# Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - August 2023 edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [August 1, 2023, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892 "2023-08-01T01:16:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2023, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/41 "2023-08-06T21:23:50Z")
I’m reading _Murder in G Major,_ a supernatural cozy mystery by Alexia Gordon. Kind of a fish out of water story, a highly educated Black musician is plonked into small-town Ireland, where she meets a ghost who wants her to find his and his late wife’s killer. They strike up an unlikely friendship and a mutually agreed upon deal. It’s… fine? This is not normally my genre but I sought out a cozy mystery after my other bedtime reading material got too intense. I’m drawn to reading about creepy lighthouses and bad weather and that sort of thing. There is a creepy lighthouse and lots of rain. Humorous dialogue keeps it from getting too dark, but a lot of the characters aren’t that well fleshed out in my opinion. It’s hard to tell many of them apart. But it’s an original idea, and it’s entertaining me well enough before bedtime. I’m not sure I will continue the series. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2023, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/42 "2023-08-06T21:27:58Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > About a third of the way through _The Glass Hotel_ by Emily St. John Mandel, a fascinating crime novel. I am a big fan of _Station Eleven_ already; I didn’t know _The Glass Hotel_ was a crime novel. This makes me even more interested in reading more of her stuff. Added to list. ---
**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:** [August 6, 2023, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/43 "2023-08-06T21:33:47Z")
It’s turning out to be less of a crime novel than I thought, but it’s still quite good. Her clever and heartfelt time travel novel _Sea of Tranquility_ is also well worth a read. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2023, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/44 "2023-08-07T02:42:59Z")
I have returned. Got back from Thailand last weekend, but it’s taken me a while to get over the jet lag. I’m just not as young as I used to be. But it was a good trip. We have identified the probable location on the Gulf of Thailand coast where we will retire to in five years’ time. A bummer though in that I learned a good friend of mine there is dying of bone cancer. He’s been fighting it a few years but has kept it quiet. With me on the spot there, he was unable to hide it from me any longer. A really good guy, only mid-50s, so I hope he can beat it. Finished _The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz_, by Erik Larson. Covers the first year of Churchill’s premiership, which coincided with the Battle of Britain. Very good. Have started _There Are Still Unknown Places_, by Ron Morris. The author gave me the book himself while I was in Thailand. He is long-time a friend of mine there, a fellow American. This is his third book but first piece of fiction. His first two books, one of them edited by me, dealt with Thai politics in the 20th century. This one deals with the typical expat experience in Bangkok circa the 1990s, a theme I know all too well. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2023, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/45 "2023-08-07T03:53:08Z")
I finished _What Happened to the Bennetts,_ by Lisa Scottoline. I generally enjoy her works and this was not an exception. They are kinda formulaic: the main character gets into a jam in the first half of the story, the second part of the story involves people rushing around the Philadelphia area at top speed and usually multiple people turning out not to be who we think they are, and the book comes to a close with an ending that is usually quite upbeat. This was not an exception, though the jam at the beginning involves the death of an important character and so the ending is not as happy as is usual for a Scottoline novel. On the negative side, there were a couple of plot points that were never really explained. And it’s lazy writing, IMHO, to have the family dog growl when the good-guy-who’s-going-to-turn-out-to-be-a-bad-guy shows up. But on the whole it was worth my time. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2023, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/46 "2023-08-07T15:46:56Z")
**The Southwest Airlines Way** Jody Hoffer Gittell Purports to be a behind-the-scenes look at why Southwest Airlines has been so successful when other airlines have struggled. A lot of it was either hagiography “CEO Herb Kelleher and his top management team have excelled at gaining the trust of managers in the field and frontline employees” was one of the milder comments about leadership, or MBA argle-bargle “managers are expected to take an active role in resolving cross-functional conflicts”. There were a few interesting sections, about the United airlines employee buyout, e.g.; but mostly it wasn’t really worth my time. ---
**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:** [August 8, 2023, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/47 "2023-08-08T15:28:13Z")
I just finished _When a Stranger Comes to Town_, which is a collection of short stories edited by Michael Koryta. Besides Koryta, other authors of the stories in the book include Michael Connelly, Steve Hamilton, and Joe Hill. In each case, the protagonist is not exactly a knight in shining armor. I zipped through this book in record time. Some of the stories are good, but most are excellent. ---
