# Khadaji's Whatcha Readin' thread - April 2016 edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 3, 2016, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028 "2016-04-03T03:56:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/41 "2016-04-13T15:53:25Z")
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**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2016, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/42 "2016-04-13T15:54:47Z")
Read two notable books lately: (1) _The Other Side of Silence_, a Bernie Gunther novel by Philip Kerr. It is I think the 10th in the series, and usually such a lengthy series is a bad sign - the author gets lazy and formulaic, and the quality drops off. I’m happy to say I didn’t find this the case with this one. I totally enjoyed it: it was a book made of pure awesome as far as I was concerned. Set initially a decade after the war (with flashbacks to the war years), Bernie gets sucked into a web of blackmail, spying, revenge and murder, all through playing Bridge with an elderly Somerset Maugham. Read it in one sitting, only to discover it was 4 in the AM and I had work the next day - it’s been a while since I’ve done that. > **[Amazon.com: The Other Side of Silence (A Bernie Gunther Novel): 9780399185199:...](https://www.amazon.com/Other-Silence-Bernie-Gunther-Novel/dp/0399185194)** > > Amazon.com: The Other Side of Silence (A Bernie Gunther Novel): 9780399185199: Kerr, Philip: Books (2) Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body, by Neil Shubin. One of the best popular science books it’s been my pleasure to read. > **[Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body:...](https://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-Journey-3-5-Billion-Year/dp/0307277453)** > > Buy Your Inner Fish: A Journey into the 3.5-Billion-Year History of the Human Body on Amazon.com ✓ FREE SHIPPING on qualified orders ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2016, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/43 "2016-04-14T00:49:01Z")
Devil’s diary. Very interesting read about rosenberg’s rise in the nazi party and his journal. Kempner found it in Germany, used it for the trials then sent it and bunches of documents to his home in Pennsylvania. ---
**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:** [April 16, 2016, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/44 "2016-04-16T09:27:13Z")
While we were upcountry these past few days for the Thai New Year, I finished _Wolves of the Calla_, volume 5 of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. Very good. My understanding is he left off with volume 4 until that accident he had, getting run over by a minivan, prompted him to finish the series while he was still alive. (George RR Martin, please take note.) I also read _Djibouti_, Elmore Leonard’s final novel, published three years before his 2013 death. An Oscar-winning maker of documentaries and her right-hand man decide to do a doc on piracy off the Horn of Africa and stumble upon a terrorist plot. It was so-so, definitely not among Leonard’s better works. Okay in a pinch. Now it’s back to Stephen King’s Dark Tower series with volume 6: _Song of Susannah_. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2016, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/45 "2016-04-16T10:17:51Z")
Slowly making my way through **A Memory of Whiteness** by Kim Stanley Robinson. I read it back in the 80s when it came out but haven’t read it since. In a future solar system, much as described in his later books, the new Master of the Holywelkin Orchestra sets out with it on a tour of the outer planets and their various colonies. The orchestra is a massive glass tree-like structure he can climb inside of and play an entire orchestra of instruments himself using an array of keyboards, etc. which control all the instruments set in the branches and twists of the construction. It was designed by an eminent physicist over a century before, and has an ardent fan base willing to follow it around on it’s occasional concert tours. It seems to contain secrets, new and old, and conspiracies and schemers also follow in it’s trail… KSR signed my copy years ago and described it on the flyleaf as ‘my strange child’. I tend to agree! It’s interesting seeing the similarities and differences in his mid-80s vision of our colonising of the solar system with his later work. The moving city on Mercury has it’s genesis here, for instance, although it appears in a couple of his later books as well. Other books read include the insipid **Weighing Shadows** by Lisa Goldstein and the much more fun **Arkwright** by Allen Steele. Also a re-read (after a couple of decades) of **Dover Beach** by Richard Bowker. ---
