Khadaji's Whatcha Readin' Thread - January 2015 Edition

Cafe Society
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It is a great premise, and I loved the first book. The rest of her work, though, is hit-or-miss for me. In particular she took the “The Company” series in a direction that I didn’t care for. Her writing is often wonderful and hilarious, with terrific characterizations, which makes it all the more frustrating when her plots go in the direction I least want them to.

Some of the best of “The Company” short stories can be found in the collection Black Projects, White Knights: The Company Dossiers.
I’ve been wallowing in comfort re-reads for the last few weeks, but I’m finally beginning to pull out of this mood where I’m convinced I’ve already read all the books that are any good. I’ve started The Call of the Wild, which for some reason I never encountered when I was a kid.

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Well, I finally got to the end of Dangerous Visions. It was a hard slog for me. The best story, IMO, was The Doll-House, by James Cross. It was a rather mild little horror story that might have made a passable Twilight Zone episode.

I started on California by Edan Lepucki this morning. I generally like post-apocalypse tales, but the characters and writing style aren’t working for me, so I’m going to let myself off the hook already.

Next I will try The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley, largely on the strength of the novel’s first line, which I encountered for the first time when it was quoted in another thread on this board.

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Right now, I’m almost halfway through Sibyl by Benjamin Disraeli.

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I’m currently reading The New York Public Library American History Desk Reference.

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I’ve managed to dig my way out of Jane Austen, thanks to Northanger Abbey - yawn! It’s really dangerous for me to have the collected works in one e-book, because I just…keep…reading, when I’d really prefer to stop and move on.

Just ordered In the Garden of Iden, sounds interesting.

My sister is visiting, and I just talked her into reading The Last Man In The World Club on our shared Kindle account, so I’m re-reading it too.

That’s about it, bookwise. Not much brain space for reading, as we have a house full of guests and parties and events every night :slight_smile:

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I forgot to take Brother Cadfael’ Penance with me to work yesterday, but I had Michael Connelly’s The Closers in my bag so I started it. Whew, I don’t even have balls but that book grabed them and ran1

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Just finished Mary Roach’s *Stiff *as an audiobook. I learned a lot (it’s just amazing to hear of the many uses - and misuses - of the human body over the centuries), and liked but didn’t love it.

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I’ve read two different books dealing with color over the past few months - ROY G. BIV: An Exceedingly Surprising Book About Color by Jude Stewart back in October and The Secret Language of Color: Science, Nature, History, Culture, Beauty of Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, & Violet by Arielle and Joann Eckstut.
I don’t remember how I found the first book, but the second was featured on NPR’s Morning Edition back in early November. I checked both out of the local library - I’d recommend reading the dead tree version vs an ebook, unless you have a color tablet (would be a bit silly to read about about colors on a black & white device, no?)

Both books delve into the world of color from a sociological as well as scientific standpoint. They discussed the subtractive vs additive color methods, with subtractive being used with pigment and additive with light, as well as the historical discoveries that lead to these theories. The Eckstuts (and perhaps Stewart - to be honest, both books are kind of blending together in my mind at this point) also spent some time talking about dyes - how natural dyes like tyrian purple and cochineal have given way to artificial dyes (Mauve: How One Man Invented a Color That Changed the World is now on my ToRead list, thanks to this section). On the sociological side, sumptuary laws, colors as metaphors as well as the order in which color words are added to a language are all topics covered in these books.

I found them both informative and engaging, but noticed a bit of a UK slant to the Eckstuts’ writing - while the US spelling of “color” and other “or/our” words was used, they mention sunflowers being most associated with southern France (while I would think of Kansas, or at least the Plains states) and there were one or two other phrases or terms that felt UK-centric.
I also spotted some typos in the Eckstut book - at one point a paragraph went missing from one page, only to be repeated twice on the next page. They both came out within a month of one another, Stewart’s in Sep 2013 and the Eckstuts’ in October, so they may have been rushing the latter to the presses.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed both books and would recommend them as at least a library read to anyone with a general interest in the history, culture and/or science of color.

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It would seem that Patrick Rothfuss is now benefitting financially from his knack for writing almost as slowly as George R. R. Martin. I’m rereading The Name of the Wind (and will follow with Wise Man’s Fear), on my Kindle, because I no longer possess my hardcopy versions. The third book of the series is allegedly out now, but it’s been so long since I finished the second book that I felt I should reread the first two before reading the new one. If it’s actually out.

Though, upon rereading, I’m being reminded of why I’ve been willing to wait so long between books. Great. Fucking. Writing..

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I’m reading Thomas C. Foster’s How to Read Literature Like a Professor, which is ironic (not really), because I am a literature professor. It’s entertaining, though I have to say I don’t read like that. Foster’s very hung up on symbolism, and very good at pointing out how to read symbols and allegory and the possible interpretations for all kinds of literary events; but it feels weirdly lacking overall. May it’ll get there.

Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution is True, on the Kindle. Excellent book, a good read and very exhaustive in its presentation of the evidence. As with most of these kinds of books, I suppose it’s preaching to the choir.

Richard Kadrey’s fourth Sandman Slim adventure, whose title was so strange that I’ve already forgotten it. Fun, too–although it’s concluded on a bit of literal deus (ex caverna) that…well, wasn’t particularly elegant. Anyway, if I’m looking for elegant plotting I go back to…

Michael Chabon’s Telegraph Avenue, which is just a great book. I’m a big fan of Chabon’s, and constantly astounded by his variety, and this is a great addition to his books. Highly recommended!

