Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - September 2025 edition

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September… so after an incredibly dry summer-as in no measurable precipitation since May- my city got, I kid you not, a normal summer’s worth of rain in an hour. In other words it poured. Today is nice, sunny and a bit damp and I can almost hear the lawn sighing in relief.

So whatcha all readin as we slide into fall?

Print:

The Future by Naomi Alderman. I feel like she’s lost the plot here and is foundering around trying to decide where to go next. It’s my book club book so I may end up skimming the rest.

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells, just in the mood to reread The Murbot Diaries and she has a new one coming out next spring.

KIndle:

11:59 by C.S. Poe, one of my favorite m/m writers. A novella about a swordsman and a dancer and a city full of monsters.

Audiobook: The Element of Magic by Martha Wells. I am very glad this wasn’t my intro to her because I am not going on with this series. Soooooooo much politics and so much standing around staring at walls - to quote Murderbot- between the action scenes. It’s taking me forever to read it.

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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Last month: Can it start to cool down now that August is gone?

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Thanks for the new thread, @DZedNConfused!

The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand by Christopher Golden | Goodreads

I’m still working on this one. I had looked forward to it so much, but not enjoying it as much as I expected. There’s a lot of gore, and skating up to the edge of how much animal abuse I will accept. I mean, I know it’s the end of the world, but doesn’t anyone have anything nice to say? :zany_face: The first story in particular was just awful.

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You’re Welcome! I can’t calendar this month, I was thinking it was the 30th already… :laughing:

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My mind has already made the leap to the long weekend!

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I’ve been derelict in my reading for many months, but I’m wrapping up Book 3 of the Expanse series by James SA Corey, Abaddon’s Gate. It’s a barn burner of a read. My favorite of the books so far, building on themes of revenge, faith and redemption.

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I’ve been wading through “Mark Twain” by Ron Chernow. 1200 pages!

I’m only a quarter of the way through it, but very fascinating. Twain is someone we all know by his wit and writings, yet this book brings to life the unique charecter he was within his time and history.

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I finally finished Gone With the Wind. Dear lord that book is ENTIRELY too long. I did like Scarlett up until she got the convicts to work at her mill. Then she started on her downward slide and became less enjoyable. Speaking of less, I thought I had no tolerance for the “Lost Cause” bullshit. I now have negative tolerance because it took up half the freakin’ book. You lost! Shut up already!

Also Ashley Wilkes should have fallen into a smooth, deep hole. Useless little twat.

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I started Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barara Truelove yesterday. I haven’t got very far but I like Demeter, and Steward’s snark is fabulous.

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Man, those books were so good. I think they reinvigorated my interest in space opera–and they might have reinvigorated the whole subgenre, making it less about Big Strapping Manly Heroes and more about relationships and character (and a whole bunch of kickass set pieces).

The only book I’ve finished since my last post was the sequel to Children of Mind: Children of Ruin, by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I preferred the first in the series, but the author definitely takes this one in an interesting direction, with two new alien intelligences who think very differently. And it contains one of the scariest sequences I’ve ever read. We’re going on an adventure! (shudder)

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Agreed. I first fell in love with the Expanse TV series, and you never know when you read the series whether it’s going to feel repetitive or otherwise disappoint, but there is enough different from the show that I’ve been entertained the whole way through. It’s interesting because Holden has more or less a flat character arc but the author is always finding inventive ways to test his mettle. This stuff is gonna be classic.

The Mercy of Gods is very different, but also very good.

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Zipped through Hong Kong 20s-70s [sic] Motoring by Andrew Ng, a picture book about cars in the then-British colony. A friend who knows I’m a history nerd gave me the book (which is well-illustrated but badly-edited), or I would probably never have read it at all.

Almost halfway through The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America by Jeffrey Rosen, an interesting book about moral philosophy in a historic context. Rosen very engagingly shows how such ancient thinkers as Cicero, Pythagoras and Aristotle, as well as Enlightenment writers such as Montesquieu, Hume and Locke, influenced the American Framers. He argues that while the phrase “the pursuit of happiness” long predated the Declaration of Independence, “happiness” to Jefferson, Adams, Franklin et al. meant personal virtue - “as being good, rather than feeling good.”

I’m also rereading The End of All Things by John Scalzi, which had long been the last book in his excellent military sf Old Man’s War series, in preparation for the release of the next book, The Shattering Peace. The first chapter of The End of All Things is “The Life of the Mind” - still one of the best, most satisfying tales of revenge I’ve ever read.

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I hit pause on The End of the World As We Know It, and moved on to Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher | Goodreads
(Because I’m a loner, Dottie. A rebel!)
It’s perfect, of course. I particularly dig the main character’s affinity for snakes.

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A bit late, I know, but I just listened to the first hour of A Walk In the Woods by Bill Bryson. I think I will enjoy it.

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I finished The Bounty Mutiny (A collection of Bligh’s writings, the courtmartial transcript, Edward Christian’s writings, and some other bits, like an account dictated by Jenny, one of the wives from Pitcairn Island.)

I also finished Dan Beard’s Shelters, Shacks, and Shanties – a fun read.

Now I’m re-reading two of the L. Sprague de Camp/Lin Carter “Conan” books – Conan the Buccaneer and Conan of the Isles. I’ve re-read Robert E,. Howard’s Conan stories many times over, but I don’t think I’ve re-read these even once since they first came out, over half a century ago. The de Camp and Carter stories stayed in print from their first publication (1966 and later) until the early 1990s. Since then, Conan fans have concentrated on Howard’s original stories . I don’t think any of the de Camp/Carter books have been republished in the past thirty years. Except, for some reason, for the movie tie-in they wrote for the release of the 1982 Schwartzeneggar film. That was republished recently.

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Starting it today as well!

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Sister! :grin:

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Oh! Yesterday I received the latest Stephen King book, his re-telling of Hansel and Gretel with drawings by Maurice Sendak. I was underwhelmed. The illustrations are dull and lacking in charm (in my opinion) and the story is meh. King gives the witch a name that will be recognized by readers of Dark Tower series; otherwise, no surprises. I haven’t decided if I should keep this with my other King books or give it to some convenient child, but I’m leaning towards the latter.

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I finished The Future by Naomi Alderman and… umm… Have I mentioned how much I hate Deus ex Machina? This book was one long deus ex machina. And while I don’t disagree with the sentiment that social media has made us all a bit meaner and argumentive, I really don’t think the path to utopia is to get rid of the CEOs of the major tech companies…

And there was some weird biblical intrpretation of the story of Lot that seemed to serve no purpose.

On the up side I started Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher and am enjoying it a lot.

Still reading the Muderbot Diaries, am about halfway through Exit Strategy.

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Sometimes I wonder…