# Khadaji's Whatcha Readin' thread -- May 2017 Edition
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [April 29, 2017, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538 "2017-04-29T23:29:28Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2017, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/1 "2017-04-29T23:29:28Z")
May…flowers. If it keeps raining in North America we’re going to NEED Mayflowers or Arks. But as long as there’s a dry berth for our books, we’ll be fine! And get plenty of reading done as we float along. 😃
So Whatcha Reading?
I have so many going that I’ve lost count…
```auto
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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### Author:  [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)
#### Post date: [April 29, 2017, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/2 "2017-04-29T23:32:40Z")
Last Month’s thread
[Oh April, we knew thee well](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=822871)
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2017, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/3 "2017-04-30T00:49:30Z")
About three-fourths through _Alexander Hamilton_, by Ron Chernow. Very good, but I’ve lost a lot of respect for Thomas Jefferson.
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### Author:  [@bmoak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bmoak)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2017, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/4 "2017-04-30T01:30:16Z")
I’ve picked up again on Telegraph Avenue, by Michael Chabon. I put it down a while back when I was halfway through to read other things. I’ve found it a bit of a slog compared to The Adventures of Cavalier and Klay or The Yiddish Policeman’s Union.
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### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2017, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/5 "2017-04-30T01:52:52Z")
Still on various reading kicks: Newbery winners, cozy mysteries, and romance, mostly.
Today I finished two Newbery winners that I doubt I would have ever voted for:
_Maniac Magee_, by Jerry Spinelli. Odd book with some wildly shifting tones.
_Last Stop on Market Street_, by Matt de la Peña. Extremely short picture book with a nice story and beautiful illustrations.
I also recently finished:
_The Blue Sword_, by Robin McKinley. Classic YA fantasy. A young woman travels to a far-flung colonized holding of her nation (there are definitely some Britain/India overtones) and things happen. It’s quite good, though I wasn’t as emotionally invested as expected.
_Hold Me_, a contemporary romance by Courtney Milan. A trans heroine and bi hero. Very well written, and Milan does great characters. It wasn’t the most convincing love story. I’m not sure these are the right characters to put together. It’s bad not to be convinced by the HEA. 😃
_Inside Out_, a YA dystopian sf by Maria V Snyder. A young woman is a lower-class worker in a completely enclosed city society. It did absolutely nothing for me.
And two I gave up on (both of which were better novels than _Inside Out_):
_The Clockwork Scarab_, by Colleen Gleason. Steampunk mashup of Sherlock Holmes and Bram Stoker. It just didn’t click for me, though I see the appeal.
_Vessel_, by Sarah Beth Durst. Fantasy in a desert setting. A young woman has been training since she was a child to become the vessel of the local god, which would mean her death. Then the god doesn’t come. I just felt disconnected from the characters.
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### Author:  [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2017, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/6 "2017-04-30T07:57:33Z")
_The Year of Living Biblically_ - this writer spent a year trying to follow all of the laws in the Bible. Pretty entertaining and interesting so far.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2017, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/7 "2017-05-01T12:53:00Z")
[Chalk](https://www.amazon.com/Chalk-Novel-Paul-Cornell/dp/0765390957/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493643053&sr=8-1&keywords=chalk+paul+cornell), by Paul Cornell. “A tale of youthful violence and ancient evil”. An unreliable narrator, odd and interesting so far.
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### Author:  [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2017, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/8 "2017-05-01T15:43:58Z")
Reading with my 10 year old daughter, _ **The Incident at Hawk’s Hill** _, by Allen W. Eckert. A fictionalized account of a true story about a 6 year old boy that went missing in 1870 near Winnipeg. It was a Newberry honor book when published in 1970.
Also reading **We are Legion, We are Bob** , by Dennis Taylor, the first in a planned SciFi series about a man who has his head cryogenically frozen upon his death, only to be reanimated a 100+ years later as a replicant conscience to be used by theocracy as its AI for planned space exploration.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2017, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/9 "2017-05-01T17:56:00Z")
I recently finished Joe Haldeman’s 1990 sf novel _The Hemingway Hoax_, about a con artist and a literary scholar teaming up to create fake, “long-lost” Hemingway stories to earn big bucks. Very good book, but not his best (_Tool of the Trade, The Forever War_ and _All My Sins Remembered_ still take top honors for me).
