# Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - November 2025 edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** comic-books-manga, books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [October 31, 2025, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462 "2025-10-31T20:49:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**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:** [October 31, 2025, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/1 "2025-10-31T20:49:42Z")
As my four year old once famously said \*HAPP HOWWEEN! GIMMIE CHEEZ!” (Said 4 year old is almost 30 now, but still enjoys cheese especially the queso version of it.) Final quarter of 2025 is upon us, up North the nights are getting cold, leaves are falling and the days are shorter, however, down South, the night are warming up, leaves are growing and the days are getting longer….. and some of us still have our noses buried in a book. So Whatcha All Readin? Print: _What Stalks the Deep_ by T.Kingfisher. Caves… I hate underground…. Audio: _Voyage of the Damned_ by Frances White, so far enjoying it, though all the wrong people are turning up dead… Kindle: _A Whisper of Death_ by Darcy Burke, murder and the paranormal in gaslit England. _Khadaji was one of the earlier members of SDMB, and he was well-known as a kindly person who always had something encouraging to say, particularly in the self-improvement threads. He was also a voracious, omnivorous reader, who started these threads 'way back in the Stone Age of 2005. Consequently, when he suddenly and quite unexpectedly passed away in January 2013, we decided to rename this thread in his honor and to keep his memory, if not his ghost, alive._ ---
**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:** [October 31, 2025, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/2 "2025-10-31T20:53:12Z")
Last month: [Everything is pumpkin flavored!](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/81) ---
**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:** [November 1, 2025, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/3 "2025-11-01T05:03:23Z")
I’m not too far into _The Shattering Peace_ by John Scalzi, the seventh novel in his military sf _Old Man’s War_ series. The book is set ten years after the sixth novel, _The End of All Things_, which, not so coincidentally, came out ten years ago. The protagonist is Gretchen Trujillo, who was a teenager and a relatively minor character in some of the earlier books. So far, so good. About two-thirds of the way through the audiobook of _The Fate of the Day_ by Rick Atkinson, the second book in his anticipated historical trilogy on the American Revolution. This volume covers 1777-1780 and is just as good as the first, _The British Are Coming_. Highly recommended. Also intermittently reading with my son _Project Hail Mary_ by Andy Weir, which isn’t as good as _The Martian_ IMHO but still worth a read. Just started _I See You’ve Called In Dead_ by John Kenney, a comic novel about an obit writer whose life is going badly. It’s not all that funny, but I’ll keep going with it for now. ---
**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:** [November 3, 2025, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/4 "2025-11-03T00:11:15Z")
Finished _The End of Eternity_, by Isaac Asimov. Meh. Also finished _Adventures in the Louvre: How to Fall in Love with the World’s Greatest Museum_, by Elaine Sciolino. It just came out, but was written before the recent robbery. One chapter is called “Whatever Happened to the Crown Jewels?” Most of them were sold off by the Third Republic, which didn’t want to encourage the Monarchists. (Tiffany bought most of them, and while he sold many gems, the company has quite a few in a vault in Parsippany, NJ.) The Louvre’s been trying to get back as much as they can ever since, and recently reacquired a crown and necklace which were just stolen. I’m still reading _Who Is Dracula’s Father? And Other Puzzles in Bram Stoker’s Gothic Masterpiece_, by John Sutherland. It’s so much fun I don’t want to rush through it. Next up: _The Lies of the Ajungo_, by Moses Ose Utomi, and _Friends with Words: Adventures in Languageland_, by Martha Barnette. ---
**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:** [November 3, 2025, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/5 "2025-11-03T01:17:08Z")
I finished _Voyage of the Damned_ by Francis White last night and while I enjoyed it, she really shines when writing small intimate scenes, I have to agree with @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness assessment > [@Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - October 2025 edition](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/73): > > I read it a while ago. My two main memories are, first, I had fun reading it, and second, it made no goddamn sense either as a mystery or as world building. Also I am not willing to forgive Ravi for his part in the mayhem, just because he was nice to Dee while wearing a dead man’s body ---
