# 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:** 4
**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:** [October 24, 2025, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/61 "2025-10-24T17:57:27Z")
I can’t argue with your analysis, I wouldn’t even consider myself a fan. I just think the mermaids were cool as hell. ---
**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 24, 2025, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/62 "2025-10-24T19:20:18Z")
Finished _Shoebag_, a middle grade fantasy by Mary James in which a cockroach wakes up and discovers that he’s been turned into a boy. This was a lot of fun. The author’s info said that “Mary James” was a pen name for an author who wrote YA. After reading the book, I said to myself, “M.E. Kerr wrote this.” Turns out I was right. Marijane Meaker writes under the pen names M.E. Kerr, Mary James, and Ann Aldrich. Also finished _What an Owl Knows: The Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds_, by Jennifer Ackerman. This is the best book I’ve read so far this year. Fascinating information about these birds which great anecdotes about the researchers, too. Next up: _Rumbullion_, by Molly Tanzer, a historical Rashomon-type mystery in epistolary form; and _Who Is Dracula’s Father? And Other Puzzles in Bram Stoker’s Gothic Masterpiece_, by John Sutherland. ---
**Author:** ![SuntanLotion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suntanlotion/32/16165_2.png) [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2025, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/63 "2025-10-24T20:42:45Z")
Been meaning to post for a year, but I am a master procrastinator. A few titles right now. Room 100. All about Sid and Nancy. As you can imagine, it was very depressing. There was no need to show the black and white photo of her body lying by the toilet. Just got The Book of Sheen Who _doesn’t_ want to read this? By Charlie, of course. ---
**Author:** ![SuntanLotion](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suntanlotion/32/16165_2.png) [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2025, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/64 "2025-10-25T15:55:28Z")
**Uncharted** by Chris Whipple. Very good, if short, book on how ( how on earth?) Trump won in 2024. LAST RITES The last book by Ozzy. On hold for me. ---
**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:** [October 25, 2025, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/65 "2025-10-25T16:00:24Z")
I finished _What We Can Know_ by Ian McEwan. AKA, Terrible People and their Marital Affairs This book was a journey, and not a particularly enjoyable one. The protagonist is a professor of English literary history who lives in a future (2119) ravaged by climate change, who is obsessed with a particular poem from 2014 that is lost to history. He’s also, bafflingly, romantically obsessed with the poet’s wife. The focal point of the _entire novel_ is a dinner party during which the poem, lost to history, was read, as a gift from the poet to his wife. The mystery is what happened to the poem. That’s the premise. The first roughly half of the book is dedicated to repetitive and rambling thoughts about this wonderful time period (1990-2030) that only the protagonist appreciates, detailed analysis of the dinner party, and truly nothing of consequence happens. The protagonist is not particularly likeable. The people he is obsessed with are insufferably pretentious. By about the halfway mark, I wanted to pitch the book through a window. Things change in the second half. It becomes more interesting, but the people remain awful and unlikeable (which is not a problem per se, but combined with the repetition is damned near intolerable.) I finished the book, and I can kind of see what it’s going for. I mean, it’s in the title. There’s something broadly about how wrongheaded our perceptions can be and how much of history is really lost. It’s maybe even about what we can know about _ourselves_. But beyond that, I’m a bit lost. There are times it feels like the novel is spoon-feeding you its ideas and yet the themes remain so muddled that at the end of it all I’m thinking, _What’s the point?_ If the point is that the perspective of a ruined future helps us appreciate the present, this was already done, much better, by Emily St. John Mandel in _Station Eleven._ That is a book that makes you ache for what you already have. This book makes me think about all the obnoxious people currently taking up precious air. I don’t want to have dinner with them and I’m not interested in their stories. 2.5 stars ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2025, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/66 "2025-10-26T03:07:21Z")
Dissolution - Nicholas Binge A sci-fi psychological horror. An elderly woman cares for her husband, who is suffering memory loss. One day a strange man appears at her door and explains that her husband isn’t losing his memories. They are being stolen. A complicated and well constructed story, with some deep ideas. Highly recommend. ---
**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:** [October 26, 2025, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/67 "2025-10-26T13:58:43Z")
> [@Spice\_Weasel](#): > > I finished _What We Can Know_ by Ian McEwan. AKA, Terrible People and their Marital Affairs That book sounds _unbearably_ pretentious. Did it at least make a satisfying “thunk” when you threw it across the room? ---
**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:** [October 26, 2025, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/68 "2025-10-26T18:58:29Z")
I mentioned this in another thread - one of the regrettable effects of reading a book on Kindle is that you can’t throw it across the room. But I threw it _in spirit._ Next up is a sure bet: _Cibola Burn_, book 4 of the Expanse series by James SA Corey. ---
