# Khadaji's Whatcha Readin' Thread - January 2016 Edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 30, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740 "2015-12-30T17:41:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/61 "2016-01-18T16:33:36Z")
> [@Grrlbrarian](#): > > I’m very slowly reading through **[A Confederacy of Dunces](http://www.amazon.com/Confederacy-Dunces-John-Kennedy-Toole/dp/0802130208)** by John Kennedy O’Toole. I know it’s supposed to be an American comic masterpiece but by gum, so far I hate it like fire and grim death. I’m with you on the grim death thing. I bailed after about 125 pages. I also just set aside \Ruling Passion\, by Reginald Hill. The story is pretty good, but the narrator is abysmal (which is too bad because the narrator for all the other Dalziel and Pascoe books I’ve read is really good). I’m waiting for the print version to come in for me at the library. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2016, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/62 "2016-01-18T16:38:18Z")
> [@Grrlbrarian](#): > > **Malthus** , I couldn’t decide if I liked or disliked the science fiction-y forays in Lovelace & Babbage. Most of me feels the graphic novel (with its wonderful pen & ink) was well enough with just the historical detail and the modern sensibility footnotes. What did you think? I enjoyed it a lot, though I think I would have enjoyed it even more if it was a straight historical recounting (basically, more of the first section). I did like how the author weaved the historical dialogue and themes into her steampunky bits. 😉 ---
**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:** [January 18, 2016, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/63 "2016-01-18T20:46:15Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Oh Mr. Adams. ☹ Although I can’t find it online, NPR’s commentator Baxter Black got in trouble awhile back when he told the same story on the air and _insisted_ it had really happened to him. Just finished David Hackett Fischer’s excellent _Washington’s Crossing_, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 2004. Well-researched and very engaging. I learned a lot, including that the Hessians _weren’t_ sleeping off an intoxicated Christmas; that there was a second Battle of Trenton, which the Continental Army also won; and that the Hessian military had a bunch of courts-martial afterwards to placate their pissed-off prince. Also intriguing to learn of the many differing schools of historical interpretation (republican, romantic, Whig, debunking, etc.) since the Revolution. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2016, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/64 "2016-01-19T18:18:51Z")
Read Stephen King’s _Revival_. He still spins a pretty good yarn, although the reveal near the end was over the top, IMO. Now reading _Radical_, by Maajid Nawaz, an autobiographical book about the author’s journey into and out of extremist Islamism. ---
**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:** [January 20, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/65 "2016-01-20T15:31:19Z")
Finished _Descent_, by Tim Johnston. Beautifully written and an emotional roller coaster ride. Next up, a short story collection by William Gay, [I Hate To See That Evening Sun Go Down](http://www.amazon.com/Hate-See-That-Evening-Down/dp/074324088X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1453303721&sr=1-1). ---
**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:** [January 20, 2016, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/66 "2016-01-20T20:11:46Z")
Still enjoying Harold Holzer’s _Lincoln and the Power of the Press_, although it sometimes plods. Arthur C. Clarke’s sf short-story collection _Tales from the White Hart_ really, really wants to be funnier than it is, but I suppose it’s mildly diverting. Over the weekend, I started William S. Burroughs’s drug-addled, stream-of-consciousness _Naked Lunch_ and so far I’m not digging it. ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2016, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/67 "2016-01-23T00:35:13Z")
I’ve just finished ‘The Brain - The Story of You’ by David Eagleman. I thought it was OK. Eagleman writes very engagingly and has a knack for breaking down complicated concepts for the layperson. However, I found that I was familiar with quite a lot of the material already, just through years of picking up little scraps of information here and there through the TV and popular-science articles. As such, I found myself skim-reading quite often. I’d doubtless be more impressed if I didn’t already have this familiarity, so I still recommend it. Also, the hardcover (it’s not out in paperback yet, I believe) is beautifully designed with lots of lovely illustrations. If you want to know what a rat’s brain looks like at 10,000x (and I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t ;)) then this is the book for you! I’d give it 3[sup]1/2[/sup]/5. I’m also about 160 pages into Ray Feist’s ‘The Magician’ and I’m pleased to say it’s still thoroughly entertaining. If you’ve read any of the Game of Thrones books you’ll see that Feist is clearly a strong influence on George R.R. Martin, although Feist introduces the fantasy elements much more quickly than Martin does. So far, The Magician is not as good as any of the Thrones series, but it’s still very good. I haven’t really read much more of ‘Killing Floor’ since my last post. I should get back on that. ---
**Author:** ![Memnon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f1d935/32.png) [@Memnon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Memnon)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2016, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/68 "2016-01-23T00:51:50Z")
> [@Misnomer](#): > > I keep meaning to read that! A few years ago I read Musicophilia, and in addition to enjoying Sacks’s writing style it affected me personally: one of my deepest fears is suffering some kind of severe brain injury and losing music (I’m a musician), but after reading Musicophilia I took great comfort in the idea that music is often one of the last things to go. Not that it couldn’t still happen, but the odds are lower than I’d thought. In that case, I doubly recommend it. One of the things I learnt from the book is that, in patients with traumatic brain injuries and dementia, the ability to appreciate music is one of the faculties that is best preserved. Indeed, according to Sacks, music actually helps temporarily alleviate some of the symptoms common to dementia patients. He also has a couple of fascinating case studies about people whose musical memories temporarily went into overdrive after accidents, causing them to hear songs from their childhood so vividly that, at times, they couldn’t hear what the people around them were saying. According to one of the patients, it was actually quite enjoyable 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2016, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/69 "2016-01-23T14:40:06Z")
