# Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - July 2022 edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [June 30, 2022, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158 "2022-06-30T00:40:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**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:** [July 24, 2022, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/61 "2022-07-24T01:40:20Z")
You Can Make It by Jim Bakker. I’m halfway through and cannot stop reading it. I started earlier today. ---
**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:** [July 24, 2022, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/62 "2022-07-24T13:15:09Z")
Finished listening to _The Good Sister_ by Sally Hepworth. A good psychological drama with a very surprising twist at the end. Next up: _Where the Crawdads Sing_ by Delia Owens. ---
**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:** [July 24, 2022, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/63 "2022-07-24T20:26:04Z")
Finished _Clarkesworld: Year Twelve - Volume One_, edited by Neil Clarke and Sean Wallace, of which the best stories were “The Last Boat-Builder in Ballyvoloon” by Finbarr O’Reilly, “Who Won the Battle of Arsia Mons?” by Sue Burke, and “Umbernight”, by Carolyn Ives Gilman. I wouldn’t be surprised if Burke’s story became a movie someday. I’d watch it. Now I’m reading _The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World_, by A. J. Jacobs. (The author decides to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z.) ---
**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:** [July 25, 2022, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/64 "2022-07-25T01:37:18Z")
Finished _The Water-Method Man_, by John Irving. The trials and tribulations of a man born with a dysfunctional urinary tract. Good, but not among his best works. Only his second novel, published 50 years ago, in it you can sort of see the seeds of his true classics – _The World According to Garp_ and _The Cider House Rules_. It’s almost like he was in training for those. As with much of his work, wrestling and Vienna play no small part. This week, I will start _The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family_, by Ron Chernow, one of my favorite historians and another of his sizable tomes. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2022, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/65 "2022-07-25T11:59:10Z")
Currently reading two fairly slow books, and alternating for a change of pace! I’m nearing the end of _The Romans in Scotland, and the Battle of Mons Graupius_ by **Simon Forder**. ([Mons Graupius](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mons_Graupius) was a battle which nobody knows the location of - guesses range from Morayshire all the way to Tayside and Perthshire but the author hasn’t quite declared his guess yet!) It should have been an important victory for Rome but Imperial politics necessitated the withdrawal from the North shortly afterwards and any opportunity for consolidating their gains was lost. And for fiction I’m half way through **John Crowley** ’s latest, _Flint and Mirror_, a historical fantasy set in Ireland in the time of Queen Elizabeth the 1st and the Spanish Armada. Very good but, as with most Crowley, not a light read. Lots of Irish in-fighting, alchemy and the sidhe interfering! ---
**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:** [July 25, 2022, 12:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/66 "2022-07-25T12:23:40Z")
Finished reading Jules Verne’s **The Family Without a Name**. I knew before I read it that I didn’t know enough about Canada’s history, but now I realize that I know even less than I thought I did. Also, the book was evidently entered by a computer scan of a text somewhere, because the text is filled with typos of the kind no human being would make if they were coping the book, but which not-up-to-par Optical Character Recognition would. Twice the word “he” is rendered as “lie”. A real person would’ve corrected that. No I’m halfway through Verne’s **The Green Ray** ---
**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:** [July 25, 2022, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/67 "2022-07-25T12:29:07Z")
Started this morning on [Black Tide](https://www.amazon.com/Black-Tide-KC-Jones/dp/125079269X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1658751750&sr=1-1) by K.C. Jones, a sci-fi novel about the end of the world. So far so good, although the protagonist is really annoying, the kind of person who forgets they’re supposed to be watching a dog. If that dog doesn’t survive the apocalypse, I’m gonna be mad. ---
**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:** [July 27, 2022, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/68 "2022-07-27T17:54:56Z")
Finished _The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World_, by A. J. Jacobs. Mostly meh, with a few interesting facts from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. I did like one part: after the author’s father calculated the speed of light in fathoms per fortnight, the author figured it out in knots per nanosecond. Now I’m reading Sonya Singh’s novel _Sari, Not Sari_. ---
**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:** [July 27, 2022, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/69 "2022-07-27T19:29:50Z")
The Great Reset, Joe Biden and the Rise of 21st centure Fascism. By Glenn Beck. ---
**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:** [July 28, 2022, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/70 "2022-07-28T11:50:39Z")
Finished Verne’s **The Green Ray** and have started his **Cesar Cascabel** ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2022, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/71 "2022-07-28T12:21:32Z")
At the advice of someone here, I’m reading the Percy Jackson series. It’s young adult fiction set in a world where the Greek gods are real, and running around having sex with humans (off stage, since it’s ya fiction). Percy is a demigod. ---
**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:** [July 28, 2022, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/72 "2022-07-28T13:04:11Z")
Good series. I’ve read the first two books (and seen the movies based on them), in part because “percy” jackson is really named Perseus, and is, like that other Perseus, a son of Zeus. I’ve got a deep personal interest in Perseus that I can tell you about sometime. The movie version features a pretty good CGI Medusa, which used to be rare but is now becoming very common (as in the remake of **Clash of the Titans** and various TV commercials, not to mention “Celia” is **Monsters, Inc.** (sorta)) ---
**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:** [July 28, 2022, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/73 "2022-07-28T18:59:35Z")
I finished _The Second Sleep_ by Robert Harris. An interesting premise, set in a backward, quasi-medieval England some 800 years after the dimly-remembered collapse of our modern technological society. It was a good read most of the way through, but I was disappointed by the ending. Just started _On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century_ by Timothy Snyder, a short but engaging book about how we can all, forewarned and forearmed, help preserve democracy. ---
**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:** [July 28, 2022, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/74 "2022-07-28T19:41:10Z")
Finished Black Tide, it was all right. Things were pelagic, alien, hideous, tentacled, etc. And did the dog die? He got hurt, then died “off screen”. ---
**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:** [July 28, 2022, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/75 "2022-07-28T20:29:40Z")
Was anything either squamous or rugose? ---
**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:** [July 28, 2022, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/76 "2022-07-28T20:38:49Z")
Well, the stuff that wasn’t sinuous or tenebrous, you know. 🐙 ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2022, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/77 "2022-07-29T00:12:44Z")
Just finished: _Bloodstained Sea: The U.S. Coast Guard in the Battle of the Atlantic, 1941-1944_, by Michael G Walling Now reading: _The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs_, by Steve Brusatte _Last Stand at Khe Sanh: The U.S. Marines’ Finest Hour in Vietnam_, by Gregg Jones Next up: _A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France_, by Caroline Moorehead ---
**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:** [July 29, 2022, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/78 "2022-07-29T00:18:53Z")
Someone put a copy of Mike Lindells book in the lobby. Im going to try and read it. ---
**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:** [July 29, 2022, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/79 "2022-07-29T03:32:32Z")
Just finished _Network Effect_ by Martha Wells. The mystery was interesting and I really love her characters as well as the direction she’s taking the story. Somebody send Murderbot the Rage Against the Machine discography 😃 ---
**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:** [July 29, 2022, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158/80 "2022-07-29T13:33:21Z")
Finished Sonya Singh’s novel _Sari, Not Sari_. It was okay. Now I’m reading _See What I’m Saying: The Extraordinary Powers of Our Five Senses_, by Lawrence D. Rosenblum. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-july-2022-edition/967158.md?page=5)