# Khadaji’s Whatcha Reading Thread - September 2025 edition
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Tags:** comic-books-manga, books-writing-myths
**Created:** [August 28, 2025, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554 "2025-08-28T18:38:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2025, 11:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/41 "2025-09-17T11:39:21Z")
My replacement Idaho book, Emily Ruskovich’s _Idaho_, is much better than the previous selection. The writing isn’t pretentious and the characters are actually interesting. There’s a character with early-onset dementia, which my mother had, but it’s not bothering me as much as I feared because his dementia manifests differently than mom’s.
I’m also reading _Morning Star_, the third book in Pierce Brown’s Red Rising Saga. I had to put it down for a minute because one of my favorite characters just got killed.
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### Author:  [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2025, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/42 "2025-09-17T22:39:41Z")
I tossed _A Sunny Place for Shady People_ Mariana Enriquez back to the library after three stories. The first one was very good, I liked it a lot. The second used the Elisa Lam tragedy as a coat rack to hang a story about drug addiction on and then had the nerve to not even do anything with every plot line, choosing just to sensationalize poor Elisa and then stop. The third story was some sort of demon possesion maybe, we don’t know the story again just stopped as the main character was transforming without giving any answers or even saying anything about the horrific rape in the beginning. It was very tabloid level of ick.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2025, 11:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/43 "2025-09-17T23:10:06Z")
Thanks for taking one for the team! I’ll scratch that off the list.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2025, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/44 "2025-09-18T12:52:15Z")
I finally finished the complete **Chronicles of Narnia** on audio. I’d only read _The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe_ before this. The collection is great, with readings by Kenneth Branaugh, Michael York, Lynn Redgrave, Patrick Stewart, and others. The stories are well-told, with interesting twists and surprisingly dark sequences for a children’s book. Lewis claims he wasn;t writing “allegory”, saying that it didn’t meet the technical definition, but talking about this in ordinary speech, this is allegory – to be true to Lewis’ claim you’ve got to give a long-winded explanation in place of that single useful word (as Lewis does). Aslan in Jesus, and The King Across the Water is God the Father, and Aslan’s Realm is Heaven. If you’re not a wholly committed Christian, when Lewis pulls out his religion it can make you uneasy. But, then again, it makes you uneasy when he goes religious in his science-fiction trilogy _Perelandra_, too.
In hard-copy, I’m still re-reading the old Lancer L. Sprague deCamp and Lin Carter _Conan_ books. I’ve re-read _Conan the Buccaneer_ and _Conan of the Isles_ and am now starting _Conan the Avenger_, which is by Bjorn Nyberg, edited by deCamp. I still wonder how a Scandinavian fan of the Conan books managed to write this piece of fanfic (in English, not his native tongue) and get it published. It originally appeared as “The Return of Conan” in a Gnome Press hardcover in 1957, and deCamp eagerly accepted it as part of the paperback series, probably because it padded out the series and filled in the gap after _The Hour of the Dragon/Conan the Conqueror_, which was chronologically Robert E. Howard’s last Conan adventure. (DeCamp eventually added a volume of short stories as _Conan of Aquilonia_ in 1977 and _Conan of the Isles_ in 1968). The volume _Conan the Avenger_ also contains a slim portion of Robert E. Howard’s essay “The Hyborian Age”, the first part of which appeared in the volume _Conan_. This little piece could as easily have been kept with that first part. I suspect the only reason they split it off and published it here was so that they could legitimately slap Howard’s name on the book, where it would add to sales. Nyberg wrote a couple of short Conan stories, which appeared in magazines and later in the Conan collections _Conan the Swordsman_ and _Sagas of Conan_. I’ve read them, but can’t recall anything about them.
I’ve also been re-reading bits from books I’ve read before on my tablet, finishing up Moe Howard’s autobiographical _I Stooged to Conquer_, which seems to differ slightly from its earlier publication as _Moe Howard and the Three Stooges_.
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2025, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/45 "2025-09-18T14:55:21Z")
Finished [The Lost Story](https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7924914075), by Meg Shaffer. I enjoyed the first third of the book, while the fate of the two teens was a mystery. Once the mystery was revealed, however, the book felt derivative and heavy-handed in a way that didn’t work for me at all.
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### Author:  [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2025, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/46 "2025-09-20T16:25:56Z")
Finished _Transcription_ by Kate Atkinson. I wasn’t impressed and would not recommend.
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [September 21, 2025, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/47 "2025-09-21T17:27:50Z")
Finished _Speaking in Tongues_, by J.M. Coetzee and Mariana Dimopulos, which is a book about linguistics and is okay, but was too short to go into much detail; and _The Skies of Pern_ by Anne McCaffrey, meh.
