Khadaji's Whatcha Readin' thread -- January 2018 Edition

Cafe Society
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Well we made it, and for those of us in the States it wasn’t always a sure bet, January and 2018 is peering around the corner. (I first typed that as “peeing around the corner” But decided that wasn’t at allthe visual I meant :smiley: )

I haven’t read science fiction in literally decades but I started Nightstalkers by Bob Mayer while sittin in the waiting room for my surgeon. It’s a breezy little series about aliens and guns and features tough guys shooting stuff, so basically just what I needed.

What’s on YOUR desk, end table, tablet right now?
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Khadaji was one of the earlier members of the 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, and he started these monthly book threads. Sadly, he passed away in January 2013, and we decided to rename these monthly threads in his honor.

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Last month’s thread: Did we all get what we asked for in December?

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About a third of the way through Ron Chernow’s Grant, his new biography of Ulysses S., and enjoying it.

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I just finished the unlikely-titled Bad-ass Librarians of Timbuktu, by Joshua Hammer. It’s about the smuggling of valuable illuminated manuscripts of Islamic history, culture and science past the Al Quada zealots determined to destroy all 350,000 of them.

And that is my candidate for strangest title for a non-fiction book this year. It just edged out The Billionaire’s Vinegar.

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I just finished Ken Follett’s Column of Fire on audio, thus completing the trilogy that began years earlier with Pillars of the Earth. Now I’m on to Stephen King’s Hearts in Atlantis.

I’m finishing up Jack Chalker’s first book in his Changewinds Trilogy, but not very fast. I keep losing interest. I could’ve sworn I’df read all of his books, but I can’t recall having read this set, and the story seems unfamiliar.

I’m halfway through Mark Kurlanski’s [B\Cod**. My sister gave it to me because she couldn’t believe that anyone wrote an entire book about cod. But it’s fascinating – cod had a far bigger impact on history and culture than is generally acknowledged, and Kurlansaky is an excellent writer. Since the obtaining of salt to preserve cod was essential (and a lack of it hamstrung British efforts to enter the salt cod market), how and where salt is obtained is also essential to history, which no doubt lead to Kurlansky’s desire to write Salt, which I read several years ago. It’s the perfect companion to this book.

I picked up the first vgolume of Fantagraphics’ collected Popeye strips and am more than halfway through. Interesting, but slow going – Segar really knew how to draw out a story. You could miss a day or two of reading the strip and not miss it at all. You could even miss a week or two and still get caught up. Popeye in the strips is tougher and has more of a hair trigger than in the cartoons (or even the later comic strips). In his first adventure he gets shot eighteen times, but refuses to be hurt. All without benefit of spinach.

I picked up the coffee table book DC’s Golden Age of Comics, because it was on sale discounted at Barnes and Noble, and just started reading the Joe Kubert interview at the front.

Usually I get a stack of books for Christmas, but this year I only got one. My friend in Utah (a one-time member of this Board) sent me Utah Curiosities: Quirky Characters, Roadside Oddities, and Offbeat Fun by Brandon Griggs. The author didn’t even more to Utah until after I left, so he never knew the joy of the Blue Mouse Cinema, Cosmic Aeroplane Books, the two video arcades at Crossroads Plaza --or Crossroads Plaza itself, for that matter (or ZCMI), or the wonders of having to visit Gilead in the keeper’s back yard.

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Here’s the thread for the Top Ten books you read last year: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=846008

I’m almost done with Mario Puzo’s original The Godfather. Sometimes I wince at Puzo’s bad or overdone writing, but he tells a helluva good Mafia story.

Started David McCullough’s new collection of history-related speeches, The American Spirit. Wonderful crisp prose. He loves history and all it has to teach us, and it shows.

Still making my way slowly through Frank Herbert’s sf classic Dune. Amazing world-building, but it plods a bit more than I remembered.

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Started The Spectacular Sisterhood of Superwomen: Awesome Female Characters from Comic Book History, by Hope Nicholson.

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I’m trying Paw Enforcement by Diane Kelly, but I’m not certain I want to finish it, let alone read the whole series.

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I’m reading Friend Request by Laura Marshall. A page-turner (I started out to say potboiler, but apparently that has negative connotations I was unaware of). A former high-school mean girl gets a friend request from a classmate who supposedly died years ago.

