# Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - January 2022 edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [December 29, 2021, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869 "2021-12-29T19:18:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2022, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869/81 "2022-01-27T17:06:24Z")
**Shape: The Hidden Geometry of Information, Biology, Strategy, Democracy, and Everything Else** Jordan Ellenburg A professor of math explores how geometry can help us understand the world, diving into a variety of topics including chess, gerrymandering, and (of course) pandemics. Written for a general audience, but still throws in a lot of challenging stuff - eigenvectors, Dirilichet’s theroem, et cetera. I love this stuff, and I had to reread some parts. Recommended. But take it slowly ---
**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:** [January 27, 2022, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869/82 "2022-01-27T19:16:04Z")
Just started _Dream Girl_ by Laura Lippman. Recommended by NPR as one of the best mysteries of 2021. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2022, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869/83 "2022-01-27T23:27:58Z")
I have no idea. I’ve blocked most of that book from my memory. I don’t recommend reading it unless you need to atone for a horrible sin like killing someone or writing in pen in a library book or something. ---
**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:** [January 28, 2022, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869/84 "2022-01-28T13:45:18Z")
Finished **Chessmen of Mars** on audio. Started Stephen King’s **Later**. I’ve remarked in the past on King being inspired by prior works of fiction. Now he’s not even hiding it – he makes the comparison in the very beginning to his character’s situation and the one in _The Sixth Sense_. I don’t mind – as with **Elevation** (obviously inspired by H.G. Wells’ _The Truth about Pyecraft,_) which I audio-read not long ago, King goes off in a completely different direction. ---
**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:** [January 28, 2022, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869/85 "2022-01-28T15:09:21Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > Just started _Dream Girl_ by Laura Lippman. Recommended by NPR as one of the best mysteries of 2021. I’m interested to hear if you agree with NPR. I attempted to read another book by that author that had received several awards (_What the Dead Know_), and disliked it enough to abandon it partway through. But I’ve also noticed that my taste in books differs from many people’s, so maybe my not liking it was just me being weird. ---
**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:** [January 28, 2022, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869/86 "2022-01-28T15:11:52Z")
> [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](#): > > I’m interested to hear if you agree with NPR I’ll share my opinion, FWIW, after I finish the book. Right now I’m about 15% into it and I like it thus 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:** [January 28, 2022, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869/87 "2022-01-28T20:47:38Z")
Finished _Spare and Found Parts_ by Sarah Maria Griffin, which was excellent. Started _Poet Warrior: A Memoir_, by Joy Harjo. ---
**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:** [January 29, 2022, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869/88 "2022-01-29T01:17:17Z")
I read it in November, posted briefly about it here. Liked it a lot. I’ll also be curious about what you think. ---
**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:** [January 29, 2022, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869/89 "2022-01-29T01:38:42Z")
I liked this one very much too. Not an easy book I agree. But fascinating. Read it in December but I don’t think I posted about it here. ---
**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:** [January 29, 2022, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869/90 "2022-01-29T03:46:39Z")
Just found Cruelly Yours by Cassandra Peterson at the library. What a life! Making out with Jimi Hendrix and Seigfried and being a 14 year old go go dancer ( and still a virgin) she goes on to be a showgirl and. That’s as far as I’ve gotten. ---
**Author:** ![Boycott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boycott/32/6741_2.png) [@Boycott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boycott)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2022, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869/91 "2022-01-30T01:10:08Z")
Finished Howard Carter’s book. Wonderful to read the account from the man himself which gives a great enthusiastic telling of the story of his discovery. 99 years have passed from this book being published to me reading it. From a technical analysis detailing how scientifically and logistically they managed to accomplish this expedition it is a fascinating insight because what they had was primitive to all the technology we have at our disposal today. Carter’s thoughts on the future possibilities are also interesting because we have almost a century’s worth of work to measure up to his writings. Recommend it to anyone who is interested. ---
