# Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - September 2022 edition
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** books-writing-myths
**Created:** [September 1, 2022, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700 "2022-09-01T02:24:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2022, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/61 "2022-09-18T13:39:36Z")
Finished _The Employees_, a science fiction novella (or possibly novelette) by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken. It was quite interesting. I especially enjoyed its triple twist ending, considering how much I like ones with only a single twist.
Now I’m reading _Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything_, by Philip Ball.
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### Author:  [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2022, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/62 "2022-09-18T14:55:38Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#):
>
> > [@Railer13](#):
> >
> > I can only think of a couple of books that I haven’t finished. One was _Something Happened_ by Joseph Heller, a book in which absolutely nothing happened.
>
> Try reading **The Beast in the Jungle** by Henry James. Despite the promising title, it’s another book in which nothing happens. The entire point of the book, in fact, is that nothing happens. But it takes an awful long time not to happen, described in sentences that are often as long as a page.
>
> This is why I am not a fan of Henry James.
>
> The man could make a ghost story boring. And did.
I recently read “The Decay of Lying” where Oscar Wilde says that Henry James wrote fiction like it was a painful duty. Very accurate.
I only know _The Beast in the Jungle_ as the book that the Pinch-Faced Wife\* was reading in [The Screaming Skull](https://mst3k.fandom.com/wiki/MST3K_912_-_The_Screaming_Skull). Not a good endorsement, that.
\*Peggy Webber who was a much better actress on the radio than she was on film.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2022, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/63 "2022-09-18T21:52:25Z")
Finished _The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family_, by Ron Chernow. Very good. With this and my recent reading or Chernow’s book on the Morgan family, I have learned a lot about the history of international banking and finance. The Warburg bank was founded in Hamburg in 1798 to serve the Jewish community. From the 1890s they had family members on Wall Street and from the WWII era in London. One especially interesting thing I learned is that while anti-Semitism remained rife in Weimar Germany, reforms in that period gave such profound new opportunities to Jews that it not only prompted Warburgs to become an international operation but also raised the hopes and expectations of German Jews to such an extent that they tended to think this new Hitler fad could not possibly last long. Sadly, that probably prevented many from fleeing Germany when they still had the chance. Think of the proverbial frog in a pot of water who does not at first realize what is happening as the temperature is slowly increased. The Warburg name was unknown to me until just recent years, they don’t seem to have been as famous in the US as, say, the Morgan or Rockefeller families – this despite Paul Warburg essentially being the father of the Federal Reserve Board – but I cannot help but wonder if the name of the Daddy Warbucks character in _Little Orphan Annie_ was taken from Warburg.
Have started reading _The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God’s Holy Warriors_, by another favorite historian, Dan Jones.
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### Author:  [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2022, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/64 "2022-09-19T00:06:28Z")
Just finished Rough Draft by Katy Tur, and it made me want to be a journalist.
Am now reading Bassoon King by Rainn Wilson.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2022, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/65 "2022-09-19T12:08:59Z")
> [@Catamount](#):
>
> I recently read “The Decay of Lying” where Oscar Wilde says that Henry James wrote fiction like it was a painful duty. Very accurate.
It’s almost required , when complaining about Henry James, to repeat the story Edith Wharton wrote about the time Henry James asked for directions. True story, recounted in her book _A Backward Glance_:
> [@](#):
>
> _The most absurd of these episodes occurred on another rainy evening when James and I chanced to arrive at Windsor long after dark. […] While I was hesitating and peering out into the darkness James spied an ancient doddering man who had stopped in the rain to gaze at us. ‘Wait a moment, my dear—I’ll ask him where we are’; and leaning out he signalled to the spectator._
>
> _‘My good man, if you’ll be good enough to come here, please; a little nearer—so,’ and as the old man came up: ‘My friend, to put it to you in two words, this lady and I have just arrived here from Slough; that is to say, to be more strictly accurate, we have recently passed through Slough on our way here, having actually motored to Windsor from Rye, which was our point of departure; and the darkness having overtaken us, we should be much obliged if you would tell us where we now are in relation, say, to the High Street, which, as you of course know, leads to the Castle, after leaving on the left hand the turn down to the railway station.’_
>
> _I was not surprised to have this extraordinary appeal met by silence, and a dazed expression on the old wrinkled face at the window; nor to have James go on: ‘In short’ (his invariable prelude to a fresh series of explanatory ramifications), ‘in short, my good man, what I want to put to you in a word is this: supposing we have already (as I have reason to think we have) driven past the turn down to the railway station (which in that case, by the way, would probably not have been on our left hand, but on our right) where are we now in relation to…’_
>
> _‘Oh, please,’ I interrupted, feeling myself utterly unable to sit through another parenthesis, ‘do ask him where the King’s Road is.’_
>
> _‘Ah—? The King’s Road? Just so! Quite right! Can you, as a matter of fact, my good man, tell us where, in relation to our present position, the King’s Road exactly is?’_
>
> _‘Ye’re in it’, said the aged face at the window._
Found in, among many other places, here – [https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the\_best\_american\_poetry/2012/08/when-henry-james-asked-for-directions-by-edith-wharton.html](https://blog.bestamericanpoetry.com/the_best_american_poetry/2012/08/when-henry-james-asked-for-directions-by-edith-wharton.html)
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2022, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/66 "2022-09-19T13:27:40Z")
I finished Stephen King’s newest, Fairy Tale. It was just okay. I mean, I was delighted to have it, and it kept me happy for the last week or so, but I’m not going to run around recommending it to anyone. Spoiler if you want to know whether the dog dies, he does not.