**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:** [April 17, 2016, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/46 "2016-04-17T02:51:07Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > Oooh, I loved _The Golem and The Jinni_, **Roderick**. > > I’m currently reading [Lovecraft Country](http://www.amazon.com/Lovecraft-Country-Novel-Matt-Ruff/dp/0062292064/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1459783609&sr=1-1&keywords=lovecraft+country) by Matt Ruff, and really digging it. Also enjoyed Golem and the Jinni–but I’m mainly replying because I finished **Lovecraft Country** about an hour ago. I didn’t recognize the title, just picked it up on a whim at the library because I’d read **Bad Monkeys** by the same author years ago, and had no idea what it was about. I read it partly as an exploration of how to deal with the appalling politics of otherwise great writers, and partly as a great set of stories. So much fun! A few weeks ago I read **City of Stairs**. It suffered for being read immediately after the phenomenal **The Traitor Baru Cormorant** : the books share a similar plot (basic spoiler for both books below)a young woman with a bureaucratic job description, serving an empire, comes to a colony to deal with potential rebellion, and while City of Stairs was quite good, I kept comparing it unfavorably to Baru Cormorant. Still, I’ll check out **City of Blades** next time I’m at the library. I also began a read-aloud for my third graders: **Rain, Reign**. It’s about a fifth grade girl with high-functioning autism, and my awesome school librarian and friend recommended it. Sheesh. The dog doesn’t die, but it may as well be one of those The Dog Dies children’s books that teaches a Very Important Lesson by making things just suck ass for the kid. I wish I’d had time to read the whole thing before starting it as a read-aloud; it’ll be fine, but it won’t be fun. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2016, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/47 "2016-04-17T04:44:04Z")
I finished reading **Sailing Alone Around the World** by Joshua Slocum, who performed the first solo circumnavigation of the globe. It was a breezy little story and his writing was fairly humorous and self-deprecating. Looking back on it, the scenes where he hangs around with young children seem a bit creepy considering he was convicted of indecent exposure to a child 10 years later. The descriptions of bloodthirsty savages and the one-time use of negro dialect seemed pretty awkward by modern standards as well. ---
**Author:** ![The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@The\_wind\_of\_my\_soul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_wind_of_my_soul)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2016, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/48 "2016-04-18T15:35:08Z")
I started reading Jewel’s memoir this weekend ([Never Broken: Songs Are Only Half the Story](http://www.amazon.com/Never-Broken-Songs-Only-Story/dp/0399174338/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1460993444&sr=8-1&keywords=Never+Broken)), and wow. I highly recommend it. Since it’s a celebrity memoir, I was mentally grouping it in the celebrity memoir category: kind of fluffy reading for when you don’t want to think too much. I should have known better, considering Jewel’s song-writing abilities. First of all, the woman has a knack for writing. She can certainly write good lyrics, but I wasn’t sure whether being a good song-writer would transfer into being a good memoirist. It does – she knows how to tell a good story. But more importantly, this book has so much soul and substance to it. It’s much more emotionally gratifying to read than your typical celebrity memoir would be. On the more light-hearted side of things, I also downloaded [The Fairest of Them All](http://www.amazon.com/Fairest-Them-All-Novel/dp/1451683782/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1460993617&sr=8-2&keywords=carolyn+turgeon) by Carolyn Turgeon, which is a fairy-tale retelling, except that it combines the story of Rapunzel with the story of Snow White. It’s rather whimsical, but Turgeon writes beautifully, and I enjoy what little I’ve read so far. ---
**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:** [April 18, 2016, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/49 "2016-04-18T17:31:55Z")
I finished _Conversations with Kennedy_ by Ben Bradlee, which was the next best thing to hanging out after hours with JFK himself. He was wittier and better company than anyone running for his job this year, as far as I’m concerned. I’m also still enjoying Randall Munroe’s _What If?_, a collection of XKCD columns, although he dodges some questions that would probably yield interesting answers. I’m about halfway through the audiobook of David McCullough’s _The Wright Brothers_ (read by the author himself in his wonderfully plummy voice), and will soon be starting another history, Michael McGerr’s _A Fierce Discontent_, a well-reviewed book about the Progressive movement in the U.S. ---