**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:** [January 30, 2022, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869/92 "2022-01-30T04:25:48Z")
> [@Catamount](#): > > At this point I’m in the same mindset I was in the summer before my sophomore year of high school when I had to read _Les Miserables_ . All 2000 pages because I didn’t know there was an abridged edition available. It took me three godforsaken months. All I remember was that I lost interest after Fantine died and the scene near the end where freaking _angels from Heaven_ came down to watch Marius and Cosette consummate their marriage. I swear, I am not making that up. I love that book, and I don’t read abridged editions. If the author felt it important to include, I will read every word written. Finished _In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin_, by Erik Larson. Focuses on the first year of the four-year tenure of FDR’s first ambassador to Nazi Germany, mild-mannered Chicago college professor William Dodd. Culminates in the Night of the Long Knives on June 30, 1934, which cemented Hitler’s grip on power. Dodd took with him to Berlin his wife and two adult children, Bill Jr and Martha. Martha was something of a live wire. At the time in the process of a divorce from a secret marriage with a New York banker, she had had affairs stateside with Carl Sandburg – who was an honorary pallbearer at Dodd’s funeral in 1940 – and probably Thornton Wilder. In Berlin, Martha began collecting lovers across the city from among Berlin’s international, cultural and even Nazi elite. One of them was Ernst “Putzi” Hanfstaengl, Hitler’s personal piano player, a Harvard grad who had once played piano in the White House. In Hitler’s early days, Putzi had the naive notion that if Hitler could just fall in love with a woman, it might soften him somewhat, and he thought Martha might just do the trick. But nothing came from an initial meeting between the two. Martha was at first attracted to the new Germany and the Nazi movement, what with the strong young Germans emanating a newfound pride, but the violence she soon witnessed turned her off. Another of Martha’s lovers was a Soviet embassy official, an agent of the NKVD – precursor of the KGB – who recruited her to become a Soviet spy. Later in life Martha married a wealthy New York bon vivant and in turn recruited him as a Soviet spy, him thinking it would be great fun. The intelligence they passed on pretty much consisted of high-society gossip – the Rosenbergs they were not. Under pressure from the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s, they left the US, settling in Prague and pursuing a decidedly uncommunistic lifestyle with mansions and servants and where Martha eventually died at the ripe old age of 81. But back in the 1930s, her father recognized early on the dangers posed by the Hitler regime, although his sentiments flew in the face of the accepted wisdom that Hitler’s government could not possibly last, would come crashing down any day now. Plus Dodd himself – not wealthy, not a Harvard grad – was looked down on by the State Department elite, garnering a reputation as the Cassandra of American diplomats. After leaving Germany in 1937, he spent the remaining 2-1/2 years of his life crisscrossing the US, lecturing on what he saw as the coming storm. Very good. My second Larson after _The Devil in the White City_. I believe I’m going to seek out more. Meanwhile, I’ve started _Pronto_, by Elmore Leonard. ---
**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:** [January 30, 2022, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869/93 "2022-01-30T12:40:08Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I’ve started _Pronto_ , by Elmore Leonard. A great Raylan Givens tale! ---
**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 30, 2022, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869/94 "2022-01-30T16:58:58Z")
Finished _Poet Warrior: A Memoir_ , by Joy Harjo. Powerful and sad. Now I’m reading _The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents_, by Terry Pratchett. ---
**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 31, 2022, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869/95 "2022-01-31T18:18:21Z")
Finished _The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents_ , a Discworld novel for younger readers by Terry Pratchett. It was excellent. Now I’m reading _The Class: A Life-Changing Teacher, His World-Changing Kids, and the Most Inventive Classroom in America_, by Heather Won Tesoriero. ---
**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 1, 2022, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869/96 "2022-02-01T03:31:46Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > My second Larson after _The Devil in the White City_ . I believe I’m going to seek out more. His book on the Lusitania is very good as well. ---
**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 1, 2022, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869/97 "2022-02-01T03:44:46Z")
New thread: [Spring is just around the corner… and so is a kitten waiting to pounce on your feet!](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-february-2022-edition/958722) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-january-2022-edition/956869.md?page=4)