# Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - March 2021 edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [March 1, 2021, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048 "2021-03-01T18:12:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**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:** [March 22, 2021, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/61 "2021-03-22T14:44:08Z")
Finished _Nova_ , by Samuel R. Delany, which I enjoyed. Now I’m reading _I’m Sorry…Love, Your Husband: Honest, Hilarious Stories From a Father of Three Who Made All the Mistakes (And Made Up for Them)_, by Clint Edwards ---
**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:** [March 23, 2021, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/62 "2021-03-23T16:55:34Z")
Finished _I’m Sorry…Love, Your Husband: Honest, Hilarious Stories From a Father of Three Who Made All the Mistakes (And Made Up for Them)_ , by Clint Edwards. Meh. Started _Rules of the Road_, a YA novel by Joan Bauer. ---
**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:** [March 23, 2021, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/63 "2021-03-23T20:54:53Z")
Finished: _Grantville Gazette III_, edited by Eric Flint (reread) Reading: _1634: The Ram Rebellion_, by Eric Flint with Virginia DeMarce (reread) Next: _The Danish Scheme_, by Herb Sakalaucks (reread) ---
**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:** [March 24, 2021, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/64 "2021-03-24T03:08:24Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > …Having really enjoyed the recent Netflix miniseries based on it, I’m now reading Walter Tevis’s novel _The Queen’s Gambit_, about a troubled Kentucky orphan girl and chess prodigy who rises to become an international sensation in the Sixties. Good stuff. I’m about a quarter of the way into it, and really digging it. Some differences from the miniseries but not too many. You don’t have to know chess to get into it, either. Also just zipped through _Pyramid_ (1975) by David Macaulay; it’s one of his great, well-illustrated, layperson-friendly books about designing and building big things. I learned a lot and now respect the ancient Egyptians more than ever. Highly recommended. ---
**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:** [March 24, 2021, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/65 "2021-03-24T12:17:40Z")
Finished The Auctioneer. It was quite a decent little horror novel, but I’m glad I had the chance to read most of it in one sitting because I don’t know if I could have picked it up again day after day as events spiraled down into despair. I couldn’t help but think of the auctioneer as Trump, and the deputies as MAGAts… ---
**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:** [March 24, 2021, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/66 "2021-03-24T21:28:20Z")
Finished _Rules of the Road_ , a YA novel by Joan Bauer, which I enjoyed. Now I’m reading _A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order_, by Judith Flanders. ---
**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:** [March 25, 2021, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/67 "2021-03-25T14:50:01Z")
I started this morning on [The Rosie Project](https://www.amazon.com/Rosie-Project-Novel-Graeme-Simsion/dp/1476729093/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1616681619&sr=1-1) by Graeme Simsion, as recommended by @Elendil_s_Heir. Funny and light; I’m liking it! ---
**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:** [March 25, 2021, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/68 "2021-03-25T14:57:00Z")
Ah, good! I think it’d make a great movie, with the right cast. ---
**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:** [March 25, 2021, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/69 "2021-03-25T15:13:02Z")
I read two good books recently (well, one was 63 pages, so maybe it’d be more accurate to call it a short story or novella). The first was [Kitty Goes to Washington](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/14460.Kitty_Goes_to_Washington), the second in a series about a young female werewolf who goes public with her identity, creating a call-in radio show to frankly discuss the existence of werewolves and other supposedly mythical creatures. Both this and the author’s first book were fantastic! The other was [A Sincere Warning About the Entity in Your Home](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16099937-a-sincere-warning-about-the-entity-in-your-home) by Jason Arnopp. I had high hopes for this story. I very much enjoyed Arnopp’s full-length novel, _The Last Days of Jack Sparks_, but Arnopp is a horror writer, and the horror genre is traditionally better suited for short stories than full-length novels. The story was creative, with the perfect level of creepiness: not enough to keep you up at night, but enough to keep you glued to the pages. ---