Now underway:
Noah Brooks’s _Lincoln Observed_, a collection of reminiscences by a reporter whom the President befriended and often socialized with.
D.M. Pulley’s _The Dead Key_, about a long-sealed safe deposit box in a defunct Cleveland bank, and the dangerous secrets it holds. A little amateurish but OK so far.
Ernest Hemingway’s _A Moveable Feast_, Papa’s posthumously-published memoir of life in Twenties Paris (although he rejected the label “the Lost Generation”). Interesting little vignettes about James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
> [@Siam\_Sam](#):
>
> About three-fourths through _Alexander Hamilton_, by Ron Chernow. Very good, but I’ve lost a lot of respect for Thomas Jefferson.
As did I. Jefferson was a genius and a very talented wordsmith, but a sneak, liar, hypocrite and spendthrift. Secretly funding an opposition newspaper while serving in Washington’s Cabinet and lying about it for years, until exposed by the by-then-pissed-off editor? Dick move.
> [@Poysyn](#):
>
> _The Year of Living Biblically_ - this writer spent a year trying to follow all of the laws in the Bible. Pretty entertaining and interesting so far.
Great book! I even led a discussion of it at my church a few years back.
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### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2017, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/10 "2017-05-01T17:58:19Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#):
>
> D.M. Pulley’s _The Dead Key_, about a long-sealed safe deposit box in a defunct Cleveland bank, and the dangerous secrets it holds. A little amateurish but OK so far.
I didn’t manage to finish that one. I was mildly intrigued for a while but then lost interest.
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### Author:  [@The\_Librarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Librarian)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2017, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/11 "2017-05-01T19:32:00Z")
(replying to some posts from last month, I hope that isn’t considered bad form)
> [@Khadaji's Whatcha Readin' thread -- April 2017 Edition](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2017-edition/783418/6):
>
> Just finished the second of Mick Herron’s Slough House thrillers. This is a great series so far…MI-5 personnel who have fucked up on the job are assigned to the Slow Horses (Slough House). Wackiness ensues. Actually not wackiness, but very tense, well written taut thrillers. Starting on the third one this weekend. […].
Had fun reading those. It had been a while that I read a spy thriller.
> [@Khadaji's Whatcha Readin' thread -- April 2017 Edition](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2017-edition/783418/8):
>
> I just finished [The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22733729-the-long-way-to-a-small-angry-planet). It’s space opera set in a universe somewhat like Star Trek, with a Galactic Commons involving lots of different species.
> […]
> I enjoyed it a lot. Not a life-changing book, but a very fun perspective on a well-worn formula.
I agree with your verdict: Nothing profound; Very entertaining.
> [@Khadaji's Whatcha Readin' thread -- April 2017 Edition](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2017-edition/783418/37):
>
> Finished “reading” Michael Moore’s _Here Comes Trouble_ on audio. Intersting stuff.
> […]
This couldn’t grab my attention, I found it too meandering, too … just tell a story please.
> [@Khadaji's Whatcha Readin' thread -- April 2017 Edition](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-april-2017-edition/783418/73):
>
> […]
>
> **The Collapsing Empire** by Scalzi was awesome! He needs to get busy writing on that series. I didn’t start the Old Man’s War series until it was over, so I didn’t have to wait. I’m already chomping at the bit.
While I thoroughly enjoyed everything Scalzi has written, this is not quite on the the same level as “Old Man’s War”.
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### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2017, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/12 "2017-05-01T19:39:13Z")
> [@The\_Librarian](#):
>
> (replying to some posts from last month, I hope that isn’t considered bad form)
Sorry. It’s actually a shooting offense!
Really, though, I like seeing the conversations kept going. I’m just usually too lazy.