**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:** [April 19, 2016, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/50 "2016-04-19T15:57:09Z")
Just finished [Hap & Leonard](http://www.amazon.com/Hap-Leonard-Joe-R-Lansdale/dp/1616961910/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1461080662&sr=8-3&keywords=hap+and+leonard), a collection of short scraps about Lansdale’s two best characters. Decent, though some of it has been published before and as I read it straight through, I got tired of constantly hearing about Leonard’s cookies and Brett’s toenails. Started this morning on [Carter & Lovecraft](http://www.amazon.com/Carter-Lovecraft-Jonathan-L-Howard/dp/1250060893/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1461080977&sr=1-1&keywords=carter+and+lovecraft), by Jonathan L. Howard, who doesn’t seem to know how to write a bad book. A detective, a bookstore, and Cthulhu? Yes please. ---
**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:** [April 19, 2016, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/51 "2016-04-19T22:54:39Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > Started this morning on [Carter & Lovecraft](http://www.amazon.com/Carter-Lovecraft-Jonathan-L-Howard/dp/1250060893/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1461080977&sr=1-1&keywords=carter+and+lovecraft), by Jonathan L. Howard, who doesn’t seem to know how to write a bad book. A detective, a bookstore, and Cthulhu? Yes please. OOOO!!! I finished **Broken Homes** by Ben Aaronovitch yesterday. Very good read, well paced, though the twist didn’t surprise me. I actually expected it. At one point, Lesley was and in all honesty, maybe still is, my number one suspect for the Faceless Man ---
**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:** [April 20, 2016, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/52 "2016-04-20T09:28:23Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > I’m about halfway through the audiobook of David McCullough’s _The Wright Brothers_ (read by the author himself in his wonderfully plummy voice) … That will be a big benefit of living in the US again – the nonfiction selection is pretty dismal over here. Hit or miss. I’ve found a lot of McCullough here in the past, but it’s always the luck of the draw. His books in particular seem to come and go. The fiction selection is decent, I’ve seen a big improvement since the 1980s, but there are lots of areas in nonfiction I just can’t find in Thailand. I guess I could order something through Amazon, but I’m one of those Luddites who have yet to do that, plus you never know when a Customs official is going to get a wild hair up his ass and try to extort a big duty on it before releasing it. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2016, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/53 "2016-04-20T12:28:57Z")
I read _The Lost Ones_ by “Ian Cameron” (pen name of Donald G. Payne), which was filmed by Disney as **The Island at the Top of the World** back in 1974. I’ve never seen the film, but now I’;m curious. The novel was set in a then-contemporary 1960, but the Disney Folk rewrote it as a Victorian Jules Verne-esque steampunk adventure, replacing the helicopter or airplane with a fantastic balloon. Totally coincidentally, I stumbled across a copy of Jules Verne’s **The Lighthouse at the End of the World** (no relation to the above, except in the title). I’d read the book before, but my earlier reading was a translation of the version published by Verne’s son MIchel after Jules’ death, and MIchel has become notorious for adding things to his father’s work. The version I just read is part of the recent trend of new translations based directly on Jules Verne’s work alone, stripped of his son’s additions. Actually, this volume supports a belief I’ve had for a long time, which is that Michel has been getting a bum rap all these years. Most of his alterations are to the advantage of the novel – he corrects his father’s apparently dyslexic confusions of direction, removes needless duplication, and adds needed (but missing) information. The older Verne himself said that he rewrote extensively after getting proofs back from Hetzel, apparently regarding his initial version as a rough draft, frequently not merely correcting things but adding entire sections. It’;s not that surprising that his son should do the same (he adds an entire section to this book, apparently feeling it needed the extra tension). It makes it easier to understand why Michel ended up adding