**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:** [March 25, 2021, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/70 "2021-03-25T15:18:56Z")
That Arnopp stuff looks good! Unfortunately my library doesn’t have it. I’ll just have to keep an eye out in future. ---
**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:** [March 25, 2021, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/71 "2021-03-25T21:39:08Z")
Finished: _The Danish Scheme_ , by Herb Sakalaucks (reread) Now Reading: _1635: The Dreeson Incident_, by Eric Flint and Virginia DeMarce Next: _1635: A Parcel of Rogues_, by Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis (reread) ---
**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:** [March 27, 2021, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/72 "2021-03-27T14:37:37Z")
Finished _A Place for Everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical Order_ , by Judith Flanders, which was okay. I was interested to discover that some of the earliest versions of a card catalog were written on the backs of playing cards, which used to be blank. Now I’m reading _Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said_, by Philip K. Dick. ---
**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:** [March 29, 2021, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/73 "2021-03-29T03:09:59Z")
I’m about halfway through Clive Leatherdale’s _Dracula Unearthed_. It’s an annotated version of Bram Stoker’s _Dracula_. I’ve read four other annotated editions of Dracula – Leonard Wolf’s _The Annotated Dracula_, his updated version, The Essential _Dracula_, Leslie Klinger’s _The New Annotated Dracula_, and the Writer’s Digest annotated _Dracula_. Leatherdale is clearly the best of the lot overall. He has more notations than anyone else, and the number of words in his annotations themselves approach the length of the novel. Leatherdale is the only annotater who seems to have consulted Stoker’s notes, and Klinger, by his own admission, relies heavily on Leatherdale. Leatherdale points out every inconsistency and mistake in the book, as well as throwing light on the actions of the characters. You could quickly get discouraged reading these, because it makes the work seem ill-plotted and ill-conceived. But Leatherdale undertook this work as a labor of love – he’s clearly entranced by the novel, as if the King Vampire held him in his hypnotic gaze. Reading the novel with his notes really brings out how altogether weird the novel is, and how far removed it is from even the most faithful of adaptations. I think we carry in our minds the version of the story related in the 1931 or 1992 films, or (if we were lucky enough) the Deane and Balderston stage version. Some people might have foremost in their minds one of the other interpretations. But every version pares down the too many characters, or streamlines the action or the setting. Re-reading the original novel, especially with every detail pointed out, makes you really see it and take notice of the odd twists and turns of the plot. Consider Lucy Westenra’s death. The poor airhead has been victimized by Dracula for weeks, both at Whitby and London, and has had four blood transfusions. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward have been fighting madly to keep her alive and to keep Dracula away, but he keeps thwarting them. Finally, she simply loses too much blood. But she doesn’t simply expire from extreme anemia. When she goes, there’s an orgy of death. Berserker, the wolf who escaped from the Hyde Park Zoo (with Dracula’s connivance) has burst through the window of the room\*, giving Dracula a means of entry. Lucy’s mother, who is terminally ill, falls on Lucy after grabbing for her protective garland of garlic, striking Lucy’s head with hers. The mother falls dead, and Lucy is dizzy and disoriented and helpless for Dracula to attack. That same night, the father of her fiancee, Arthur Holmwood, also dies. It’s also about this time that Mr. Hawkins, Jonathan Harker’s employer (and something of a surrogate father) also dies. That’s a lot of coincidental deaths, and only one directly due to a vampire attack. Not only that, but two of those who die had recently changed their wills. The older Mrs. Westenra gave all her belongings not to Lucy, the sole surviving family member, but to Arthur! And they aren’t even married yet! If the wedding got called off, Lucy would have been destitute. And Mr. Hawkins left all of his belongings to Harker! It’s a pretty extraordinary series of events. The inheritances are necessary, in a way, in order to keep the plot moving along, but you have the impression that a more skilled writer wouldn’t have needed so many coincidences in order to do so. I can’t think of a single play, TV adaptation, or movie version of _Dracula_ that has any of this in it. \*which is on the second floor. How the wolf got up there isn’t explained. ---
**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:** [March 29, 2021, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/74 "2021-03-29T17:36:57Z")
Ladder? Ramp? Balloon? Trampoline? Antigrav collar…? ---