**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:** [August 8, 2023, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/48 "2023-08-08T15:33:45Z")
And Joe R. Lansdale! I saw your post and sped off to my library website to get it…then realized I already read it. 🥴 ---
**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:** [August 8, 2023, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/49 "2023-08-08T15:40:03Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > then realized I already read it. Glad to know that I’m not the only one who does this! ---
**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:** [August 9, 2023, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/50 "2023-08-09T13:17:53Z")
Just finished An Honest Man, and it _was_ awesome. Some rough stuff in it, but no more detail than was necessary to understand what happened. I needed a Kleenex at the end. Next up: [Boys in the Valley](https://www.amazon.com/Boys-Valley-Philip-Fracassi/dp/1250879035/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=boys+in+the+valley+fracassi&qid=1691586626&sr=8-1) by Philip Fracassi. Demon possession in a remote boy’s orphanage. Let’s do this. 😈 ---
**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:** [August 9, 2023, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/51 "2023-08-09T20:40:37Z")
Finished _A Walk Around the Block: Stoplight Secrets, Mischievous Squirrels, Manhole Mysteries & Other Stuff You See Every Day (And Know Nothing About)_, by Spike Carlsen, which I enjoyed, especially the stuff about signs, signals, and streets. Now I’m reading a science fiction novel by Neil Sharpson called _When the Sparrow Falls_. ---
**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:** [August 9, 2023, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/52 "2023-08-09T22:05:38Z")
Finished “It’s a Wonderful Knife” by S.C. Wynne. It’s the 5th in their Dr Thornton Mysteries series, nothing earth shattering or life changing, just a serviceable murder in what started out as an overly cute, overly sentimental locale. The plot stayed nicely on track, though at least one loose end was not tied up neatly at the end. The killer was literally the last person I would have suspected… ---
**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:** [August 12, 2023, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/53 "2023-08-12T13:56:20Z")
Just started _The Boys From Biloxi_ by John Grisham. ---
**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:** [August 12, 2023, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/54 "2023-08-12T14:22:36Z")
I finished Boys In the Valley. It was basically a teen slasher movie in book form. Animals were hurt, but “offscreen”. The story was all right, though very predictable. Near the end it began to remind me of some Christian fiction I’ve read. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 12, 2023, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/55 "2023-08-12T21:19:40Z")
I finished _Murder in G Major_ and decided I’m actually going to try to continue with the series. It’s not groundbreaking but I enjoyed myself. Which is all you can probably ask from a cozy mystery series about a musician who can can talk to Irish ghosts. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2023, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/56 "2023-08-13T17:37:17Z")
I liked _The Plot_ by Jean Hanff Korelitz well enough to try another one by her: _You Should Have Known._ Grace, a therapist in New York City, is convinced that many of the problems experienced by her female patients in their relationships comes of them ignoring things they should’ve figured out early on in the relationship. At leas, Grace feels this way till evidence comes to light that her own marriage is not all she thinks it is (_boy_ is it not what she thinks it is) and she has to try to figure out what to do about her own failure to read the early signals appropriately. (It doesn’t help that she’s about to publish a book on the subject, a book which will scold and hold women accountable for the flaws they did not perceive. Oops.) I enjoyed the novel, though not as much as _The Plot._ It’s probably too long and several parts in the beginning and the middle of the book I found kind of draggy. And there were two things that happened toward the end that seemed…well, didn’t seem like things that were likely to happen, though that may simply have been me. But the overall plot works well, Grace is well drawn, and there are many nice touches; in particular, the book deftly skewers the casual classism and racism of the upper strata of Manhattan society, particularly insofar as independent schools are concerned, and I enjoyed that quite a bit. Worth reading, but if you do read it you can skim through the auction scene, which goes on for approximately 750 pages (I exaggerate), and you can skip some of the middle of the book altogether. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2023, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/57 "2023-08-13T22:03:46Z")
