# Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - March 2022 edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [February 28, 2022, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245 "2022-02-28T18:49:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**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 4, 2022, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/21 "2022-03-04T15:57:44Z")
Regarding The First Day of Spring > [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > This could not possibly happen. Well, I guess I was wrong. Apparently the story was based on the real-life case of [Mary Bell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Bell). Holy crap. ---
**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 4, 2022, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/22 "2022-03-04T18:55:21Z")
Just finished [The Bone Ship’s Wake](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/56076679), the final book in the Tide Child trilogy, and it’s my favorite trilogy of the past five years or so. Nautical fantasy with excellent world-building, kickass action, and really compelling characters. I highly recommend all three books, with the proviso that they have a peculiar voice that might take awhile to get used to. ---
**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:** [March 4, 2022, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/23 "2022-03-04T20:25:05Z")
Holy crap indeed! ---
**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:** [March 4, 2022, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/24 "2022-03-04T21:53:15Z")
Just started _The Last Thing He Told Me_ by Laura Dave. A mystery that looks promising. ---
**Author:** ![kitap](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b9e5f3/32.png) [@kitap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitap)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2022, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/25 "2022-03-05T00:59:26Z")
Read the final book in Tao Wong’s Systerm Apocalypse series. It ended very satisfactorily; the only way it could end and stay true to the main character John. ---
**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 5, 2022, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/26 "2022-03-05T21:36:04Z")
Finished _Electrified Sheep: Glass-eating Scientists, Nuking the Moon, and More Bizarre Experiments_ , by Alex Boese, which was okay. To me, the most interesting part was that people used to build dollhouse-sized villages and then zap them with a charge from a Leyden jar. It was a miniature version of a lightning strike. They were called thunder houses. Now I’m reading a cozy mystery by Tim Cockey called _Hearse of a Different Color_. ---
**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:** [March 5, 2022, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/27 "2022-03-05T21:38:52Z")
D’oh! I posted the following in the February thread: Finished _A Time for Mercy_, by John Grisham, his third novel featuring Clanton, Mississippi attorney Jake Brigance. Set in 1990, Brigance is tasked by a judge with defending a 16-year-old boy charged with the capital murder of a deputy sheriff. The boy, his sister and their mother are all trailer trash who were living with the murder victim, a violent alcoholic who terrorized all of them brutally. The boy, underdeveloped due to his hard life – he looks to all appearances like he’s 12 – mistakenly thinks the deputy finally killed his mother one night when she’s unconscious on the kitchen floor, figures he and his sister are next and takes the deputy’s own service revolver and shoots him point blank in the head while he’s passed out cold but showing signs of reviving. This being Mississippi, the general sentiment is stick him in the gas chamber right away. This is actually quite a good story … right up to the very end, when it all falls flat. I’m scratching my head thinking, “That’s the end?” It almost feels like he must be planning to continue it in another novel. Recommended only for Grisham fans. Next up is _The Beautiful and Damned_, by F Scott Fitzgerald, his second novel, published exactly 100 years ago. ---
**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 5, 2022, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/28 "2022-03-05T23:11:14Z")
Last month somebody said that they had just finished **Rediscovery: Science Fiction by Women**. I mentioned that I had read it myself (it’s in one of these threads), having borrowed it from my wife, Pepper Mill, who got it at a convention. This is just to let you know that today we picked up the just-published sequel, **Rediscovery Volume II (1953-1957)**. I got it for Pepper, who will be reading it first. I’m still working my way through **The WorldCon Guest of Honor Speeches** , and then the stack by my bedside. On audio, I might have mentioned that I finished Stephen KIng’s **Billy Summers** and am now going through Clive Cussler’s **Lost Empire**. I picked it up at a used book store in hopes that I had not previously read it. I hadn’t. It’s the second of the Sam and Remi Fargo novels. As I was driving with Pepper today I told her how, if Cussler doesn’t have at least one moment in any book that causes you to say “Oh, Come ON!” then he hasn’t done his job. Then I recited a list of outrageous things from some of his other books, which got her laughing. I think she feels that she reads some far-out stuff, but it’s not as ludicrous as what I just told her. ---
**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:** [March 6, 2022, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/29 "2022-03-06T13:01:40Z")
Just finished rereading **The Switch** by Elmore Leonard. If you’ve read **Rum Punch** , the novel **Jackie Brown** was based on, The Switch is a prequel (?) that follows what Ordell Robbie and Louis Garra were up to before Rum Punch happens. A fun book. ---
