# Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - August 2025 edition
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** comic-books-manga, books-writing-myths
**Created:** [July 30, 2025, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495 "2025-07-30T03:48:06Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2025, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/61 "2025-08-25T11:33:17Z")
I finished Octavia Butler’s **The Parable of the Sower**. It’s the first thing of Butler’s that I’ve read. Very good and depressing, but ending on a note of hope.
I’ve picked up three very different books over the weekend
**The Bounty Mutiny** by William Bligh and Edward Christian – I’d read Bligh’s account under the title _The Mutiny on Board H.M. S. Bounty_ back when I was in high school (so did my wife, to my surprise. These weren’t assigned books – we located these and read them on our own), but this volume contains records from the court martial and correspondence between Bligh and Edward Christian, Fletcher’s lawyer brother who defended his brother’s case nd reputation.
**Shelter, Shacks, and Shanties** by Dan Beard – Dan Beard was an illustrator (he did the first edition of _a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court_, among many others) and an expert on woodlore. He’s been called “The First Boy Scout” and has a sort of memorial in the complex at Bear Mountain State Park in New York. His many books on Scoutcraft and Woocraft are well worth reading.
**Hauff’s Fairy Tales** –by Wilhelm Hauff. Hauff, who died at the age of 24, was surprisingly prolific in his short life. His Fairy Tales are not collected, as the Brother Grimm tales were, but more like the bulk of Hans Christian Anderson’s – original creations using settings and motifs from existing stories. I picked this up as a bound book at a flea market.
On audio, I’ve found a complete edition of **The Chronicles of Narnia**. I’d never read more than _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_, so I’ve been curious. This edition begins not with that story, as most collections I’ve seen do, but with _The Magician’s Nephew_, which is apparently the first chronologically.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2025, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/62 "2025-08-25T14:11:49Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> This edition begins not with that story, as most collections I’ve seen do, but with _The Magician’s Nephew_, which is apparently the first chronologically.
😡 Oh nooooooo! \< spits \> Any chance you can listen to them in the _proper_ order?
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [August 25, 2025, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/63 "2025-08-25T14:44:40Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#):
>
> Oh nooooooo! \< spits \> Any chance you can listen to them in the _proper_ order?
Too late. I’m most of the way through _The Magician’s Nephew_ already. And I’d already read _The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe_.
TMN at least explains to me why the hell there was a working lamppost in the middle of the Narnian woods.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2025, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/64 "2025-08-26T02:31:40Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> …Now I’m about halfway through _Mickey7_ by Edward Ashton, a sf satire (recently adapted into a movie starring Robert Pattinson) about a disposable crewman on a dangerous interstellar mission. It’s good enough to keep going, but hasn’t really grabbed me.
Finished it. Disappointing, all in all. Wants to be funnier than it really is. I’d still like to see the movie adaptation, _Mickey17_, though, for comparison’s sake.
Just had a long weekend out of town and finished:
_Stealing Time_ by Tilia Klebenov Jacobs and Norman Birnbach, a decent YA novel about a time-traveling young woman who helps her teenage future dad foil a jewel heist.
_The Naval Siege of Japan 1945_ by Brian Herder, a pretty good (if short) military history of WWII at sea in the Western Pacific in the final months of the war. I hadn’t realized how badly the US Navy and, to a much lesser extent, the Royal Navy pounded the Japanese home islands before V-E Day, including shelling targets along the coastline.
_The Secret Files of Sherlock Holmes_ by June Thomson, long a favorite collection of Sherlockian pastiches. Thomson really captures Conan Doyle’s writing style and ingenious plots. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you’d never read any Conan Doyle and were given three of his Holmes stories and three of Thomson’s with the authors’ names concealed, I’d defy you to tell them apart.
