placed a hold at the library for all of them. ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2025, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/19 "2025-04-02T22:42:06Z")
I finished _Never Lie_ by Freida McFadden. A good murder mystery read which I thought I had figured out until a really surprising plot twist in the last 20 pages. I’ll definitely check out other books by this author. First World problem: My daughter and I share the Libby app, in which we each have two online library cards. Works well for us, usually. I originally was listening to this audiobook via the Libby app, and I had about an hour left. My daughter was going to return another book but accidentally returned this one. When I went back to check it out again, I was informed that there would be a four-week wait. So I went to my local library’s website, reserved a hardcopy of this book, and was able to pick it up yesterday. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2025, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359/20 "2025-04-03T20:42:13Z")
Finished _The Velveteen Rabbit_, by Margery Williams, a classic picture book which I somehow never got around to reading which was wonderful; and _Indigo: In Search of the Color That Seduced the World_, by Catherine E. McKinley, which was excellent despite a couple of errors an editor should have caught. (For example, Mahatma Gandhi did not join the Indigo Revolt of 1859 as “his first civil action” because he hadn’t been born yet.) The characterization of the friends the author made in Africa is what appealed to me most. Next up: _An Easter Sourcebook: The Fifty Days_, edited by Gabe Huck et al; and _Rose/House_, a science fiction novella by Arkady Martine. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-april-2025-edition/1016359.md?page=2)