# Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - October 2025 edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** comic-books-manga, books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [October 3, 2025, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626 "2025-10-03T01:53:21Z")\ **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 3, 2025, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/1 "2025-10-03T01:53:21Z")
My apologies! I totally forgot the new thread in all the hubbub of discovering a couple new Youtube channels. I am such a teenaged sexagenarian 😆 So Whatcha all readin? _The Collapsing Empire_ by John Scalzi. I either love or hate his characters although I am currently a bit meh with our scientist. I tossed _Come and Get It_ by Kiley Reid because I just can’t relate to a bunch of college aged kids and their issues? And honestly, nothing had happened and we were in the second flash back in the first third of the book… _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 3, 2025, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/2 "2025-10-03T01:57:57Z")
September: [Please summer go away, I miss my cozy hoodies](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/65) ---
**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:** [October 3, 2025, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/3 "2025-10-03T02:24:38Z")
I finished a reread (re-listen?) of _The Institute_ by Stephen King. It was as I remembered: An interesting plot with interesting characters, then became too weird as well as too long. Twice is once too many. Just started _Eruption_ by Michael Crichton and James Patterson. Crichton died in 2008, but his widow discovered the unfinished manuscript after his death, and she asked Patterson to finish the novel. It was released last year. ---
**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:** [October 3, 2025, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/4 "2025-10-03T21:33:58Z")
Finished _Fancies and Goodnights_, a story collection by John Collier, of which the best story was the classic “The Chaser” and _Curtain Going Up! The Story of Katharine Cornell_, by Gladys Malvern, meh. Also read No Less Strange or Wonderful: Essays in Curiosity, by A. Kendra Greene, which had some good pieces but was uneven in quality, and Gmorning, Gnight! by Lin-Manuel Miranda, which was okay. Next up: _Patently Absurd: The Files of the Retropolis Registry of Patents_, by Bradley W. Schenck, _Iron Will: An Amputee’s Journey to Athletic Excellence_, by Roderick Sewell II, and _The Atrocity Archives_ by Charles Stross. ---
**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:** [October 6, 2025, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/5 "2025-10-06T18:12:27Z")
Started today on [A Far Better Thing](https://www.amazon.com/Far-Better-Thing-H-Parry/dp/1250334187/) by H.G. Parry. It’s based on A Tale of Two Cities, but with faeries. 🧚‍♂️ I’m not familiar with the Dickens book, but the story is interesting and this author is really skilled. ---
**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 6, 2025, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/6 "2025-10-06T19:56:09Z")
I have it on my Libby hold list…. I may even get to it someday soon 😄 ---
**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:** [October 8, 2025, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/7 "2025-10-08T16:44:28Z")
I just got back from a two week business trip to Germany. It was intensely busy, but I still found time to read several books: I finished **Conan the Avenger** by Bjorn Nyberg, abetted by L. Sprague de Camp. This bit of fanfic was the very first Conan pastiche (if you ignore de Camp’s rewrites of some Howard stories), published originally by Gnome Press as _The Return of Conan_ back in 1957 before Lancer published it in paperback as part of their Conan series. It’s better than it has a right to be, although Nyberg was pretty clearly copying Howard’s _Hour of the Dragon_, which, in turn, was Howard copying his earlier Conan stories. **The Prince and the Pauper** by Mark Twain. Although I’m a huge fan of Twain, I’d never read this one before. **Hammer of God** by Arthur C. Clarke. Although a big Clarke fan, I hadn’t read this one before, either. I think I feared it would be too much like Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s **Lucifer’s Hammer**. I needn’t have feared – it’s not. It’s prime Clarke, and worth the reading. **Duma Key** by Stephen King. Another one I never got to before. I was wondering what Maine-based King would do with a Florida Keys setting. Worth the reading. **The Seven Pillars of Wisdom** by T.E. Lawrence. I’d started this one ages ago, in a copy that was a movie tie-in to _Lawrence of Arabia_. Not as much of a slog this time, although it’s a helluva long book. The title is impressive, but has not a thing to do with the book. Lawrence originally used the title for a book he never finished (and for which it was more appropriate), and repurposed it here. You can say that this is the book that _Lawrence of Arabia_ was based on, but that gives you a false impression. There’s much more here than that. I’m still reading this one. ---