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In November/December I took a brief break from my thrillers to read Station Eleven, a 2014 novel that a FB friend with good taste had recommended. I’m not usually one for postapocalytic stuff, but I *really *enjoyed it. Here’s the Amazon description:

*Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.

Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed.*

I’m back to legal thrillers now, reading The Extraditionist by Todd Merer. I’m fairly certain this was a free Kindle First book back in October, and I will say that – so far – it’s the best free book I’ve ever taken a chance on. I’m really enjoying the writing and story. Another Amazon description:

*When the world’s most notorious cartel bosses get arrested, they call Benn Bluestone. A drug lawyer sharp enough to exploit loopholes in the system, Bluestone loves the money, the women, the action that come with his career…but working between the lines of justice and crime has taken its toll, and he desperately wants out. He’s convinced himself that only an insanely rich client can guarantee him a lavish retirement.

When the New Year begins with three promising cases, Bluestone thinks he’s hit pay dirt. But then the cases link dangerously together—and to his own past. Does the mysterious drug kingpin Sombra hold the key to Bluestone’s ambitions? Or does the key open a door that could bring the entire federal justice system to a screeching halt and net Bluestone a life in jail without parole?*

Oooh, I just downloaded a sample to my Kindle! Sounds interesting, plus I’m the same age as the main characters and I’m always a sucker for that. :wink:

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Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond –
William Dalrymple Anita Anand

The Koh-I-Noor (Mountain of Light, in Persian) now part of the British crown jewels, was mined in India, and first appears in records during the Mughal period. After various battles, conquests, and atrocities, it ended up in the then independent state of Punjab, spending time in Herat Afghanistan, among other places. The British, under various pretexts, and after even more battles, won control of the state and the diamond through a treaty signed with the maharaja of Punjab, who was ten years old at the time (and went on to have quite the life, vividly told in the book).

Since Independence, the government of India has asked the diamond to be returned. Good luck with that, has been the British response.

Fascinating and well written book, not just about the diamond, but the chaotic and brutal history of South Asia.

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I finished Mario Puzo’s original The Godfather. He wasn’t the greatest writer in the world, as I noted above, but he gave us a fascinating story and some still-memorable characters and scenes. I was impressed and a little surprised that Puzo didn’t pull his punches in describing the toxic nature of the Mafia - even by the late 1940s, Puzo wrote, everyone who could do so was leaving Sicily because the crime families had so ruined the island’s society through violence, intimidation, extortion and bribery. He strongly implied that the Mafia would have the same effect here in America if it went unchecked. I think the movies didn’t say that clearly enough and, in a visual medium, inevitably glamorized the Mafia.

On a lighter note, today I zipped through a 2006 comics collection, Little Lulu: All Dressed Up by John Stanley, Irving Tripp and Marge Buell. I remember these comics from when I was a little kid myself and borrowed them from my sister. Lulu is a clever, spunky little girl, and she and her friend Tubby get into all kinds of mischief. Simply-drawn but funny and engaging comics.

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I finished reading all of these. I have to find new things to read.

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Reread The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore today. It was as funny as I remembered even though I had forgotten the zombies.:smiley:

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Re Friend Request

I think you’ll like this one. I did. I thought about it a lot when I wasn’t reading it, still failed to solve the mystery.

Next up: Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and what the Internet can tell us about who we really are.

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Finished a book I didn’t mention starting. (I misplaced the one I started, which I later found.) The new one’s Mr. Darley’s Arabian High Life, Low Life Sporting Life: A History of Racing in 25 Horses by Christopher McGrath. It has some fascinating anecdotes about people involved in various ways with horse racing, mostly in the United Kingdom. Recommended.

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Back to Erik Larson, this time Isaac’s Storm, about the hurricane that hit Galveston in 1900.

I read Column of Fire. I didn’t like it as much as the first two books and then I realized how little of it was actually set in Kingsbridge. I think that’s what threw me off.

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Just started reading ***The Reckoning: The Memoirs of Anthony Eden *** and Chester Wilmot’s The Struggle for Europe. I’m also working my way through Robert Gellately’s Backing Hitler: Consent & Coercion in Nazi Germany.

I bought my daughter a number of books on American history for Christmas. When I get the chance, I especially want to borrow A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn. I read about this episode in Keegan’s Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America and keep coming back to it.

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I also have the last six of the ***Poldark ***novels to get through while I’m still alive.

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Is “The Sick Tree” part of the collection? I think it’s my favorite Little Lulu story ever. :o