**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 7, 2022, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/30 "2022-03-07T16:09:03Z")
Started today on [The Impossible Fortress](https://www.amazon.com/Impossible-Fortress-Novel-Jason-Rekulak/dp/1501144421/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1646668857&sr=8-1) by Jason Rekulak. It’s about some teenage boys in the eighties, trying to steal a copy of Playboy from the local convenience store. As part of their plot, one of them befriends the owners daughter, then finds that she’s interested in writing computer code for video games, just as he is. Really liking it so far. ---
**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:** [March 7, 2022, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/31 "2022-03-07T20:41:33Z")
Next week, weather permitting, I need to take a car trip to deal with some family business. It’s an 8-hour drive each way. Suggestions for an audio book or two for the trip? I’m a big fan of King, Grisham, Sandford, and Connelly. I’ve read just about all of their books, so something in a similar genre would certainly be considered. And being the skinflint that I am, something available on Libby would also be welcome. Thanks in advance! ---
**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 7, 2022, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/32 "2022-03-07T20:58:45Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > I’m a big fan of King, Grisham, Sandford, and Connelly. I’ve read just about all of their books, so something in a similar genre would certainly be considered. And being the skinflint that I am, something available on Libby would also be welcome. I just “read” Stephen King’s _Billy Summers_ on audio. If you haven’t read it, it’s definitely worthwhile. I also recently read King’s _Later_ ---
**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:** [March 7, 2022, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/33 "2022-03-07T21:00:17Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I just “read” Stephen King’s _Billy Summers_ on audio. If you haven’t read it, it’s definitely worthwhile. I also recently read King’s _Later_ Read both of those recently myself! Thoroughly enjoyed them. ---
**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:** [March 7, 2022, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/34 "2022-03-07T23:49:10Z")
I gave up on _The Golem and the Jinni_. By page 144 the plot was still deep in exposition and introducing new characters. So I did something that foreshadowed the fate of this book on my reading pile: I looked up the reviews on Goodreads. Interspersed among all the glowing reviews of a book I obviously wasn’t reading were warnings that it took another hundred pages for the main characters to meet and then another two hundred for a disappointing ending. Life’s too short. So I picked up _The Tale of Genji_ instead. I was surprised to find out how freakin’ long this book is: 1200+ pages! Is this the year I read doorstops or something? Still, more things happened in the first five pages than in the first hundred of _Golem & Jinni_, so I’m sticking with it. Besides, I’m fascinated by the complicated and convoluted world of the tenth-century Japanese royal court. ---
**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:** [March 8, 2022, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/35 "2022-03-08T05:20:51Z")
OH, so it wasn’t just me that felt that _The Golem and the Jinni_ had potential but ultimately fell flat. I liked the ending a lot but jeez the backstory took forever. ---
**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 8, 2022, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/36 "2022-03-08T13:47:57Z")
I liked _The Golem and the Jinni_, but I applaud your decision to set it aside if you weren’t enjoying the journey. I don’t think anyone should slog through a novel if they don’t like it. ---
**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 8, 2022, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/37 "2022-03-08T20:18:58Z")
Finished _Hearse of a Different Color_ by Tim Cockey, which I enjoyed a lot. It’s more of a hard boiled mystery than I’d thought. Actually, it reminds me, style wise, of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels. Now I’m reading _Moonlight Rests on My Left Palm: Poems and Essays_, by Yu Xiuhua. ---
**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 8, 2022, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/38 "2022-03-08T20:28:07Z")
Missed the edit window: _Moonlight Rests on My Left Palm_ was translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain. ---
**Author:** ![BippityBoppityBoo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bippityboppityboo/32/5745_2.png) [@BippityBoppityBoo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BippityBoppityBoo)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2022, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/39 "2022-03-08T21:04:44Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > Finished _Hearse of a Different Color_ by Tim Cockey, which I enjoyed a lot. It’s more of a hard boiled mystery than I’d thought. Actually, it reminds me, style wise, of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels Thanks for the tip. Just put in a request at my library. If it is at all like Parker I’ll enjoy 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 8, 2022, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245/40 "2022-03-08T22:22:20Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > I liked _The Golem and the Jinni_, but I applaud your decision to set it aside if you weren’t enjoying the journey. I don’t think anyone should slog through a novel if they don’t like it. Definitely not. I’ve found my 50-page rule has served me well over the years; I think I’m giving the author a fair shake, and if I’m not hooked by then, I know from hard experience it’s very unlikely I ever will be. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2022-edition/960245.md?page=3)