I’m also about a third of the way through _The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America_ by Jeffrey Rosen, a book about moral philosophy for patriotic, historically-minded laypeople. Rosen very engagingly shows how such ancient thinkers as Cicero, Pythagoras and Aristotle, as well as Enlightenment writers such as Montesquieu, Hume and Locke, influenced the American Framers. He argues that while the phrase “the pursuit of happiness” long predated the Declaration of Independence, “happiness” to Jefferson, Adams, Franklin et al. meant personal virtue - “as _being_ good, rather than _feeling_ good.”
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2025, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/65 "2025-08-26T11:22:49Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> _The Secret Files of Sherlock Holmes_ by June Thomson, long a favorite collection of Sherlockian pastiches. Thomson really captures Conan Doyle’s writing style and ingenious plots. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you’d never read any Conan Doyle and were given three of his Holmes stories and three of Thomson’s with the authors’ names concealed, I’d defy you to tell them apart.
I’ll have to look into this. I’ve read a huge number of Holmes pastiches, and my constant complaint is that almost none of them capture Doyle’s style. Most don’t even try. The closest I’ve come have been the stories by Adrian Conan Doyle (his son) and John Dickson Carr, collected as _The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes_. And I suspect it’s really due to Carr’s skill, rather than to Adrian’s inheritance.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2025, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/66 "2025-08-26T13:44:16Z")
I finished Dave Barry’s Class Clown, and think it was one of his better ones. I admit he’s put out some duds in his career, but he remains the only writer who can literally make me laugh out loud. No mean feat this week, when I’ve been in such a pissy mood! My favorite Dave Barry book is still his Book of Bad Songs, which I would run around recommending to anyone, but I think it really works best on people born between about 1960 and 1970.
Next up: [The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand by Christopher Golden | Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220377457-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=kSnCTjvnPI&rank=1)
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [August 26, 2025, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/67 "2025-08-26T18:16:21Z")
Still reading _Man With a Bull-Tongue Plow_ by Jesse Stuart. Finished _Small Wonder: Essays_, by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven Hopp, whose name isn’t on the title page but she acknowledges co-writing three of the essays with him originally. Meh. Also finished _The Singularity Project_ by F. M. Busby, a science fiction novel. Not recommended.
Next up: _Were-_, an anthology edited by Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier, and _Bird Talk: Hilariously Accurate Ways to Identify Birds by the Sounds They Make_, by Becca Rowland.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2025, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/68 "2025-08-27T16:43:32Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> > [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
> >
> > _The Secret Files of Sherlock Holmes_ by June Thomson, long a favorite collection of Sherlockian pastiches. Thomson really captures Conan Doyle’s writing style and ingenious plots. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if you’d never read any Conan Doyle and were given three of his Holmes stories and three of Thomson’s with the authors’ names concealed, I’d defy you to tell them apart.
>
> I’ll have to look into this. I’ve read a huge number of Holmes pastiches, and my constant complaint is that almost none of them capture Doyle’s style. Most don’t even try. The closest I’ve come have been the stories by Adrian Conan Doyle (his son) and John Dickson Carr, collected as _The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes_. And I suspect it’s really due to Carr’s skill, rather than to Adrian’s inheritance.
Take a look, and then let me know what you think, please!
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### Author:  [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2025, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/69 "2025-08-27T18:07:19Z")
Just finished _The Infinite Sea_ and _The Last Star,_ author Rick Yancey’s sequels to _The Fifth Wave._ Post apocalyptic novels that are a little ponderously written for my taste but fairly fun yarns nonetheless.
Note: it’s never stated explicitly but the rationale given for the aliens destroying mankind is simply because they are trying to prevent humans from trashing a perfectly nice planet.
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2025, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/70 "2025-08-27T18:52:41Z")
I am re-reading _A Wanted Man_ by Lee Child, a Reacher book published in 2012.
At least, I think I’m re-reading it, but I certainly don’t remember any of the plot or the characters. So I guess it’s a new book to me.
