# Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - Sept. 2020 edition
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** books-writing-myths
**Created:** [September 2, 2020, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607 "2020-09-02T14:22:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2020, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/1 "2020-09-02T14:22:39Z")
Last month’s thread: [Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - August 2020 edition](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-august-2020-edition/916941)
**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.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2020, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/2 "2020-09-02T14:25:15Z")
(copied from the last thread)
Finished Leigh Perry’s _The Skeleton Makes a Friend_ Moving on to a series of books I got on my Kindle, because I’ve never sen them in stores. I already mentioned Anthony Boucher’s _Rocket to the Morgue_ , but I also picked up these:
**The Book of Iod** – Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos by Henry Kuttner. With all the interest in Lovecraft and all the pastiches, I’m surprised that I never saw this collection in print anywhere, but had to get it in e-book form
**American Connections** by James Burke. I was surprised to stumble across mention of this title on the internet several years ago, since I’d never seen it anywhere in stores. All my other books by Burke are print editions that I actually did stumble across in stores. This is not only the first e-book of his, it’s the first one I’ve had to search for. Definitely worth the reading, though. I had no idea, for instance, that Eli Whitney had been a boarder with Declaration of Independence signer Lewis Morris’ widow.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2020, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/3 "2020-09-02T14:31:07Z")
I recently finished _Windhaven_ by George R.R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle, a sf novel about a stormy waterworld over which human flyers with ultralight wings are a lifeline, a corps of elite couriers between the island colonies. It follows the life and career of a single flyer over the span of decades. I appreciated that her quasi-medieval society wasn’t completely static, as they often are in these kinds of books, and there was decent mix of adventure, politics and intrigue, but the writing never really grabbed me.
I also just finished reading John Scalzi’s military sf novel _Old Man’s War_ aloud with one of my sons, and we both enjoyed it (me for maybe the fourth time; him for the first). Action, adventure, laughs, tears, and even a little romance. Good stuff! Haven’t decided yet what we’ll read next, but it might be the next book in the series.
I’m about two-thirds of the way through Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novel _The Valley of Fear_, much of which is an extended flashback set in Pennsylvania coal country. It’s ok but nowhere near as good as _The Hound of the Baskervilles_, which is hands-down his best Holmes novel IMHO.
I’ve now begun an audiobook of Martin’s horror short-story collection, _Nightflyers_. The title story, about a group of scientists aboard a small starship with a captain who refuses to be seen, has a very creepy vibe to it.
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### Author:  [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2020, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/4 "2020-09-02T15:03:54Z")
Crud, sorry it’s been chaotic around here the last couple days and I completely forgot!
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2020, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/5 "2020-09-02T15:09:35Z")
The book was made into a movie in 1987 and a miniseries in 2018 (by some of the same folks). I saw the 1987 movie first and hated it, and read the novella to find out what was going on. That was more satisfying (and the first George R. R. Martin I ever read). The miniseries didn’t hold my attention longer than one or two episodes.
I wasn’t really a Martin fan until I read his _Game of Thrones_ series
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2020, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/6 "2020-09-02T15:12:20Z")
I’m still working on Ellen Datlow’s latest compilation, [Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles](https://www.amazon.com/Final-Cuts-Hollywood-Horror-Spectacles-ebook/dp/B082ZQCSKZ/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2R8SGE8IWQULN&dchild=1&keywords=final+cuts+ellen+datlow&qid=1599059377&sprefix=final+cuts%2Caps%2C189&sr=8-1). A mixed bag, naturally, but there have been a couple of goodies.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2020, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/7 "2020-09-02T17:08:43Z")
> [@DZedNConfused](#):
>
> Crud, sorry it’s been chaotic around here the last couple days and I completely forgot!
No worries.
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> The book was made into a movie in 1987 and a miniseries in 2018 (by some of the same folks). I saw the 1987 movie first and hated it, and read the novella to find out what was going on. That was more satisfying (and the first George R. R. Martin I ever read). The miniseries didn’t hold my attention longer than one or two episodes.
>
> I wasn’t really a Martin fan until I read his _Game of Thrones_ series
Yes, I’d heard that both adaptations of _Nightflyers_ sucked. May I recommend instead his sf novella _Sandkings_, which appears in the collection of that name; his vampire novel _Fevre Dream_, set on the Mississippi River before the Civil War; and his sf novel _Tuf Voyaging_, a sequence of interrelated short stories - all terrific.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [September 2, 2020, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/8 "2020-09-02T18:35:08Z")
I read _Sandkings_, which was in the same anthology. I’d wanted to read it ever since I saw the adaptation they did on TV, which was IMHO awful. Again, I wanted to know what was really going on in the story, because the TV version was kind of muddled, and gave no reason to sympathize with (or even understand) the protagonist. Again, Martin’s original story was better and more coherent, but still didn’t win me over.