**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:** [October 8, 2025, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/8 "2025-10-08T18:01:44Z")
Finished _Eruption_ by Michael Crichton and James Patterson. Mostly meh, unless you want to learn about the inner workings of a volcano. Which I did not. Would not recommend. Next up: _If It Bleeds_ by Stephen King. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2025, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/9 "2025-10-08T18:09:11Z")
_Rogue Heroes_ by Ben Macintyre. Macintyre is a journalist turned non-fiction author and I really like his work. But this was one of his I hadn’t read and I saw it in a thrift store a couple of weeks ago. It’s a history of the SAS (Special Air Service) in World War II. ---
**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:** [October 9, 2025, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/10 "2025-10-09T14:26:28Z")
On audio I’m listening to Christopher Moore’s **Sacre Bleu** , a book I read when it came out, but which I’ve forgotten much of. It’s only the second Moore audio book I’ve read, after **Fool**. My bedside reading is Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’ **An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States** , which is extremely interesting. Howard Zinn’s _People’s History of the US_ took the tack of looking at events from perspectives other than the Old White Guy in Charge, with interesting and informative results. Ibram X. Kendi’s _Stamped from the Beginning_: _The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America_ looked at US History with documentation of racism uppermost in mind, also producing interesting insights (I find that I don’t agree with all his conclusions, and I don’t think it’s all due to considerations of my race, but the bulk of his findings are revealing.) Now Dunbar-Ortiz’ book does a radical re-interpretation of the background and motivations in colonization, settlement, and policies that are very different from what I had been taught. And she drags in random bits of history that are new to me (there was an international – including English – quasi-settlement in Newfoundland in the 16th century predating the English settlements in New England, Virginia, and even Roanoke.) ---
**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:** [October 9, 2025, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/11 "2025-10-09T23:20:41Z")
Finished _Patently Absurd: The Files of the Retropolis Registry of Patents_, by Bradley W. Schenck. Enjoyed the humor, plot, and worldbuilding. _Iron Will: An Amputee’s Journey to Athletic Excellence_, by Roderick Sewell II, which was okay, and _The Atrocity Archives_ by Charles Stross, which also included a shorter work in the same universe, “The Concrete Jungle”, which I thought was better. Good humor and worldbuilding in both. Next up: _The Living Mountain_, by Nan Shepherd, which is nature writing about Scotland, and _My Name Is Lucy Barton_, a novel by Elizabeth Strout. ---
**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:** [October 11, 2025, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/12 "2025-10-11T15:16:50Z")
Finished A Far Better Thing, and H.G. Parry has become one of my must-read authors. This book was so immersive that even when the plot got a little complicated and I started to lose some threads, there was never a moment I wasn’t pining to get back into it. Five stars. ---
**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 11, 2025, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/13 "2025-10-11T17:00:24Z")
OOO! Looking forward to it, @Dung_Beetle! I threw _The Library at Mount Char_ by Scott Hawkins back to Audible. In one hour of listening, I encountered: gratuitous animal killing, child exploitation, casual violence against a “slower” member of the “family”, corpse disinterment and other nasty stuff that needed a bottle of Listerine to assuage, threats against innocent people and a severed head. I am told there is a rape or attempted rape coming… nope I’m done. Oh and a really bad narrator who sounds almost bored to death at having to read this. I have moved on to _Death at a Highland Wedding_ by Kelley Armstrong. I really like the narrator, I bought the audiobook, and the characters, I really don’t care about the mystery as long as I can spend time with Mallory and Duncan again. In print, I am almost finshed with _All of Us Murderers_ by K.J. Charles. Ms. Charles decided to try her hand at a Gothic romance (m/m): old country house, squabbling family, a fortune for the getting . As always Love her characters and her way with words, I barely broke off to eat the day I started it. ---
**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:** [October 11, 2025, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/14 "2025-10-11T17:04:22Z")
I couldn’t do The Library at Mount Char either! I’m still getting over the brass bull thing, so I hope you quit before that. 🫣 ---