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### Author:  [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2025, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/71 "2025-08-27T23:34:09Z")
I “ **think” I’m into the homestretch of Naomi Alderman’s _The Future_**. I feel like she’s sort of lost the plot now. And I’m not sure what the purpose of the fundie cult is except to allow the author to ‘splain The Bible to us heathen tech users. Zhen is a good character though so I’ll plow on.
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### Author:  [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)
#### Post date: [August 28, 2025, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/72 "2025-08-28T18:40:54Z")
New thread: [Wait! What?! It’s September already?!](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554)
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### Author:  [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2025, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/73 "2025-08-30T12:17:57Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#):
>
> I finished Dave Barry’s Class Clown, and think it was one of his better ones. I admit he’s put out some duds in his career, but he remains the only writer who can literally make me laugh out loud. No mean feat this week, when I’ve been in such a pissy mood! My favorite Dave Barry book is still his Book of Bad Songs, which I would run around recommending to anyone, but I think it really works best on people born between about 1960 and 1970.
>
> Next up: [The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand by Christopher Golden | Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/220377457-the-end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=kSnCTjvnPI&rank=1)
The _Book of Bad Songs_ is one of the three funniest things ever written. I had to ask my mom about a lot of the songs the first time I heard it (I was born one decade too late to have heard them), but when Youtube came along I looked them up.
Dear god, he was not making _any_ of it up, was he? I still refuse to listen to Captain & Tenille’s “Muskrat Love.” I heard the America version and that’s bad enough.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2025, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/74 "2025-08-30T23:26:52Z")
Still reading _Man With a Bull-Tongue Plow_ by Jesse Stuart. Finished _Were-_, an anthology edited by Patricia Bray and Joshua Palmatier, of which the best was “The Whale” by Anneliese Belmond, and _Bird Talk: Hilariously Accurate Ways to Identify Birds by the Sounds They Make_, by Becca Rowland, which is funny and interesting.
Next up: _Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand_, by Jeff Chu, and _Eagle and Empire_, by Alan Smale.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2025, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/75 "2025-08-31T12:32:01Z")
> [@Catamount](#):
>
> The _Book of Bad Songs_ is one of the three funniest things ever written.
Well, now I have to ask what the other two are! You’re obviously a person of discerning taste. 😁
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### Author:  [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2025, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/76 "2025-08-31T13:43:13Z")
Dorothy Parker’s review of A.A. Milne’s _Give Me Yesterday_ and _Mike Nelson’s Mind Over Matters,_ especially the essay where he runs over a yellow jacket nest with his lawn mower.
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### Author:  [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2025, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/77 "2025-08-31T20:48:32Z")
I finished _Of Monsters and Mainframes_ by Barbara Truelove. It was a fun read, switch off the brain and just enjoy the ride.
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### Author:  [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2025, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/78 "2025-08-31T21:21:52Z")
_One Summer: America, 1927_, Bill Bryson. Very interesting read about prominent people and events of the time.
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### Author:  [@Red\_Wiggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Wiggler)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2025, 11:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/79 "2025-09-01T11:32:14Z")
That was indeed a great read.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2025, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2025-edition/1021495/80 "2025-09-08T00:52:48Z")
Finished _Man With a Bull-Tongue Plow_ by Jesse Stuart, of which the best of the over 700 sonnets was number 432, about a man’s love for his wife as they are aging. Also _Good Soil: The Education of an Accidental Farmhand_, by Jeff Chu, which was okay, and _Eagle and Empire_, by Alan Smale, which was excellent. It’s part of an alternate history where the Roman empire never fell and Native American culture developed some very interesting technology. In this, the concluding novel of the trilogy, the Mongol Khan empire shows up.
Next up: _Trapped: The 2031 Journal of Otis Fitzmorgan_ by Bill Doyle, and _The Masters of Medicine: Our Greatest Triumphs in the Race to Cure Humanity’s Deadliest Diseases_, by Andrew Lam, M.D.
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