I sought out _Tuf Voyaging_ because it had been mentioned on this Board, but I’d never seen it, either in bookstores or in conventions. It was the first non-_Game of Throne_s thing of Martin’s that I liked. I remarked on this Board that it felt like “Varys in Space”, and someone said that Martin felt that the guy who played Varys on GoT would make a good Tuf.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2020, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/9 "2020-09-03T03:45:21Z")
Yes, that was probably me who wrote that. GRRM had said so himself not long after _GOT_ began. Although Tuf and Varys look somewhat similar (but Tuf is much fatter and paler), and I think the same actor (Conleth Hill, who’s Irish) could do both roles well, Varys is much more expressive than Tuf.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [September 3, 2020, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/10 "2020-09-03T14:35:23Z")
I thought Martin’s _Sandkings_ was excellent.
Finished Alan LIghtman’s _Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine_, which was most interesting when the author was discussing the history of science.
Now I’m reading a historical novel by Patricia Beatty, _By Crumbs, It’s Mine!_
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [September 4, 2020, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/11 "2020-09-04T20:28:39Z")
Finished Patricia Beatty’s _By Crumbs, It’s Mine!_, which was okay.
Now I’m reading _The Plaza: The Secret Life of America’s Most Famous Hotel_, by Julie Satow.
Coincidentally, _By Crumbs, It’s Mine!_ is also about a hotel, although a very different kind of one.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2020, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/12 "2020-09-05T05:54:03Z")
A couple hundred pages into the mammoth, unabridged version of _Les Miserables_, by Victor Hugo.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2020, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/13 "2020-09-05T21:47:12Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> …I’ve now begun an audiobook of Martin’s horror short-story collection, _Nightflyers_. The title story, about a group of scientists aboard a small starship with a captain who refuses to be seen, has a very creepy vibe to it.
Just finished it. Not bad, but not his best work.
Now I’ve begun _A Great Improvisation_ by Stacy Schiff, about Ben Franklin’s adroit diplomacy which eventually brought France fully in on the Americans’ side in the Revolutionary War. It’s OK so far.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2020, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/14 "2020-09-06T05:57:45Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> Now I’ve begun _A Great Improvisation_ by Stacy Schiff, about Ben Franklin’s adroit diplomacy which eventually brought France fully in on the Americans’ side in the Revolutionary War. It’s OK so far.
My next book, after I finish the gargantuan _Les Miserables_, is Walter Isaacson’s highly acclaimed biography of Franklin. Looking forward to it.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [September 6, 2020, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/15 "2020-09-06T13:40:39Z")
Yes, that’s been on my list for awhile now, too. I recommend _Founding Brothers_ by Joseph Ellis to you and anyone else for a terrific, Pulitzer-winning history of the Framers in their relationships to one another as friends, allies, frenemies and foes.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2020, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/16 "2020-09-07T01:45:58Z")
Actually, now I may need to read the Michael Cohen book first as well as Bob Woodward’s. But it will be awhile, as _Les Miserables_ is huge. Engrossing so far, but I am benefiting from having read Andrew Roberts’ Napoleon biography recently. Les Miserable starts in 1815, a few months after Waterloo, but there’s some back story into the Napoleonic era.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2020, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/17 "2020-09-07T15:42:22Z")
Finished _The Plaza: The Secret Life of America’s Most Famous Hotel_ , by Julie Satow, which I enjoyed because of its many anecdotes. My favorite is the one about
Enrico Caruso stopping every clock in the hotel because he smashed the one in his room since it was distracting him. (They were all connected.)
Now I’m reading _Freaky Deaky_, by Elmore Leonard. I’ve never read any of his fiction before.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [September 7, 2020, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/18 "2020-09-07T16:15:50Z")
I’ve read a lot of Elmore Leonard (but not that one) and would be glad to suggest others to you, if you like it, **DD**.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2020, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/19 "2020-09-08T17:56:50Z")
I just finished _JFK: A Vision for America_ by Stephen Kennedy Smith and Douglas Brinkley, a big coffeetable book with essays by the likes of Jimmy Carter, Elizabeth Warren, Conan O’Brien, the Dalai Lama, Robert Redford, John McCain, Norman Mailer and others - pretty interesting, and good graphics (including photos, illustrations, ephemera like campaign posters, passports, letters, etc.). Worth a read for anyone interested in President Kennedy and his times.
Now I’ve resumed reading _Tales of the Vulgar Unicorn_, ed. by Robert Lynn Asprin, aloud with my teenage son. A lot of meh stories, some good and very few excellent ones, but we’re making progress.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [September 8, 2020, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607/20 "2020-09-08T20:03:43Z")
Started today on [Mexican Gothic](https://www.amazon.com/Mexican-Gothic-Silvia-Moreno-Garcia/dp/0525620788/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1599595181&sr=1-1) by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, a novel described in one review as “Lovecraft meets the Brontës in Latin America”. I don’t like the protagonist much, but I think that’s how I’m supposed to feel about her at this point.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-sept-2020-edition/919607.md?page=2)