**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 11, 2025, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/15 "2025-10-11T20:46:50Z")
Yes, there was some thing said I think.. but by that point I was wndred what I had wandered into… No, I decided enough after they dug up Margaret and David gave her a severed Japanes head with blue(?) eyes?! ---
**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:** [October 12, 2025, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/16 "2025-10-12T16:08:00Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > … **The Seven Pillars of Wisdom** by T.E. Lawrence. I’d started this one ages ago, in a copy that was a movie tie-in to _Lawrence of Arabia_. Not as much of a slog this time, although it’s a helluva long book. The title is impressive, but has not a thing to do with the book. Lawrence originally used the title for a book he never finished (and for which it was more appropriate), and repurposed it here. You can say that this is the book that _Lawrence of Arabia_ was based on, but that gives you a false impression. There’s much more here than that. I’m still reading this one. Loved the title but thought the book was meh when I read it awhile back; I think the title actually got my hopes up more than they should have been. It was somewhat interesting to learn more about what Lawrence was actually up to during WWI, though, including his capture and ill-treatment by Ottoman soldiers (including, quite likely it seems, being raped). I finished Jim Bishop’s 1955 short history, _The Day Lincoln Was Shot._ He has a dry, journalistic tone that works well as he describes, hour by hour, what happened on April 14-15, 1865; even knowing how it turns out, I still found it a tense and very engaging account. A Lincoln expert I know says it’s somewhat dated now, given more recent scholarship, but agreed that it’s still worth a read. I’ve just begun _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. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2025, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/17 "2025-10-12T16:17:59Z")
_Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe_ by Bill Bryson. A typically humorous account of a trip he took around 1990 to various European cities. He does carp a bit, but from my own experiences in some of those same cities, he’s on point. It’s a good bedtime read. ---
**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:** [October 14, 2025, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/18 "2025-10-14T02:14:17Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > > [@CalMeacham](#): > > > > … **The Seven Pillars of Wisdom** by T.E. Lawrence. I’d started this one ages ago, in a copy that was a movie tie-in to _Lawrence of Arabia_. Not as much of a slog this time, although it’s a helluva long book. The title is impressive, but has not a thing to do with the book. Lawrence originally used the title for a book he never finished (and for which it was more appropriate), and repurposed it here. You can say that this is the book that _Lawrence of Arabia_ was based on, but that gives you a false impression. There’s much more here than that. I’m still reading this one. > > Loved the title but thought the book was meh when I read it awhile back; I think the title actually got my hopes up more than they should have been. It was somewhat interesting to learn more about what Lawrence was actually up to during WWI, though, including his capture and ill-treatment by Ottoman soldiers (including, quite likely it seems, being raped)… From my post in the Whatcha Reading thread this past March: _Also just finished Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence, “Lawrence of Arabia,” his short memoir of his experiences in the Middle East during World War I. Elegant prose and several interesting stories (some of which, later scholarship suggests, were exaggerated). Lawrence’s admiration for his Arab friends and allies comes through clearly._ ---
**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:** [October 14, 2025, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/19 "2025-10-14T12:06:36Z")
My bedside reading is now Daniel Immelwahr’s _How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States_, about the United States territories and how the US coped with being an in-effect empire, and trying to square that with ideology and practicality. Fascinating 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:** [October 14, 2025, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/20 "2025-10-14T13:32:38Z")
Currently reading [The Unseen](https://www.amazon.com/Unseen-Novel-Ania-Ahlborn-ebook/dp/B0DJ6YJP9C) by Ania Ahlborn. It’s about a family who takes in a strange boy who turns up on their property, and the odd things that begin to happen afterward. The story is told from the viewpoints of all the family members in turn, which helps to keep it interesting. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626.md?page=2)