# Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - May 2023 edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [April 30, 2023, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379 "2023-04-30T19:16:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 6
**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:** [May 21, 2023, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379/101 "2023-05-21T19:27:19Z")
No, the author didn’t mention Smoot. (My husband asked about him, too.) Finished _The Best of Connie Willis: Award Winning Stories_, by Connie Willis, which was outstanding. My favorite story was “The Last of the Winnebagos.” Now I’m reading _Badasstronauts_, by Grady Hendrix. ---
**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:** [May 22, 2023, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379/102 "2023-05-22T13:16:29Z")
I finished A Flaw in the Design. It was really well written (and the dog doesn’t get hurt)! Unfortunately the flaw in the design of this book was the ending. The suspense cranks up and up and up…and then something anticlimactic happens and then one more thing happens to leave it all open in need of a sequel. Bah. Started this morning on my ARC of [Thornhedge](https://www.amazon.com/Thornhedge-T-Kingfisher/dp/1250244099/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1684759533&sr=8-1) by T. Kingfisher. When I first received it, I was disappointed…it’s only 111 pages long. But I read most of it today, and of course those pages are gold. ---
**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:** [May 22, 2023, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379/103 "2023-05-22T17:53:27Z")
Finished _Badasstronauts_, by Grady Hendrix, which I enjoyed. Now I’m reading _Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day_, a dark fantasy novel by Seanan McGuire. ---
**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:** [May 22, 2023, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379/104 "2023-05-22T20:59:41Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > No, the author didn’t mention Smoot. (My husband asked about him, too.)… Any book about measuring and measurements which doesn’t include Smoot is _obviously_ not worth your time. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2023, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379/105 "2023-05-23T20:03:04Z")
The Fifth Season - N.K. Jemison (winner of the 2015 Hugo Award for best novel) The Fifth Season is a fantasy novel set on a single large continent. The setup is that a small number of people are born as orogenes, wizards with the ability to cause or prevent earthquakes. They aren’t popular, and those that aren’t murdered as children are sent to a school for wizards in the capital city. The novel adopts the Game of Thrones style by having several characters in several settings, with each chapter focusing on one character. Presumably they’ll all come together at some point. It’s pretty good so far. ---
**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:** [May 23, 2023, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379/106 "2023-05-23T22:11:17Z")
I finished _Robert E. Lee and Me_ by Ty Seidule. A Virginian, Army officer and West Point professor who’s still chagrined by how much he was raised in and accepting of Lost Cause mythology, he makes an excellent case for not honoring Confederate generals in the contemporary U.S. military. Worth a read for anyone interested in American history. Almost done with _Apollo Remastered_ by Andy Saunders, a coffeetable book of digitally-enhanced photos from the Apollo missions, some of which I’d never seen before. Quite striking and beautiful. Just started _Time Travel_ by James Gleick. Not far enough into it to have an opinion yet. ---
**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:** [May 24, 2023, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379/107 "2023-05-24T22:19:46Z")
Finished _Dusk or Dark or Dawn or Day_ by Seanan McGuire, which was excellent. Now I’m reading _Are Universes Thicker Than Blackberries? Discourses on Godel, Magic Hexagrams, Little Red Riding Hood, and Other Mathematical and Pseudoscience Topics_, by Martin Gardner. ---
**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:** [May 25, 2023, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379/108 "2023-05-25T12:34:47Z")
Reposting from Goodreads: Just finished Thornhedge. It’s a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, from the point of view of she who laid the curse. She being Toadling, a once-human being who was stolen away and raised in Faerie by loving but hideous monsters. Did you ever ask yourself why someone would want to imprison a princess in a hedge of thorns? There could be a very good reason! This is a sweet story (the author even says so herself), with characters you’ll want to spend much more time with, particularly Halim the apologetic knight, but since this is T. Kingfisher, there are also some chilling bits. I can well imagine a kid having nightmares after this one. However, I consider that a point in its favor. Thornhedge is a brief tale, but a gem. Thank you to goodreads and Tor for providing me with an ARC of this work. Starting today on [Intruders](https://www.amazon.com/Intruders-Brian-Pinkerton/dp/1787587789/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1685017809&sr=8-1) by Brian Pinkerton, a sci-fi novel about an alien invasion. ---
**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:** [May 25, 2023, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379/109 "2023-05-25T15:10:59Z")
Finished _Stone Mothers,_ a novel by Erin Kelly, whose _Skeleton Key_ I read earlier this spring. This one is not nearly as good, though it has its moments. The main character is an insane asylum in a rural and impoverished part of Britain, a massive stone building used as an asylum for over a century and then closed and repurposed into apartments. The narrative focuses on four people: Marianne, who grew up in the area and couldn’t wait to get out; Jesse, who also grew up in the area and never wanted to leave; Helen, who we are introduced to at first as the horrible bureaucrat/lawmaker who shut the place down and threw everyone out of work; and Honor, Marianne’s mentally ill young-adult daughter. The first three have a terrible secret to share regarding the asylum, and much of the tension comes in the almost game-theory machinations among the three regarding how (or whether) to keep the secret. I found Marianne and Honor not very interesting, and Honor is more as an afterthought than anything else; but Jesse is pretty well drawn, and Helen, the most interesting of the characters, turns out to be a good deal more sympathetic than she seems at first. Unfortunately, Marianne is the focus of the first half-plus of the book, and there’s a certain amount of tedious wading through her issues before the plot really begins to take off. Not sorry I read it, but after _Skeleton Key_ I did find it kind of disappointing. Oh 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:** [May 25, 2023, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379/110 "2023-05-25T20:52:18Z")