The first part of the book takes place in our world, and it’s all that slice-of-life thing King does so well. The second part takes place in another world…it was fine. I didn’t care as much for those characters, though.
No politics in this one, although I was amused at the illustration on page 431. Apparently the Big Bad in that world strongly resembles a Big Bad in our own.
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2022, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/67 "2022-09-19T14:06:22Z")
^I don’t feel so bad putting off _Fairy Tale_ while I continue rereading Robert Crais novels in order. Finished _The Watchman_ and _Chasing Darkness_ this past weekend. Started _The First Rule_.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2022, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/68 "2022-09-19T15:05:23Z")
I kinda miss the times when King wrote horror, short and to the point.
Well, ya know, relatively short.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2022, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/69 "2022-09-20T16:19:43Z")
Started today on a thriller called [The Plot](https://www.amazon.com/Plot-Jean-Hanff-Korelitz/dp/125079076X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1663690428&sr=8-1) by Jean Hanff Korelitz. It’s about a writer who steals a book idea from a student who died before he got a chance to write it. A couple of Dopers posted about how much they enjoyed it, so I’ve been looking forward to it too. I can’t remember who they were though!
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### Author:  [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2022, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/70 "2022-09-20T16:54:15Z")
> “The Plot is one of the best novels I’ve ever read about writers and writing. It’s also insanely readable and the suspense quotient is through the roof. It’s remarkable.”
> ―Stephen King
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2022, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/71 "2022-09-20T16:58:50Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#):
>
> A couple of Dopers posted about how much they enjoyed it
I was probably one of those folks, and, yes, I thought it was an excellent read!
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2022, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/72 "2022-09-20T18:00:37Z")
Well, thank you for the recommendation! I will try it _despite_ the blurb from King. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2022, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/73 "2022-09-21T15:23:24Z")
Finished _Curiosity: How Science Became Interested in Everything_, by Philip Ball, which was okay.
Now I’m reading _The Downstairs Girl_, a YA historical mystery by Stacey Lee.
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### Author:  [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2022, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/74 "2022-09-21T16:27:33Z")
I finished _This Doesn’t Happen in the Movies_ by Renee Pawlish last night. It was light potato chip kind of mystery, no murder but there were a couple instances of assault.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2022, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/75 "2022-09-22T14:58:23Z")
Finished _The Downstairs Girl_ by Stacey Lee, which was okay.
Now I’m reading _The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating_, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey.
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### Author:  [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2022, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/76 "2022-09-22T16:31:49Z")
I’ve kinda bogged down on _Kaiju Preservation Society_… Wil Wheaton’s over the top, over enthusiastic narration has gotten on my nerves. I’ll keep my eyes peeled for an inexpensive used copy.
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### Author:  [@zimaane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zimaane)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2022, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/77 "2022-09-22T18:48:34Z")
Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void Mary Roach
A light-hearted take on the science of sustaining human life during space flight, with a lot of focus on the more prurient challenges - motion sickness, bodily functions, sex…
I enjoyed it as much for the snarky humor as for the science.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2022, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/78 "2022-09-23T03:17:40Z")
I agree that Henry James’s _The Beast in the Jungle_ really _is_ that bad - I forget which critic said that reading James is like eating a pillow - but I enjoyed Towles’s _A Gentleman in Moscow_.
There are certainly no gun battles or car chases in it, but as a character study of an interesting (to me, at least) person, and as an exploration of a particular community (a luxury hotel) and its members over the span of decades of Soviet history, I found it very engaging.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2022, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/79 "2022-09-23T13:56:37Z")
Finished _The Sound of a Wild Snail Eating_, by Elisabeth Tova Bailey, which was quite interesting.
Now I’m reading _The Listeners_, by James E. Gunn.
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### Author:  [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2022, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2022-edition/970700/80 "2022-09-23T14:43:33Z")
I finished a new edition of _The Wall_ by **Marlen Haushofer** , which was first published in German in 1963.
A woman finds herself alone in the world (apart from a dog, a cat & a cow!), imprisoned in an Alpine valley behind an invisible wall. Everybody else appears to have died.
Not a lot happened and, tbh, I preferred the film of it that came out a few years ago.
And now I’ve just started **Paul McAuley** ’s latest book, _Beyond the Burn Line_. SF set on Earth in the far future where the Anthropocene is merely a minor geological band in the rocks… Not very far in, but enjoyable so far.
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