**Author:** ![zimaane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a3d4f5/32.png) [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2025, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/69 "2025-10-27T03:17:48Z")
Language City - Ross Perlin These days linguists who wish to study little known languages don’t have to go into the rain forest or to mountain villages. They go to Queens. The book describes how language scholars and activists are documenting obscure tongues in New York City’s immigrants communities. Well written 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 27, 2025, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/70 "2025-10-27T13:14:18Z")
Started this morning on Joe Hill’s latest, [King Sorrow](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/223420465). It’s about a student who summons a dragon to deal with criminals who are blackmailing him. At 800+ pages, this might take me a couple of weeks! ---
**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 27, 2025, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/71 "2025-10-27T17:58:36Z")
_blinks_ Well all right then. ---
**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 27, 2025, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/72 "2025-10-27T18:01:23Z")
I am finally getting engaged with _Voyage of the Damned_ by Francis White. It’s very YA coded and kind of Wizard of Oz, if that book liberally used the F word and had copious amounts of alcohol. I’m hoping we get some more character development. ---
**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:** [October 27, 2025, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/73 "2025-10-27T18:54:30Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/74 "2025-10-28T03:10:24Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Glad you’re liking it! It gets _really_ weird, but in the kind of way that I enjoy. Having now finished it my biggest frustration is not having people to talk it over with. Does it say something about me that it didn’t come off all that weird to me? ---
**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:** [October 28, 2025, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/75 "2025-10-28T10:11:41Z")
Not…weird? I read it about a year and a half ago, so it’s not fresh in my mind, but I remember the metaphysics as being pretty out there. It would be a fabulous book club read. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2025, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/76 "2025-10-28T12:40:44Z")
Not _all that weird_ to me. Oh yeah the metaphysics are out there … and they are internally consistent within its universe along with real science and math, and history and politics, that seems plausible enough to me. It got me looking up some bits alluded to … Definitely not a boring or superficial 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:** [October 28, 2025, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/77 "2025-10-28T14:34:35Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > Just checked out _Queen’s Gambit_ by Walter Tevis. Hope i enjoy it as much as i liked the series. Finished it. Absolutely loved the book, probably more than I enjoyed the series. Just for grins, I re-read the Dope thread on the series. And I came across this insightful post by @Elendil_s_Heir, which did a wonderful job of pointing out the differences between the book and the series: > [@Queen's Gambit on Netflix](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/queens-gambit-on-netflix/924900/165): > > Just finished the book, and I enjoyed it, as I suspect anyone who liked the show would. The show is faithful to the book in its broad outlines, but there are some relatively significant differences. In addition to the NSFW point noted above, Thank you for this summary! ---
**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 28, 2025, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/78 "2025-10-28T21:44:35Z")
Finished _Rumbullion_, by Molly Tanzer, a historical Rashomon-type mystery in epistolary form. The author said she described it as “Rashomon with fops”. I agree. I thought it was well done. 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 End of Eternity_, by Isaac Asimov, and _Adventures in the Louvre: How to Fall in Love with the World’s Greatest Museum_, by Elaine Sciolino. ---
**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:** [October 29, 2025, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/79 "2025-10-29T00:58:35Z")
Finished _Goodbye to Berlin_, by Christopher Isherwood. A collection of six vignettes that together make up a roughly continuous narrative – a somewhat fictionalized account of the author’s sojourn in Berlin from 1930-33, during the twilight of the Weimar Republic. The book was first published in 1939, but some of the stories had been published separately earlier in the decade such as “Sally Bowles.” That vignette and the book was the world’s introduction to her, and she was based on the real-life Jean Ross, who briefly lived in the same rooming house as Isherwood. (Even though she was mainly a journalist and political activist throughout her life, Ross was a flapper and did indeed sing in some cabarets around this time.) The book was later turned into the play _I Am a Camera_, which then became the Broadway musical and Oscar-winning film _Cabaret_. The Michael York character in the movie was a thinly disguised Isherwood, who uses his own name for his character in the book. As with the film, the rapid political and social unraveling of German society is explored, paving the way for Hitler’s rise. This was very good but much too short. I wanted to read more. Next up: _Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages_, by Dan Jones. ---
**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 29, 2025, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626/80 "2025-10-29T03:20:18Z")
> [@Railer13](#): > > Thank you for this summary! Glad to! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-october-2025-edition/1023626.md?page=5)