Now I’m reading _Father of the Bride of Frankenstein_ by Daniel M. Kimmel, and _Punctilious Punctuation: Telling Tales With and of Those Jots and Tittles , and the Horrifying Story of Why the Period Goes Inside the Quotation Marks_, by Ian Randal Strock.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2025, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/48 "2025-09-22T18:44:37Z")
I finished Departure 37 by Scott Carson (aka Michael Koryta). One of the best books I’ll read this year. I was a little confused at times, and I see by looking at the other Goodreads reviews that I’m not alone in that, but that’s time travel for ya.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2025, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/49 "2025-09-22T21:35:48Z")
I’m on the road. I read Mark Twain’s **The Prince and the Pauper** in one sitting on a long airline flight. In spite of my being a big Twain fan, I’d never read this one before (or seen any movie adaptation)
I’m also re-reading my old non-Robert E, Howard _Conan_ novels, most of which I never read after the first time. I’ve gone through _Conan the Buccaneer_ and _Conan of the Isles_, and am now grinding through _Conan the Avenger_.
I find this one intriguing for a reason aside from the contents. The first publication in 1968 featured a Frank Frazetta painting on the cover that made Conan look like a brainless troglodyte
[ ](https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/f/f0/CNNTHVNGRX1968.jpg)
They evidently decided it didn’t look that great. Frazetta redrew the image circa 1980:
>
Ace books evidently felt so, to, and in 1989 replaced it with a painting by Blas Gallego that is completely different:
> **[Reddit - The heart of the internet](https://www.reddit.com/r/ConanTheBarbarian/comments/1njukc8/conan_the_avenger_cover_art_by_blas_gallego_1989/)**
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [September 22, 2025, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/50 "2025-09-22T21:42:29Z")
Finished _Father of the Bride of Frankenstein_ by Daniel M. Kimmel, meh (although I enjoy the title) and _Punctilious Punctuation: Telling Tales With and of Those Jots and Tittles , and the Horrifying Story of Why the Period Goes Inside the Quotation Marks_, by Ian Randal Strock, which is interesting if you are interested in that subject.
Next: _Fancies and Goodnights_, a story collection by John Collier, and _Curtain Going Up! The Story of Katharine Cornell_, by Gladys Malvern.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2025, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/51 "2025-09-23T01:59:08Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> I’ve now begun _Nuclear War: A Scenario_ by Annie Jacobsen, about a single nuclear weapon being used against the Pentagon (not clear yet if it was a missile attack, or a smuggled-in bomb, or something else), and what comes next. Calm, detailed and very chilling.
Finished it. I’d say it’s grimly, scarily accurate in its broad outlines, but I noticed several relatively minor errors, which made me wonder what other (bigger?) errors I may have missed. Still recommended for anyone interested in national security and military affairs.
On a much lighter note, I recently zipped through three other short books:
_What If? 2_ by Randall Munroe has lots of well-thought-through answers to absurd hypotheticals ranging from filling the Solar System with soup, to how many people it would take to actually build Rome in a day, to how you might slide on a pole from the Moon to Earth, etc. Lots of fun.
I also re-read _King Ottokar’s Sceptre_ by Hergé, a 1947 Balkan adventure which was, as a kid, the first Tintin book I ever read, and _The Red Sea Sharks,_ a 1958 Tintin story, costarring the irascible Capt. Haddock, in which they and Tintin’s dog Snowy take on slave traders in the Middle East. I’ve always enjoyed Hergé’s beautifully-detailed drawings and engaging stories.
My current audiobook is _Hotel_ by Arthur Hailey, a 1965 big novel about a once-grand New Orleans hotel which has seen better days. There are several intertwining plot threads: the hotel’s owner considers selling it, a cat burglar plies his trade, some drunken frat boys almost commit a gang rape, an ambitious assistant manager is flattered to be wooed by two different women, a posh British couple tries to cover up a terrible crime, and racial integration finally comes knocking.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2025, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/52 "2025-09-23T13:33:51Z")
Started this morning on [Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson | Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/222419255-coffin-moon?ref=nav_sb_noss_l_11).
Pretty good so far.
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### Author:  [@Carnacki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Carnacki)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2025, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/53 "2025-09-23T14:46:25Z")
I’ve been silently following along the Whatcha Reading threads for ideas on what to read for a while now, so I figure I’m at least somewhat obligated to share my reading journey.
I just finished The Moon Pool ([The Moon Pool (Dr. Goodwin #1) by A. Merritt | Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/863689.The_Moon_Pool)) by Abraham Merritt. I’m a slow reader already, and it was an even slower read than normal for me. I wouldn’t recommend reading it just for the joy of it - but if you are interested in the history of lost world novels and/or the books that were the inspiration for Dungeons and Dragons, it’s pretty enlightening.
