# Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - December 2020 edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [November 30, 2020, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2020-edition/926817 "2020-11-30T15:15:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**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:** [December 29, 2020, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2020-edition/926817/61 "2020-12-29T05:13:06Z")
Today I read and enjoyed both _The Gashleycrumb Tinies_ by Edward Gorey, a macabrely funny picture book about adorable little Victorian children dying 26 different ways in alphabetical order, and _Tolkien Treasures_ by Catherine McIlwain, a concise but beautiful book on Oxford University’s collection of J.R.R. Tolkien’s hand-drawn illustrations, book covers, maps and Christmas letters to his children. ---
**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:** [December 29, 2020, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2020-edition/926817/62 "2020-12-29T15:20:28Z")
Finished _Benchmarks: Galaxy Bookshelf_ , by Algis Budrys. It’s a collection of SF book reviews which I got for Christmas. I enjoyed it a lot, and will be reading a number of books and short stories based on his recommendations. That said, it’s filled with spoilers, which in this particular case didn’t bother me, although it normally would. Now I’m reading _When Worlds Collide_, by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer. ---
**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:** [December 29, 2020, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2020-edition/926817/63 "2020-12-29T18:56:10Z")
I just finished Suzanne Palmer’s novel **Finder** , an action-adventure space opera by the Writer Guest of Honor at next month’s Virtual Arisia science fiction convention. I hadn’t read anything of hers, and thought that, as I’m a panelist, I ought to. A good read – better than I’d expected. Although her theory is apparently that you should throw just about everything awful at your hero that you can until he emerges triumphant but by no means unscathed at the conclusion, like Elaine Isaac does. **Florida Man** was a quick and funny read. Someone collected a year’s worth of headlines that have “Florida Man” in the title (a notion that has been discussed on this Board before. I think we had a thread on it). You start thinking that “Florida Man” is the same guy that all of this is happening to, like some gonzo super anti-hero (“Florida Man gets head-butted, knocked out by Alligator”) **Tall Tales** by Al Jaffee. Arisia is having a panel on Jaffee, which I thought I might get onto, and this is background, as well as fun reading. He published it when he was between his regular stints at Mad, and it preceded any of his books published under the “Mad” logo.I’d write more about it (and him), but it’d derail the thread. **Stupid History** by Leland Gregory. A gift. A lot of this consists of very familiar misconceptions about history, and some of it is demonstrably wrong, but it’s a long book, filled with lots of factoids I hadn’t encountered before. **The First Brain: The Neuroscience of Planarians** by One R. Pagan (there need to be a couple of accents in that name). The title is completely misleading. This is not a book for specialists (despite being published by Oxford University Press), but a book for laymen, taking you from essentially scratch to an exploration of the flatworm brain. It’s background for an article I want to do on flatworm vision. And I’m almost finished with the very thick book of **Will Shortz presents Challenging Ken-Ken** ---
**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:** [December 30, 2020, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2020-edition/926817/64 "2020-12-30T14:48:20Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > … **Florida Man** was a quick and funny read. Someone collected a year’s worth of headlines that have “Florida Man” in the title (a notion that has been discussed on this Board before. I think we had a thread on it)… Here you go: [Florida Man, the worst superhero ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/florida-man-the-worst-superhero-ever/826437) ---
**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:** [December 30, 2020, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2020-edition/926817/65 "2020-12-30T16:56:53Z")
New thread: [Welcome to the New Age!](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2021-edition/929273) ---
**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:** [December 30, 2020, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2020-edition/926817/66 "2020-12-30T19:31:48Z")
Finished _When Worlds Collide_ , by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer. Some of the action scenes were well done, but on the whole, I didn’t care for it. I’ll start my next new book in January. ---
**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:** [December 30, 2020, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2020-edition/926817/67 "2020-12-30T21:41:54Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > Finished _When Worlds Collide_ , by Philip Wylie and Edwin Balmer. Some of the action scenes were well done, but on the whole, I didn’t care for it. Don’t read the sequel, **After Worlds Collide,** by the same team. ---
**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:** [January 1, 2021, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2020-edition/926817/68 "2021-01-01T00:24:49Z")
Whoops. (I read the first book because it was chosen by my science fiction book club, and I skimmed the second because it’s in the same volume so I figured I would just in case “what happens next” came up in the discussion.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2020-edition/926817.md?page=3)