# Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - February 2023 edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [January 30, 2023, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-february-2023-edition/979072 "2023-01-30T21:10:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **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:** [February 25, 2023, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-february-2023-edition/979072/61 "2023-02-25T19:58:51Z")
Eudora Welty, Harper Lee, Shelby Foote, William Faulkner…? ---
**Author:** ![Galactus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/galactus/32/3581_2.png) [@Galactus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galactus)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2023, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-february-2023-edition/979072/62 "2023-02-25T22:29:47Z")
I just started THE BOYS a memoir by Ron and Clint Howard. Really good so far. ---
**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:** [February 26, 2023, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-february-2023-edition/979072/63 "2023-02-26T22:35:26Z")
Finished _Sewer, Gas, & Electric_. Now I’m reading _Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube’s Chaotic Rise to World Domination_, by Mark Bergen. ---
**Author:** ![SuntanLotion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suntanlotion/32/16165_2.png) [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2023, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-february-2023-edition/979072/64 "2023-02-27T00:19:04Z")
Started Come On, Man! The truth about Joe Biden’s terrible, horrible, no good, very bad presidency by Joe Concha. Can’t stop reading it, its gripping. ---
**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:** [February 27, 2023, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-february-2023-edition/979072/65 "2023-02-27T13:15:47Z")
Finished The Spite House, although the story utterly fell apart. The secrets were implausible, the motivations were weak, and even two chapters of exposition at the end couldn’t make any of it make sense. Next I started on [Haunted by the Past](https://www.amazon.com/Haunted-Past-Simon-R-Green/dp/1982192283/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1677503445&sr=8-1) by Simon Green, another haunted house story. I hadn’t realized it, but it’s part of a series about two detectives. Fifty pages in, I’m getting a strong Nancy Drew vibe, so…ditched. ---
**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:** [February 27, 2023, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-february-2023-edition/979072/66 "2023-02-27T21:49:53Z")
Still reading _A Sea of Words: A Lexicon and Companion to the Complete Seafaring Tales of Patrick O’Brian_ by Dean King, with essays by John B. Hattendorf and J. Worth Estes. His choice of emphasis is sometimes inexplicable - he writes two pages about a single naval battle featured in only one of the 21 books in the series, but just a short paragraph about HMS _Surprise_, the British frigate which is the setting of most of the books. I finished Mark Z. Danielewski’s _House of Leaves_, a very long, very weird, sometimes unnerving novel about a house that’s much bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. I don’t quite know what to say about it. It’s sort of horror, sort of adventure, sort of social commentary. It definitely would not be for everyone. Still making slow progress through _Children of Time_ by Adrian Tchaikovsky, a distant-future sf novel about a terraforming project gone badly, and dangerously, awry. The library yanked back my audiobook copy of Ian Kershaw’s _The End: The Defiance and Destruction of Hitler’s Germany, 1944-1945_, and then did the same with Bonnie Garmus’s _Lessons in Chemistry_, my book club’s pick, a feminist fantasy focusing on a spunky, brainy, beautiful chemist trying to overcome sexism in the Fifties. Don’t know when I’ll get 'em back again! Zipped through _The Orville: Season 1.5: New Beginnings_ by David A. Goodman, David Cabeza and Michael Atiyeh, a graphic novel with two new _Orville_ stories, about a rescue mission and a border incident. I liked it. Next up: _The Unexpected George Washington_ by Harlow Giles Unger, about the first President’s private life. ---
**Author:** ![The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_wind_of_my_soul)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2023, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-february-2023-edition/979072/67 "2023-02-28T17:58:24Z")
I’m currently reading _Blitz_, the third book in the Rook trilogy. I wasn’t too impressed with it in the beginning – it’s a long book and could have used with some tighter editing – but now I’m, oh, maybe 300 pages in and very much absorbed in the story. Also reading _The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again_ by Catherine Price, the author of _How to Break Up With Your Phone_. So far, I’m disappointed. _How to Break Up With Your Phone_ was a fantastic book that really transformed my life, but this follow-up just seems like an inferior regurgitation of some of the ideas in her last book, with an excess of distracting footnotes. But I’m only maybe 60 pages in, so I’m holding out hope that this one’ll turn around. Recently finished: - _The Collected Schizophrenias_ by Esme Weijun Wang. An absorbing collection of essays written by a woman who suffers from schizoaffective disorder. Seeing the practice of being put under an involuntary psychiatric hold from the perspective of a mentally ill patient really opened up my eyes to what it’s like to lose your sense of bodily autonomy, and how that can contribute to a worsening of psychiatric symptoms. - _The Mother-in-Law_ by Sally Hepworth. A deep-dive into the complicated relationship between a woman and her mother-in-law, told from the perspective of both the woman and the mother-in-law. Interesting, though not particularly memorable. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2023, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-february-2023-edition/979072/68 "2023-02-28T19:17:33Z")
Finished _Blonde Faith_ by Walter Mosley. This was the eleventh and final book in the Easy Rawlins series, which led to me rereading the first ten. I read eight on the beaches while in St Martin and read the last two at home. Reading them in order helped me to understand why Mosley wanted to end the series. ---
**Author:** ![BetsQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@BetsQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BetsQ)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2023, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-february-2023-edition/979072/69 "2023-02-28T19:45:08Z")
Thanks for the correction! Not sure where Hilary came from. I really enjoyed Sea of Tranquility. I haven’t read her other work, but I will check it out. @The_wind_of_my_soul, I had the same impression of _Blitz_. In the end, I enjoyed it, and really wanted an epilogue about the characters from WWII. I recently listened to [Shades of Milk and Honey](https://www.amazon.com/Shades-of-Milk-and-Honey-audiobook/dp/B003YV160U/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=mary+robinette+kowal+shades+of+milk+and+honey&qid=1677613359&sprefix=mary+robinette+kowal+sha%2Caps%2C68&sr=8-1) as an audiobook. It’s intended to be a Austen-style novel with a little magic thrown in. It was OK, but I’m not in a hurry to read the rest of the series. ---
**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:** [February 28, 2023, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-february-2023-edition/979072/70 "2023-02-28T21:29:14Z")
Finished _Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube’s Chaotic Rise to World Domination_, by Mark Bergen. It’s well-written, and I recommend it for anyone interested in the subject. Now I’m starting _Flynn’s World_, by Gregory McDonald. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2023, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-february-2023-edition/979072/71 "2023-02-28T21:32:38Z")
The CrossRoads of Civilization: A History of Vienna Angus Robertson A thorough history of the Austrian capital, from its start as a Roman frontier settlement called Vindobona to the 21st century. Well-written and interesting book ---
**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:** [February 28, 2023, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-february-2023-edition/979072/72 "2023-02-28T22:27:17Z")
Next Month: [March better be worth all this darned snow!](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2023-edition/980511) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-february-2023-edition/979072.md?page=3)