**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:** [November 3, 2025, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/6 "2025-11-03T02:05:46Z")
I went away for a week on vacation – the first one not in upstate New York in years – and I spent the whole time relaxing, and reading. I read about a book a day. Her’s what I read: **Twain’s Feast** by Andrew Beahrs. I found this at a library book sale, and it blew me away. I’m a big fan of Mark Twain, but this book isn’t about his writing. It’s a dissection of the ideal American feast that Twain said (in _A Tramp Abroad_) that he’d put before European hosts to show them the glories of American cuisine. It’s about a lot of foods that are virtually forgotten or extinct since Twain’s time – Terrapin (which fell off the American menu during Prohibition, and never got back on), Prairie hens (almost wiped out – Twain lived during that rare time when , due to the way settlers transformed the land, they rose in number for a brief period before falling off), Raccoon and opossum, Oysters and mussels, and Cranberries. It’s a cultural history of these foods, and fadcinating reading. **Robots in American Popular Culture** by our own Exapno Mapcase. I’d wanted to read this one for a long time. Impeccably researched, although there are a few things I want to comment on. **Giant of the Senate** by Al Franken – I’ve read most of his other books, and I was curious about his experience becoming and remaining a senator. Very well written and fascinating. But the scary part is that modern Republican politics means that even the scant compromise and cooperation exhibited here has mostly vanished. My favorite line (repeated on that back cover, but I’ve heard it before) :”Here’s the thing you have to understand about Ted Cruz. I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues. And I _hate_ Ted Cruz.” **The Incorporate Knight** by L. Sprague de Camp and Catherine Crook de Camp – De Camp’s **Lest Darkness Fall** is an acknowledged classic of science fiction, about an unintentional time traveler who finds himself in Imperial Rome as it is about to fall, and tries to prevent the fall. De Camp was clearly heavily influenced by Mark Twain’s _A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court_. At one point in ACYiKAC, Twain has the Knights of the Round Table forming a stock market, and explains the decline of the table as a result of stock market manipulations by Lancelot and others. I kinda think this volume (a set of short stories later extended into a novel) is his take on throwing knights errant into modern business situations. The incorporation of the titular knight never takes center stage, but it’s in the background throughout and its cause – starting up a stagecoach business – motivates the knight. **Conan of Aquilonia** by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter. I’ve been reading the books of the Lancer series of Conan novels not written by Robert E. Howard (something I haven’t done since the 1970s), and this is the last one. Like The Incorporated Knight, it’s actually a set of previously-published short stories stitched together. Interesting, especially the wat de Camp and Carter name-check the characters they invented and brought into the saga, more than Howard’s characters. But, despite their long association with the character, de Camp and Carter aren’t up to Howard’s story-telling level. On audio, I’ve been working my way through the complete **Canterbury Tales** by Geoffrey Chaucer. I’d read the complete tales back as an undergrad (we only had to read two of the stories, but I got interested and read the whole thing.) . I’d forgotten a lot – in particular how many fart jokes there are , even outside of The Miller’s Tale. I’ve been reading the explanations in Wikipedia of each tale as I read it, and I wasn’t aware how many were copies from elsewhere, especially the Decameron (which I never did get around to reading).. One thing I like about the narration – the reader pronounces “primer” (as in a child’s first reading book) the same way you pronounce the paint base, with a long “I”. I’ve never liked the “proper” pronunciation, which is as if it was spelled “primmer” , and would like to see that pronunciation replaced. It’s good to know that someone else thinks so, too. I make it a point to pronounce it with a long “I”, myself. ---
**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:** [November 3, 2025, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/7 "2025-11-03T02:28:38Z")
> [@DZedNConfused](#): > > Also I am not willing to forgive Ravi for his part in the mayhem, just because he was nice to Dee while wearing a dead man’s body Oh yeah–I’d forgotten that! Yeah, the worldbuilding was a complete mess, but so was the characterbuilding. ---
**Author:** ![MacDoc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/macdoc/32/18696_2.png) [@MacDoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacDoc)\ **Post date:** [November 3, 2025, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/8 "2025-11-03T04:47:26Z")
Actually had not realized last year was D-Day 80th anniversary ….make me feel old. So bingeing relevant factual accounts. **D-Day June 6th 1944** **When the Sea Came Alive** **The Longest Day** **Band of Brothers** ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2025, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/9 "2025-11-04T04:43:42Z")
So Very Small - Thomas Levenson A history of microbiology and germ theory from van Luwenhoek to the rise of the antibiotic resistant bacteria. A history of false starts and persistent clinging to wrong ideas, which we are clearly still struggling with. Well written and enjoyable book ---
**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:** [November 4, 2025, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/10 "2025-11-04T20:29:12Z")
Finished _Yellowface_ by R. F. Kuang. It was okay, but certainly not great. A decent plot, but a wholly unsatisfying ending, with several loose ends left unraveled. Would not recommend. Next up: _One Of Us Is Lying_ Karen M. McManus. It’s a YA novel recommended by my daughter. I may or may not make it to the end. (No, I haven’t watched the TV series.) ---
**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:** [November 5, 2025, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/11 "2025-11-05T00:23:41Z")
I’m trying to get through Jane Smiley’s _A Thousand Acres_, my Iowa selection for the Literary Tour of America. It’s rough going. Every single person in the book is incredibly unlikable. I know it’s a retelling of _King Lear_ in an Iowa farm, but would it be too much to have even one decent person in it? I’m having to take it in small bits like I did with _Gone with the Wind_. ---