**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:** [March 29, 2021, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/75 "2021-03-29T18:29:00Z")
Finished _Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said_ , by Philip K. Dick. Not one of his better works, and the plot focuses on one of the least interesting ideas in the book. Now I’m reading _The Sporting Horse: In Pursuit of Equine Excellence_, by Nicola Jane Swinney. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2021, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/76 "2021-03-29T20:47:53Z")
**Vienna Secrets: A Max Liebermann Mystery** Frank Tallis A procedural set in Vienna around 1900, with a psychiatrist and police officer duo investigating a series of grisly decapitations. I quite enjoyed this book. The actual mystery isn’t that interesting, but the strong characters and their interactions, plus the overall milieu of Vienna at that time, make for enjoyable reading. ---
**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:** [March 30, 2021, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/77 "2021-03-30T02:19:16Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Ladder? Ramp? Balloon? Trampoline? Antigrav collar…? Well, Drac could’ve thrown him up there (he’s extremely strong). Or there could be a easily-accessible balcony that even a wolf could walk onto. The point is, Stoker just doesn’t _say_. I suspect he simply forgot that the window was actually on the second floor. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2021, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/78 "2021-03-30T03:58:53Z")
I’m reading _Off the Edge_ by Carolyn Crane, a romantic thriller that leans hard into thriller. The writing is exceptional. It’s the best writing I’ve seen in this genre. While the “woman on the run from abusive ex” storyline is done to death, the author puts a nice spin on it by also making him an arms dealer. But the thing that makes the book really stand out is that the hero is an expert in linguistics who tracks the bad guys through his intensive analysis of how they speak. The dialog is sparkling with all these clever tidbits of linguistic phenomena. And another thing I love about it is that the connection the leads have is very specific, poignant and believable. The only thing I’ve having a hard time with is the brutality. I prefer heavy action in my romance but the realism of the prose makes certain scenes hard to handle. It’s genuinely scary stuff and there are a few disturbing images that will haunt my dreams forever. ---
**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:** [March 31, 2021, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/79 "2021-03-31T15:00:03Z")
Finished _The Sporting Horse: In Pursuit of Equine Excellence_ , by Nicola Jane Swinney. It’s a coffee table book, with stunning photos by Bob Langrish. I enjoyed it. Now I’m reading _Binti_, by Nnedi Okorafor, which is SF. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2021, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048/80 "2021-03-31T15:50:55Z")
I finished [The Angel of the Crows](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52378874-the-angel-of-the-crows), by Katherine Addison. You know that burning question you’ve always had–“What if Sherlock Holmes had wings?”–but never had an answer to? Well, now you do: it’s this book. If it were only a new set of Holmian mysteries, only with vampires and angels and werewolves and the like, I’d have enjoyed it pretty well. As it was, in places it was a straight-up retelling of the old Holmes mysteries. The plots–and, crucially, solutions to the mysteries–were so similar that I kept asking myself whether this book really needed to be written. Addison is a great writer, and I really enjoyed _The Goblin Emperor_. This one was a little disappointing, but other folks may love it more than I did. Then I started a new Wild Cards novel, [Deuces Down](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1051340.Deuces_Down?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=QiHAMPzOCM&rank=1). This is a series of suphero anthologies with a bunch of different contributors who I think are real-life friends doing this project as a lark/hustle thing. Daniel Abraham is a superlative author (half of the _Expanse Series_ James SA Corey pseudonym), and I’ve enjoyed previous entries in this series. But the main author in this one writes in mindnumbing detail about baseball games, calling every pitch and out and error and ball and Christ almighty who cares, and the only saving grace of these passages is that they’re not passages where a boss is sexually harassing an employee _and he’s the good guy who we’re supposed to be rooting for_. Where it’s not tedious, it’s actively ugly. Not gonna finish this one. I’ve started _[Jane Unlimited](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32991569-jane-unlimited?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=vdBsHZfarJ&rank=1)_, at my 12yo daughter’s recommendation. It’s very good, and I have no idea where it’s going. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2021-edition/934048.md?page=5)