Next up is Cugel’s Saga by Jack Vance (I’ve already read The Eyes of the Overworld). If you couldn’t have guessed, I’m currently dipping my toes into Appendix N ( [Appendix N - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appendix_N) )…
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2025, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/54 "2025-09-23T15:26:06Z")
Still on a Stephen King streak but with a slight detour. All copies of the next book in the Holly Gibney series were checked out from my local libraries. So I’m reading _11/22/63_.
This is one of King’s big books. I’m a hundred and fifty pages in and the story is only starting.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2025, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/55 "2025-09-23T18:04:43Z")
I liked _11/22/63_ a lot. Two friends of mine who are very well-versed on JFK’s assassination also say that King, aided by a researcher, did his homework and got the facts right.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [September 23, 2025, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/56 "2025-09-23T21:34:09Z")
> [@Carnacki](#):
>
> I just finished The Moon Pool ([The Moon Pool (Dr. Goodwin #1) by A. Merritt | Goodreads](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/863689.The_Moon_Pool)) by Abraham Merritt. I’m a slow reader already, and it was an even slower read than normal for me. I wouldn’t recommend reading it just for the joy of it - but if you are interested in the history of lost world novels and/or the books that were the inspiration for Dungeons and Dragons, it’s pretty enlightening.
The long version of The Moon Pool features the first appearance I am aware of of a very popular item – the hand-held ray gun.
Prior to this, “ray guns” were large devices – more “ray cannons” that required fixed mounting and several people to operate. Think of H.G. Wells’ “Martian heat ray”, or the Disintegrator Beams used in _Edison’s Conquest of Mars_ (the pro-Earth sequel to Wells by Garrett P. Serviss, and the fist work to use the term “disintegrator”) or the other early ray weapons. They were all big, unwieldy weapons. The Evil Queen in The Moon Pool had a hand-held conical weapon that produced a lethal ray. It even showed up on the cover of a 1948 reprint of the story:
[ ](https://www.isfdb.org/wiki/images/5/58/FNTSTCNVLF1948.jpg)
Unfortunately, the idea wasn’t immediately followed up by anyone else, and it remained for the comic strip hero Buck Rogers to introduce the hand-held ray gun to wide pop culture. It helped that the Daisy company (noted for its “BB” guns”) started producing toys of the XZ-38 Disintegrator pistol in 1935
> **[Toy, Ray Gun, Buck Rogers, XZ-38 Disintegrator Pistol | National Air and...](https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/toy-ray-gun-buck-rogers-xz-38-disintegrator-pistol/nasm_A19970902000)**
(The novel _Armageddon 2419 AD_ by Philip Francis Nowlan that inspired the comic strip featured those “ray cannons”, but not hand-held ray guns)
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### Author:  [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)
#### Post date: [September 28, 2025, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/57 "2025-09-28T21:51:14Z")
I finally finished Book 3 of the Expanse science fiction series, _Abbaddon’s Gate_.
It was 🔥
Everything about that book was so well-constructed. Theme, characterization, plot, big splashy sci-fi ideas. I really think James SA Corey is going to be remembered along with Bujold and Heinlein and Asimov and all those others.
I’m not sure what to read next. I have about 600 options. I was thinking about this dark romance called _Priest_ that I read about in the New York Times.
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2025, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/58 "2025-09-29T10:09:40Z")
All settled into Bangkok. Read _Snafu: The Definitive Guide to History’s Greatest Screwups_, by the actor Ed Helms. Connected to his podcast of the same theme. I’d never heard of the podcast, I’m not really a podcast fan, but the book was good. Covered the 1950s through the 2000s and even included the January 2018 Hawaii false missile alert, which we were there for. A sequel is reportedly in the works. Hope so.
Have started _Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History_, by Erik Larson. About the September 1900 hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas, killing 8000.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2025, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/59 "2025-09-29T18:46:34Z")
I finished Coffin Moon, which I enjoyed very much. I think there’s room for a sequel, and if he writes one I’ll read it.
Started today on [Play Nice](https://www.amazon.com/Play-Nice-Rachel-Harrison/dp/0593642570/), by Rachel Harrison. Harrison writes horror-lite, and this one’s about a haunted house. It’s okay. I hate the protagonist, but I think you’re supposed to.
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### Author:  [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2025, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadaji-s-whatcha-reading-thread-september-2025-edition/1022554/60 "2025-09-29T20:12:13Z")
I have the newest T. Kingfisher on it’s way to me! I better knuckle down on _The Collapsing Empire_ by John Scalzi.
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