Yeah, I think a lot of the music-related information and anecdotes from _The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat_ were repeated in _Musicophilia_ – he references the earlier book several times. I’ll still read it, though, for the other cool stuff. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![SCAdian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scadian/32/3292_2.png) [@SCAdian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCAdian)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/70 "2016-01-24T04:41:18Z")
Last Finished: _Red November: Inside the Secret US-Soviet Submarine War_, by W Craig Reed Now reading: _On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft_, by Steven King Next up: _Death Without Company_, the second Longmire mystery, by Craig Johnson ---
**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:** [January 24, 2016, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/71 "2016-01-24T15:17:19Z")
Finished _The Waste Lands_, by Stephen King, volume III in his Dark Tower series. Very good but again I notice King’s odd sloppiness. He seems to think three months after the JFK assassination was still 1963, and the day after May 31 is still May. But very good regardless. Next up is volume IV: _Wizard and Glass_. ---
**Author:** ![Cardboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Cardboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardboard)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2016, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/72 "2016-01-24T15:28:59Z")
The _Seven Habits of Highly Effective People_ by Steven Covey and _Psychology for Dummies_ by Adam Cash. ---
**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:** [January 25, 2016, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/73 "2016-01-25T01:51:50Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > …Over the weekend, I started William S. Burroughs’s drug-addled, stream-of-consciousness _Naked Lunch_ and so far I’m not digging it. Reached 50 pages and dumped it without regret. Garbage. Next up: _The Kennedy Wit_, ed. by Bill Adler, a short 1964 collection of JFK’s funnier quips, zingers and observations. I’m starting to think he had a better sense of humor than anyone running this year. ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2016, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/74 "2016-01-25T13:01:19Z")
I totally disagree with your view of _Naked Lunch_. I don’t know if the time is wrong for you to read it or if the times are wrong for it to be appreciated, but for its time it was a very important book, albeit hard to read sometimes. Just glancing at the reviews of it on Amazon I see that it was praised by, among others, Terry Southern (“An absolutely devastating ridicule of all that is false, primitive, and vicious in current American life: the abuses of power, hero worship, aimless violence, materialistic obsession, intolerance, and every form of hypocrisy.”), Newsweek, and Robert Lowell. Any piece of writing that receives praise from this many and diverse readers surely deserves consideration as being not garbage. ---
**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:** [January 26, 2016, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/75 "2016-01-26T02:34:44Z")
Have you read any or all of it? I gave it 50 pages, which I think is only fair (especially since Burroughs later said the chapters could be mixed up and read in any order). It’s garbage to me, even if others loved it. Don’t worry, I’ll just return it to the library, not burn it. ---
**Author:** ![kayT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayt/32/3633_2.png) [@kayT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayT)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2016, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/76 "2016-01-26T06:01:32Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Have you read any or all of it? I gave it 50 pages, which I think is only fair (especially since Burroughs later said the chapters could be mixed up and read in any order). It’s garbage to me, even if others loved it. Don’t worry, I’ll just return it to the library, not burn it. Of course I read it, or else I wouldn’t have defended it. I guess you could call it garbage without reading it all, though, which doesn’t seem fair. ---
**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:** [January 26, 2016, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/77 "2016-01-26T12:33:20Z")
> [@kayT](#): > > Of course I read it, or else I wouldn’t have defended it. I guess you could call it garbage without reading it all, though, which doesn’t seem fair. Oh I don’t know, I’ve read a lot of books I felt were grabage by page 50. I think this is an “agree to disagree” situation. ---
**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:** [January 26, 2016, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/78 "2016-01-26T12:58:23Z")
This morning I finished [I Hate To SeeThat Evening Sun Go Down](http://www.amazon.com/Hate-See-That-Evening-Down/dp/074324088X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1453812520&sr=1-1), a short story collection by William Gay. The stories themselves weren’t tightly plotted, more like slices of life. I generally don’t care for that artsy-fartsy sort of thing, but dang! (excuse my French) This dude could write. I’d be reading a sentence describing the weather and feeling awestruck rather than bored. Next I’m going to read _Twilight_. No, not [that](http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Saga-Book-1/dp/0316015849/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453813134&sr=1-2&keywords=twilight) one, [this](http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-William-Gay/dp/1596920580/ref=pd_sim_14_5?ie=UTF8&dpID=514XVW1NT4L&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR107%2C160_&refRID=1TV9HF1AXHZ6A2K36KW9) one! 😃 ---
**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:** [January 26, 2016, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/79 "2016-01-26T15:23:03Z")
I zipped through Vanessa Diffenbaugh’s [We Never Asked for Wings](http://www.amazon.com/We-Never-Asked-Wings-Novel/dp/055339231X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453821789&sr=8-1&keywords=we+never+asked+for+wings) over this snow-filled weekend. It’s a little hard to summarize the book, so I’ll just say that if you’ve read and liked her first book ([The Language of Flowers](http://www.amazon.com/Language-Flowers-Novel-Vanessa-Diffenbaugh/dp/0345525558/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453821851&sr=8-1&keywords=the+language+of+flowers)), you’ll probably like this one, too. They have a few of the same elements: chapters with alternating viewpoints, a protagonist who’s rather screwed up in the head, beautiful language, and some good research thrown in. Now I’m starting on [Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs](http://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Scream-First-Last-Drugs/dp/1408857820/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453821958&sr=8-1&keywords=chasing+the+scream). ---
**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:** [January 26, 2016, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740/80 "2016-01-26T15:31:21Z")
> [@DZedNConfused](#): > > … I think this is an “agree to disagree” situation. But of course. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-january-2016-edition/741740.md?page=5)