Finished _There Are Still Unknown Places_, by Ron Morris. Very good. The author is a good friend of mine, was my supervisor at two different places in Bangkok back in the day, and he gave me a copy when I was there earlier this summer. His first work of fiction after two nonfictions, it follows a group of Westerners and two or three Thais all connected with an English school in Bangkok in the 1990s. The school is similar to the one we worked for at about the same time, although that school was strictly a test-taking school, and only the owner taught classes. It accurately captures the zeitgeist while delving into Thai culture and their philosophical outlook, both of which have a whole different meaning of “truth” than the Western world is used to. I think if you read this book while thinking of visiting Thailand for the first time, it will do one of two things: Make you want to go all the more; or scare you away completely. Either way, it is a very good read. For my next read, I have started _The Outsider_, by Stephen King. ---
**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:** [August 14, 2023, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/58 "2023-08-14T12:04:17Z")
Just finished **Tune in Tomorrow** by Randee Dawn. I got it at ReaderCon last month, and had Randee autograph it at a Kaffeeklatsch. Well-written fantasy about a human actress who fortuitously blunders into an opportunity to join a “reality show” in a world inhabited by supernatural “Mystics”, and becomes a cast member. She’s working on a sequel, possibly to be called _We Interrupt this Program_ Now I’m reading **Stone Blind** by Natalie Haynes. Who would believe that there’d be TWO retellings of the myth of Perseus and Medusa, both told from the point of view of Medusa, and both written by young female British classicists, published in the same summer? I read _Shadow of Perseus_ by Claire Heywood earlier this month. I had been told about it by some friends, and with my own book _Medusa_ I simply had to read it. And the new one is similarly irresistable. The bigest difference is that Heywood’s book has no gods and no supernatural elements in it, explaining the myth in terms of mundane occurrences. Haynes, however, embraces the gods and all the supernatural background. It’s like watching the Hallmark version of _The Odyssey_ after watching the Peterson film **Troy**. As I had remarked in the penultimate chapter of my book, Medusa has become an important figure in feminist thought in recent decades. She’s a potent image of Female Power and Rage. I suspect it’s in part because there aren’t that many striking , powerful figures in Greek Mythology. You can talk about warlike Athena and the huntress Artemis, but when you depict them, they all look like women in white robes (although Athena gets that nifty helmet. And the _aegis_ if they’re paying attention). Medusa has a striking and different appearance. In any event, if Medusa is the hero of her own tale, Perseus has to be the villain. He certainly is in Heywood’s book. I haven’t gotten far enough into Haynes’ book to know, though I strongly suspect that o be the case. If Medusa is going to b e the victim, it’s hard to resist bringing up the story of how she was raped by Poseidon and changed into a hideous Gorgon by a resentful Athena to show how she was wronged. Heywood does this, as have some other writers. But this story is a late version first told by Ovid (who, I suspect, made it up). To Haynes’ credit, she correctly depicts Medusa as the child of Phorkys and Ketos, like the other two gorgons and the Graiae. Although she does seem to be setting Poseidon up for some significant role. I’ll have more to say about this later, after I finish the book. ---
**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:** [August 14, 2023, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/59 "2023-08-14T12:39:19Z")
Started yesterday on [Looking Glass Sound](https://www.amazon.com/Looking-Glass-Sound-Catriona-Ward/dp/1250860024/ref=sr_1_1?crid=39RHQDAMRC490&keywords=looking+glass+sound+catriona+ward&qid=1692015938&sprefix=looking+glass+%2Caps%2C107&sr=8-1) by Catriona Ward. On the surface, it’s about a young man writing the story of one summer at the beach, when he discovered a serial killer. However, the narrator isn’t necessarily reliable, and more information keeps coming up which keeps what really happened in doubt. Midway, I’m interested but confused. ---
**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:** [August 14, 2023, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892/60 "2023-08-14T17:35:42Z")
Over the weekend I finished _The Glass Hotel_ by Emily St. John Mandel, which I liked very much. A quiet, thoughtful, very well-crafted novel, it focuses on two troubled Canadian half-siblings and some of the people around them, over the span of many years (one brief flash-forward chapter is even set in 2029). A Bernie Madoff-style Ponzi scheme is a major plot point; there is also a haunting (no pun intended) supernatural dimension to the book that actually sent a shiver down my spine towards the end. Highly recommended. Next up: a science and engineering history, _Across the Airless Wilds: The Lunar Rover and the Triumph of the Final Moon Landings_ by Earl Swift. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2023-edition/987892.md?page=4)