**Author:** ![Carnacki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5e925/32.png) [@Carnacki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnacki)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/12 "2025-11-05T15:19:53Z")
I finished the July-August edition of Asimov’s Science Fiction. The standout to me was a novella by Suzanne Palmer (who I’d never heard of), “The Chronolithographer’s Assistant”. It was a time travel story, that taught me a little bit about lithography (if you couldn’t have guessed). Next up for me is Fellowship of the Hand by Edward Hoch, which I grabbed at a used book store. I guess it’s technically the 2nd of a trilogy, but I’m going to dive in to see how I like the author. Another one I’d never heard of before, according to wikipedia he was a very prolific mystery writer. I grabbed the book because it is science fiction, and so far the story is….a mystery story set in the future. ---
**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:** [November 5, 2025, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/13 "2025-11-05T16:09:31Z")
Ed Hoch is primarily known for building his whole career out of short stories.(I think he only wrote a handful of full novels) He was the best part of the monthly Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. I read _The Transvection Machine_, it was okay, but he missed the state of the technology by considerably more than a mile (still using cassette tapes in 2070) though who knows, the way vinyl is making a comeback maybe tape will too… ---
**Author:** ![Carnacki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5e925/32.png) [@Carnacki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnacki)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/14 "2025-11-05T16:23:27Z")
This novel begins with suspected tampering of electronic voting machines, which in the story are relatively new. It has the main character physically crawling inside the machine to diagnose a software problem (it definitely doesn’t describe it as a hardware problem)… but, I try not to let bad predictions of scientific progress distract me if the story is well written. I might have to give some of his non-futuristic short stories a try. ---
**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:** [November 5, 2025, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/15 "2025-11-05T16:36:38Z")
I rec his Ben Snow, Dr. Sam Hawthorne, Captain Leopold and Nick Velvet stories. There are others I haven’t read but those 4 were my favorite characters in EQMM. ---
**Author:** ![Carnacki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b5e925/32.png) [@Carnacki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnacki)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2025, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/16 "2025-11-05T17:06:39Z")
Thanks! I’m a used book store junkie, and I usually stay too long in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy sections. I figure I’ll be able to find some of his collections if I venture into Mystery. 🙂 ---
**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:** [November 5, 2025, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/17 "2025-11-05T22:32:40Z")
My favorite Edward Hoch character is Dr. Sam Hawthorne. These stories are “impossible”, in other words, the focus is on the “howdunnit”, not so much the “whodunnit”. (One memorable one is a “whydunnit”, though.) They are in story collections, beginning with Diagnosis: Impossible. I’m still reading _Who Is Dracula’s Father? And Other Puzzles in Bram Stoker’s Gothic Masterpiece_, by John Sutherland. Finished _The Lies of the Ajungo_, by Moses Ose Utomi. Meh. Enjoyed _Friends with Words: Adventures in Languageland_, by Martha Barnette, and would have liked it more if I hadn’t known so many of the etymologies of the words she lists. Next up: _The Last Planet_, by Andre Norton (also known as _Star Rangers_); and _Dinner With King Tut: How Rogue Archaeologists Are Re-Creating the Sights, Sounds, Smells, and Tastes of Lost Civilizations_, by Sam Kean. ---
**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:** [November 6, 2025, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/18 "2025-11-06T02:41:04Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > My favorite Edward Hoch character is Dr. Sam Hawthorne. These stories are “impossible”, in other words, the focus is on the “howdunnit”, not so much the “whodunnit”. (One memorable one is a “whydunnit”, though.) They are in story collections, beginning with Diagnosis: Impossible. I started that one the day my mother died… I _really_ needed something to distract me that day. ---
**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:** [November 6, 2025, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/19 "2025-11-06T02:53:17Z")
Isn’t he the one with the “small—ah—libation”? Haven’t thought of him in years. ---
**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:** [November 9, 2025, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462/20 "2025-11-09T02:25:23Z")
I finished _A Whisper of Death_ by Darcey Burke. Murder and police corruption GASP NO! in gaslit 188 London. It was a little rough in places but the characters were likeable and the pacing good. Next up to finish is _The Collapsing Empire_ by John Scalzi. I got a little overwhelmed by the politics and I really don’t like any characters other than Cardenia. But not that things are starting to fall apart, I am reinterested. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2025-edition/1024462.md?page=2)