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### Author:  [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2017, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/13 "2017-05-01T20:31:20Z")
Finished _Rip Foster Rides the Grey Planet_, a YA sci-fi novel from the fifties. Rip has to bring a thorium asteroid back to Earth, with the usual complications. I was a trifle annoyed by constant references to the bitter cold of outer space. Vacuum has no temperature - if it were cold, Thermos bottles couldn’t keep anything hot. Apart from that, bubble gum for the mind.
Currently running thru _The Railway Children_, a children’s book I never read before. Almost charming, but the protagonists obviously never had the “stranger danger” lecture from anyone. I am trying to put aside my modern cynicism and enjoy it for what it is. At least the children aren’t perfect goody-two-shoes types, and there isn’t a lot of that saccharine “oh mumsy we love you so much and you are so noble”. They have just saved the train and reunited the Russian poet with his family. I am wondering when they will catch on that Daddums is in prison, and he will be heroically exonerated and return to the bosom of his family in time to prevent Bobbi from a life of prostitution.My daughter wants to loan me the first of the Hellboy graphic novels. That might be next - else _The Club of Queer Trades_ by G.K. Chesterton.
Regards,
Shodan
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2017, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/14 "2017-05-01T23:57:06Z")
Just finished **Clownfish Blues** , by Tim Dorsey. It had its moments, but isn’t one of his best.
Also finished **Wedding Girl** , by Stacey Ballis. I knew exactly where every plot point was leading, but it was still a lot of fun.
Next up is a poetry collection by Nikki Grimes. (It’s a shame both of the books I just read were okay. Otherwise I could say I was going from bad to verse…)
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### Author:  [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2017, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/15 "2017-05-03T01:11:51Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#):
>
> _The Clockwork Scarab_, by Colleen Gleason. Steampunk mashup of Sherlock Holmes and Bram Stoker. It just didn’t click for me, though I see the appeal.
Awww I’m sorry, I’m quite in love with the series!
I finished **Slow Horses** by Mick Herron today…and he wasn’t kidding about slow. Good Lord, that was a slog…
---
### Author:  [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2017, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/16 "2017-05-03T01:15:55Z")
> [@DZedNConfused](#):
>
> Awww I’m sorry, I’m quite in love with the series!
I think it was one of those books that I started at the wrong time and then never found a groove with it. I didn’t hate it. And for once I’m not judging anyone for liking it when I didn’t! 😛
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### Author:  [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2017, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/17 "2017-05-03T12:49:12Z")
Started in on Julian Barnes’ “England, England”. Stodgy reading at first.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2017, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/18 "2017-05-03T15:16:14Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#):
>
> [Chalk](https://www.amazon.com/Chalk-Novel-Paul-Cornell/dp/0765390957/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493643053&sr=8-1&keywords=chalk+paul+cornell), by Paul Cornell. “A tale of youthful violence and ancient evil”. An unreliable narrator, odd and interesting so far.
This has gotten so weird I can barely follow it anymore. If I weren’t so close to the end, I’d quit.
---
### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [May 3, 2017, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/19 "2017-05-03T15:47:00Z")
Finished Words with Wings by Nikki Grimes. It’s a children’s novel in verse, not a poetry collection as I’d thought. Not her best work.
Also finished The Dollhouse, by Fiona Davis. Not bad, but I didn’t especially care for it.
Not sure what I’m reading next.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [May 4, 2017, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-may-2017-edition/785538/20 "2017-05-04T12:54:53Z")
So I finished _Chalk_. I think the occult stuff needed a bit more explanation, or maybe if you’re British you just already know the mythology. My main problem with the book is that I never understood why the characters acted as they did. One could be called a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, but she wasn’t the only one being implausibly peculiar.
Started this morning on [The Stranger in the Woods](https://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Woods-Extraordinary-Story-Hermit/dp/1101875682/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1493899898&sr=1-1&keywords=the+stranger+in+the+woods+by+michael+finkel) by Michael Finkel, a non-fiction account of a man who lived alone for decades in the Maine woods.
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