# Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - December 2025 edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** comic-books-manga, books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [November 30, 2025, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2025-edition/1025247 "2025-11-30T02:12:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**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:** [December 22, 2025, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2025-edition/1025247/61 "2025-12-22T16:37:19Z")
I finished The Place Where They Buried Your Heart, and gave it five stars at Goodreads. I do love a good haunted house story! Next up, [Slayers of Old](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/223856335-slayers-of-old), by Jim C. Hines. It’s about an elderly magical trio who live together and run a bookshop, at least until they have to fight evil once again. Seems like a fun and fast read. ---
**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 22, 2025, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2025-edition/1025247/62 "2025-12-22T20:23:02Z")
I’m now re-reading, with one of my sons, my all-time favorite sf espionage book, _Tool of the Trade_ by Joe Haldeman. A Soviet sleeper agent at MIT in 1987 discovers a practical method of mind control and must go on the run from both the CIA and KGB, before eventually deciding to make a daring move to change world history forever. Very, very good stuff. ---
**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 24, 2025, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2025-edition/1025247/63 "2025-12-24T20:52:27Z")
Finished _Ancient Shores_, by Jack McDevitt, which was okay; and _Ice Age Bones: Mammoth_, by Barbara Hehner, which is very outdated. Next up: _The Golden Ticket: A Life in the College Admissions Essays_, by Irena Smith, and _A Year Near Proxima Centauri_, by Michael Martin. ---
**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 28, 2025, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2025-edition/1025247/64 "2025-12-28T15:03:21Z")
Finished _The Golden Ticket: A Life in the College Admissions Essays_, by Irena Smith, which is okay, but mostly about her struggles with her neurodivergent children, not what the title suggests, and _A Year Near Proxima Centauri_, by Michael Martin, which is basically a cross between _The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ and _A Year in Provence_. It has some funny parts, though not on the level of Douglas Adams. Next up: _Untune the Sky: Poems of Music and the Dance_, compiled by Helen Plotz; _Money Money Money,_ by Ed McBain; and _Why We Travel: 100 Reasons to See the World_, by Patricia Schultz. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [December 29, 2025, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2025-edition/1025247/65 "2025-12-29T05:57:48Z")
The Genius of Birds - Jennifer Ackerman A popular science look at the intelligence of birds, from talking parrots to migrating songbirds. Reread from a few years ago, interesting and well-written book. ---
**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, 2025, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2025-edition/1025247/66 "2025-12-29T12:42:10Z")
Finished _Murder on the Yellow Brick Road_. Stuart Kaminsky’s detective hero Toby Peters gets beaten up even more than Fredric Brown’s Bill Sweeney in _The Screaming Mimi_. Now I’ve moved onto _Angel of Vengeance_ by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Childs, the effective second half of _The Cabinet of Dr. Leng_. I haven’t been able to find a copy of the book on audio CD in any library, so I’m reduced to reading the book in print. Preston and Childs’ Pendergast books (as well as their other efforts, both together and independently) are one of my guilty pleasures, like the books based on Clive Cussler’s heroes that his collaborators are still churning out. As with Cussler, these books all have at least one moment when you have to stop and go “Oh, come ON!” because you can’t believe they actually wrote that whacko idea. In the case of Preston and Childs, it’s the increasingly outrageous nature of the universe Pendegast inhabits. When you consider that this started with _The Relic_, you have an idea of how far from reality this must have stretched by now. (Pendergast first appeared in that novel, but he was written out of the film they made from the book). The earliest books actually strove to try to find rational explanations for the zombies and other supernatural entities that inhabited the books, but by now we have a couple of characters who have lived a helluva lot longer than human beings typically live, some super-powered blood-sucking monsters, and time travel. And, of course, the EVIL Dr. Encoch Leng, who i can’t help visualizing as a taller Snidely Whiplash (or a broader Dudley Nightshade), with top hat and black cloak and a pronounced handlebar moustache that he twirls the ends of while gloating to the omnicompetant Aloysius Pendergast or his insane omnicompetant brother Diogenes or Pendergast’s omnicompetant Wednesday-like ward Constance. I feel sorry for NY Police detective Vincent D’Agosta, who deserves to be the hero of his own series, but keeps fallin g for Pendergast’s requests to help him out, and ends up being overshadowed and outclassed by the rest of the cast. I’m a third of the way in. We’ll see how this turns out. On audio, I received several books for Christmas, and am now listening to _The Day of the Jackal_, which I’ve read a zillion yimes. I’ve also received several hard copy books for Christmas, most of which I’ve never heard of. Interesting reading ahead. ---
**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 29, 2025, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2025-edition/1025247/67 "2025-12-29T23:37:25Z")
New thread: [Well that’s a wrap on 2025…](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2026-edition/1026156) ---
**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, 2026, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2025-edition/1025247/68 "2026-01-01T00:12:36Z")
Finished _Untune the Sky: Poems of Music and the Dance_, compiled by Helen Plotz, of which my favorite was “The Relic” by Robert Hillyer; and _Money Money Money,_ by Ed McBain and _Why We Travel: 100 Reasons to See the World_, by Patricia Schultz, both of which were okay. See you in 2026! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2025-edition/1025247.md?page=3)