Finished _Love Him Free_ by E. M. Lindsey yesterday. It’s the story of a deeply traumatized middle age man and a gay deaf porn star. Overall it was a good read, not up to the standard of her Irons and Works series. My only complaint was her characters were very bland, unlike the IaW guys, most of whom live rent free in my head. Today I finished _The Ladies of Mandrigyn_ by Barbara Hambly. I’ve met her a couple times and cons and I’m always taken aback that she’s such a soft spoken, quiet woman because she write some of the bloodiest fantasy out there… and the best shaggy dog endings. (eriously, she has a wild sense of humor and I would PAY to have her and T. Kingfisher on a panel together!) ---
**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:** [May 25, 2023, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379/111 "2023-05-25T21:46:58Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > Reposting from Goodreads: > Just finished Thornhedge. It’s a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, from the point of view of she who laid the curse… Hmm. Interesting. The premise reminds me of Gregory Maguire’s excellent _Wicked_, the _Wizard of Oz_ story as told by the Wicked Witch of the West. ---
**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:** [May 27, 2023, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379/112 "2023-05-27T23:21:58Z")
Approaching the finish line in _Nettle and Bone_… “Still, I have to admit I didn’t see the chicken or puppet coming.” Me either and honestly, I’ve read enough of Ursula’s stuff that I really should have. 😆 ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2023, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379/113 "2023-05-27T23:39:03Z")
Finished [_The Impossible Us_](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/58575269) by Sarah Lotz. It started out as a typical love story before veering into fantasy/sci fi territory. Still a little more love story than I typically enjoy, but it was good overall and I liked the ending. It was a recommendation from the author of _This Is How You Lose the Time War_, which I liked better. ---
**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:** [May 29, 2023, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379/114 "2023-05-29T00:20:09Z")
Just finished _Nettle and Bone_ by T. Kingfisher and wow what a ride.This is going to be one of the top books I’ve read this year. (Unless Ursula unseats herself 😃 ) I have decided the thread that runs through most of T. Kingfisher’s work, and to a solid degree Ursula Vernon’s, is responsibility, who has it, who has to take it and what happens when the people who should be taking responsibility drop the ball. ---
**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:** [May 29, 2023, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379/115 "2023-05-29T15:00:29Z")
Finished _Are Universes Thicker Than Blackberries? Discourses on Godel, Magic Hexagrams, Little Red Riding Hood, and Other Mathematical and Pseudoscience Topics_, by Martin Gardner, which was okay. Read _Invisible Men_, edited by Basil Davenport, of which the best story was “Shottle Bop” by Theodore Sturgeon. Read “Strange Light”, by Larry Niven, of which the best story was “Betelgeuse.” Now I’m reading _Lost Places_, by Sarah Pinsker. ---
**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:** [May 29, 2023, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379/116 "2023-05-29T19:36:53Z")
Been very busy and haven’t had many chances to write in, but I’ve finished a few books recently 1.) Finished **The Annotated Arabian Nights** / While I liked it a lot, and learned quite a bit, the title is pretty misleading. The book is mainly concerned with the stories that Richard Burton put in his “Supplemental Nights” volumes, and which are often called the “orphan” stories. These are stories that are NOT contained in manuscripts of the _1001 Nights_., but which Antoine Galland put in at the insistence of his publisher, who needed more stories quickly. Galland, we now know, got them from a Middle Eastern traveler named Harra Diyaub, who seems to have constructed them mostly himself, using tropes from traditional stories from the Middle East. We have synopses of these as recorded by Galland, and we have the tales as extensively re-written and expanded by Galland. It’s obvious that he added much to the stories, but exactly how much isn’t clear – Diyaub might have told him a lot more than he jotted down in his notes. What’s clear is that these stories really aren’t all that old – the appear to date from about 1700, and achieved their present form at Galland’s hand betwen 1700 and 1720. And these stories include some of the best-known and most iconic “Arabian Nights” stories – Aladdin, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Prince Ahmed and Peri-Banu (not so well-known, but the basis for the 1924 movie **Thief of Baghdad** ), The Ebony Horse, and The Night Adventures of Harun alRaschid. In fact, the second section is Galland’s versions of these stories, section three is Diyaub’s version from Galland’s notes, and the Afterword is an analysis of these. Other sections include other non-1001 night stories from Diyaub, and “modern” “Arabian ights” stories. There are really only a very few stories actually taken from the original text of the Arabian Nights. 2.) I finished reading _The Nibelungelied_ and watching both halves of FRitz Lang’s silent film _Die Nibelung_, which was based on it. The original story of Siegfried, Brunhilda, and that crowd is very different from what I learned from Thomas Bulfinch all those years ago. 3.) Finished **Partner in Wonder** , Harlan Ellison’s collection of his collaborations with other writers. Interesting, but a lot of it hasn’t aged 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:** [May 29, 2023, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379/117 "2023-05-29T20:47:21Z")
New thread [Well June… yep it’s just about here](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-june-2023-edition/984751) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-may-2023-edition/983379.md?page=5)