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I finished Death Comes for the Archbishop. That’s a pretty dramatic title for a collection of mostly sentimental vignettes. They were nicely written, though.

Next up is A Passage to India.

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I used to keep that book in my car at all times so I’d never be stuck without reading material. And from time to time I’d read some of it and find it entertaining…but I never found it so riveting that I’d actually hold on and finish it. Heck, maybe it’s still in the car…

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He’s just released a novella, called The Slow Regard of Silent Things, maybe that’s what you’re thinking of? The third book isn’t out yet, and doesn’t seem to be due anytime soon.

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Just zipped through the graphic novel Afterlife With Archie: Escape from Riverdale, an Archie Andrews/zombie apocalypse mashup which was funny but also suitably gruesome. Not at all like the Archie I remember as a kid, which I suppose is kind of the point. Poor ol’ Jughead is Patient Zero, and on Halloween, no less.

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[quote=“Politzania, post:17, topic:708439”]

Little Failure by Gary Shteyngart was a recommendation from Thing Fish, plus I had his Super Sad True Love Story on my ToRead list… tho I’m not sure how much in a hurry I am to follow up with that. While I found the memoir an interesting read, especially considering his childhood in 1970’s Soviet Russia, Shteyngart himself did not come off well.
I got the impression of a spoiled only child with his head firmly lodged in his own navel for the majority of the text. That said, I did feel for the Failurchka of the title at times - the casual abuse by his parents (and classmates) left me more than a little horrified. It’s hard for me to say whether I liked the book or not, but I admire Shteyngart for having written it.

Glad you may have liked it!:slight_smile: Also want to second the love a couple people have given to Michael Chabon’s Telegraph Avenue, a great read.

My big read for January was** Dreamland**, by Kevin Baker. It’s historical fiction set in New York around the turn of the last century, and although I’m no expert on the period it certainly seems like he did a lot of homework. The plot was downright Dickensian, incredibly complex, involving lots of characters from all segments of society (some real-life people) linked together by staggeringly unlikely coincidences. I almost gave up early because the first thirty pages or so were so gruesome and off-putting, but I’m very glad I stuck with it. He has two other historical novels set in different periods in NYC which I have on my to-read stack.

I also read Inherent Vice, by Thomas Pynchon. It was my first Pynchon, and although he is certainly a good writer who can turn some memorable phrases, I would describe it as good but not great. It reminded me a lot of what a Kinky Friedman mystery novel might have been if Kinky was a bit more literary. I hope to get around to seeing the movie.

Now starting to re-read Stephen King and Peter Straub’s The Talisman, which I remember I loved thirty years ago, with an eye to then reading the sequel, Black House, which will be new to me.

Also still making my way slowly through Abraham Heschel’s** God In Search Of Man**. It is very interesting and at times quite inspiring, though he does tend to go on at times. The basic thesis is that religion is of supreme importance, though ultimately entirely subjective and not subject to rational critique.

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The movie looks great: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUZgOQ186-A

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I finished The Secret History of the Roman Roads of Britain by M. C. Bishop but was fairly disappointed in it. He obviously knows a huge amount about the subject but the writing and arguments seemed sloppy, and the lack of decent maps was a big hindrance to enjoying it.
A fascinating subject, but not a fascinating book.

Now I’m reading the much more enjoyable, but almost completely forgotten, The Hole in the Zero by M. K. Joseph. It’s by a mainstream New Zealand author trying his hand at SF and it came out in 1967. It’s very New Wave and features four characters at a watch station on the Edge of the Universe, where all beyond is chaos and disorder. The space station has assumed the look of a Victorian cottage, with a kitchen garden and a robot who assumes various Victorian stereotypes - aging butler, fussing housekeeper, etc - to make the Watchman’s vigil more comfortable… (He could have it look like anything but that’s what he chose).
His three visitors persuade the watchman to take them for a jaunt beyond the Edge and catastrophe ensues. It starts getting strange, as the four people experience or hallucinate various alternate realities and lives, interacting with each other in bizarre ways.
I’m just over half way through and I have no idea where it’s going, but it’s great fun so far!

The anthology Car Sinister languishes in a pocket as I don’t have much time for reading at the moment. I have read a couple more of the stories but don’t recall their titles except for Interurban Queen by R. A. Lafferty, which was about an alternative to the automobile becoming the transport of choice and how society might be different without the car. Good stuff.

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I finished Brother Cadfael’s Penance by Ellis Peters this morning and as always I cry like a baby for te last dozen or so pages. It’s a fitting conclusion to the series pulling together several loose threads and tying them up neatly.

And for a total change of pace, I will finish The Closers by Michael Connelly in the next couple of days.

Two books about men who leave someplace they love and the work they have to do to return…

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I finally finished Stephen King’s Revival … I don’t know if it will rank up there with my personal favorites in the King canon, but it was an enjoyable enough read. I felt like it had a lot of creepy atmosphere, but the ending seemed rushed.

I started A Chinaman’s Chance, in which Eric Liu ponders his family’s experience as Chinese Americans, with a lot of historical information about Chinese immigration in the United States. So far it’s interesting – it doesn’t really go deep on any one aspect, it’s more like short musings on various topics.

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Started two books last night that are now competing for attention:

When The Legends Die by Hal Borland, which I saw discussed somewhere on this board. It’s terser, more masculine prose than I usually read, but still interesting and I am in love with the idea of the book, so.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. I love to read her writing. I can’t fathom where the heck the story is going, but I love her literary voice so much that I’ll just keep reading anyway. And IIRC it got a Booker Prize, so I hope it goes somewhere.