six chapters to _The Meteor Hunt_ – he felt that he was carrying on his father’s styl;e. But when he wrote _The Barsac Mission_, taking only background and suggestion from his father’s work, and practically creating the novel out of whole cloth, he certainly went too far. _The Lighthouse at the End of the World_ was filmed under the more provocative title _The Light at the End of the World_ in the 1971 with Yul Brynner and Kirk Douglas. They also had Samantha Eggar, although there’s no female role in the novel, either before or after Michel’s additions. I stumbled across a wonderful book last weekend, which I’m not quite finished with yet – **The James Bond Dossier** by Kingsley Amis. It’s a lengthy essay on Ian Fleming’s literary character (it barely mentions the films), and is a very interesting take on it all, placing it in its time and in perspective. I’m surprised I hadn’t heard about this one before – I know that Amis wrote the first post-Fleming Bond novel, _Colonel Sun_, and under a pseudonym had written the very interesting _The Book of Bond: or Every Man His Own 007_, which poked fun at the details of the literary Bond (while celebrating them. The book is meticulously footnoted, for a humor book). > **[The James Bond Dossier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_James_Bond_Dossier)** > > The James Bond Dossier (1965), by Kingsley Amis, is a critical analysis of the James Bond novels. Amis dedicated the book to friend and background collaborator, the poet and historian Robert Conquest. Later, after Ian Fleming's death, Amis was commissioned as the first continuation novelist for the James Bond novel series, writing Colonel Sun (1968) under the pseudonym Robert Markham. The James Bond Dossier was the first, formal, literary study of the James Bond character. More recent studies ... Finally, I’ve started Robert Irwin’s book **The Arabian Nights: A Companion** , a book that, among other things, unravels the complex and complicated history of where the book as we know it came from. It also goes through the various translations. Like most other modern commentators, Irwin doesn’t much care for Richard Burton’s translation, which I love. Irwin knows a helluva lot more than I know, or probably ever will know about the 1001 Nights, but it troubles me that he makes statements about the Burton translation that are demonstrably wrong (and I’m quite certain of this). It makes me suspect him of not being completely objective in this. On audio, I’ve just finished Clive Cussler’s _Eye of Heaven_. It’s on to his book _Piranha_, and to the Deutsche Gramophone _Guide to the Opera_. ---
**Author:** ![Grrlbrarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrlbrarian/32/4048_2.png) [@Grrlbrarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrlbrarian)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2016, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/54 "2016-04-20T20:36:27Z")
> [@DZedNConfused](#): > > OOOO!!! > > I finished **Broken Homes** by Ben Aaronovitch yesterday. Very good read, well paced, though the twist didn’t surprise me. I actually expected it. > > At one point, Lesley was and in all honesty, maybe still is, my number one suspect for the Faceless Man Honestly I think this series just keeps getting better. Can’t WAIT to read the next one - which annoyingly comes out two weeks later HERE than THERE. :mad: ---
**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:** [April 20, 2016, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/55 "2016-04-20T22:36:25Z")
> [@Grrlbrarian](#): > > Honestly I think this series just keeps getting better. Can’t WAIT to read the next one - which annoyingly comes out two weeks later HERE than THERE. :mad: I haz pre-order at Amazon 😃 And just ordered the next one after Broken Homes… title is not forthcoming in this tired brain :mad: ---
**Author:** ![pohjonen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pohjonen/32/423_2.png) [@pohjonen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pohjonen)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2016, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/56 "2016-04-20T23:26:43Z")
> [@ivylass](#): > > I’m reading **Defending Jacob** on my Kindle (borrowed from the library. How cool is that!) I’m about halfway through. It’s about the teenage son of the assistant district attorney accused of stabbing a classmate to death. Of course, the ADA had to resign from the case, and he threw away a knife he found in his son’s room because his son absolutely did not commit the crime. No need to test it for evidence, a father _knows._ > > The ADA comes from a long line of violent men (his father is in jail for murder, and it goes back generations) and while he’s managed to suppress it in himself and become a pillar of the community, it’s suggested the “murder gene” has raised its ugly head in his son. This is a great book. I eagerly await the film version. ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2016, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/57 "2016-04-21T17:29:40Z")
Just finished _‘Fevre Dream’_ by George R.R. Martin. I thought it was excellent. It’s a fresh, lightning paced take on the vampire genre. I’d recommend it to any horror or fantasy fan. 5 stars. Next up: ‘The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer’, by Siddhartha Mukherjee. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2016, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/58 "2016-04-21T17:41:59Z")
Re-reading _Samurai William_ by Giles Milton, a historical account of the first English person to reach Japan - his story was the factual basis for the novel _Shogun_. The actual history is just as strange as the novel, maybe moreso. No novelist would ever dare to invent characters like the perverse English captain who attempted to make his fortune by importing sixteenth century English porn to Japan (much to the puzzlement of the Japanese) and also seduce a Japanese lady by showing off an oil painting of a seductively nude woman he kept in his cabin - only to have her mistake the painting for a Madonna, and start praying in front of it because she was a secret Christian? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2016, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/59 "2016-04-21T17:54:29Z")
I just read Doctor Ox’s Experiment, in the 1963 edition. I have at least two other copies of this, but this one is different. It’s like no other edition I know of. It was published in 1963 by MacMillan, with an intro by Willy Ley, an afterword by Hubertus Strughold (that sounds like a pseudonym) and illustrations by William Pène du Bois. The book is printed _sideways_. This Amazon page shows the cover, but if you click “Look Inside” it does NOT show you the present volume: > **[Dr Oxs Experiment: Verne, Jules: 9781556560903: Amazon.com: Books](https://www.amazon.com/Dr-Oxs-Experiment-Jules-Verne/dp/1556560907)** > > Dr Oxs Experiment \[Verne, Jules\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. Dr Oxs Experiment You place the binding TOWARD you and lift up the front of the book to give you the first page, which is actually two pages of the book, split horizontally by the binding. You read the entire book that way. The only other book I’ve seen like that is a humor book, _Bill Gates’ Personal Super-Secret Private Laptop_, in which flipping the pages one by one looks like a laptop with changing screens > **[Bill Gates' Personal Super Secret Private Laptop A Microspoof: Beard, Henry,...](https://www.amazon.com/Personal-Secret-Private-Laptop-Microspoof/dp/0684854643)** > > Bill Gates' Personal Super Secret Private Laptop A Microspoof \[Beard, Henry, Boswell, John, Barrett, Ron\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. Bill Gates' Personal Super Secret Private Laptop A Microspoof > **[Bill Gates' Personal Super Secret Private Laptop:Obviously faked by: Amazon.com:...](https://www.amazon.com/Gates-Personal-Secret-Private-Laptop/dp/B001RG1NNE)** > > Bill Gates' Personal Super Secret Private Laptop:Obviously faked by on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. Bill Gates' Personal Super Secret Private Laptop:Obviously faked by The Verne book is not a “new” (circa 1963) translation, although it has been updated from the 19th century original. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Ace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/6bbea6/32.png) [@Johnny\_Ace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Ace)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2016, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028/60 "2016-04-23T00:04:58Z")
> [@Ryanmiaku](#): > > I started reading **The Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever** series again. It’s a fantasy series about a cynical and very bitter man who gets thrust into a fantasy world in which he refuses to believe, hence the title. I started reading it a few years back but lost the first book when I moved. The first book is called **Lord Foul’s Bane**. One of the all-time classics of fantasy. If you haven’t read it and are a fantasy fan, I highly suggest it. The main character is more than a bit of a git, but the rest is amazingly executed and vivid. There’s a second trilogy (not coincidentally named The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant) which, while not quite on par with the first trilogy, is still pretty damned good. Donaldson’s history is also interesting and helps explain the plot. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2016-edition/751028.md?page=4)