# Khadaji's Whatcha Readin' thread - November 2014 Edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 1, 2014, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-november-2014-edition/703208 "2014-11-01T09:33:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 6
**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:** [November 25, 2014, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-november-2014-edition/703208/101 "2014-11-25T16:34:56Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > …Well, no, he means the other forty-_seven_. Alaska also won’t be a state until next year. Both entered the Union in 1959 – Alaska in January and Hawaii in August. A minor quibble, but a bit odd. Great story though. Allow me to fanwank that for you: Al wasn’t perfect, and he was very ill. ---
**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:** [November 27, 2014, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-november-2014-edition/703208/102 "2014-11-27T02:32:50Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Allow me to fanwank that for you: Al wasn’t perfect, and he was very ill. Indeed. It really is a great story. Our hero has just hit Dallas in 1960. It’s Thursday morning over here, and I won’t have much reading time today and am already feeling withdrawal symptoms. Always a good sign. I almost thought I’d found another mistake when a teenager in 1958 made a reference to “Ed McMahon” and “Johnny.” But he said it while naming a TV show called _Who Do You Trust_, which I’d never heard of. But sure enough, looking it up, Ed McMahon and Johnny Carson did first team up together on that show in the 1950s. I grew up watching Johnny Carson and never knew that. [Johnny Carson voice] “I did not know that.” [/Johnny Carson voice] ---
**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:** [November 27, 2014, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-november-2014-edition/703208/103 "2014-11-27T05:00:08Z")
I tell ya, King, and a guy he thanks in an afterword, really did their research. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2014, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-november-2014-edition/703208/104 "2014-11-27T21:34:27Z")
Finished “The Death Ship” by B. Traven, the mysterious author or Treasure of Sierra Madre. A very readable 1934 book, one of the best sea-faring stories Ive ever read. Politically cynical. A lot of rough edges, it reads like it somehow got into print without an editor seeing it. But a profound story, deep and sensitive, by a writer who doesn’t pull any punches… ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2014, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-november-2014-edition/703208/105 "2014-11-29T04:03:36Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Indeed. It really is a great story. Our hero has just hit Dallas in 1960. It’s Thursday morning over here, and I won’t have much reading time today and am already feeling withdrawal symptoms. Always a good sign. I enjoyed this book a lot! My main quibble, though, is that the main character is supposed to be MY age … but everything about him made me feel like he was my dad’s age (within a few years of King himself). It seemed to me like King could not help himself from making the main character share a lot of his own outlook on life. It wasn’t anything in terms of the facts or timeline, just an overall impression that he was of my dad’s generation, not my peers’. After **Eleanor** (I think) mentioned a new Benjamin January mystery, I looked up the series and realized I was quite a few books behind, and so I picked up\*Dead and Buried \* which was a fun, fast read. I like this series a lot (the main character is a free person of color in early 19th century New Orleans who solves murders) even though I noticed a few books ago that he’s no longer encountering only those mysteries that seem realistic, but is at the point where he’s Forrest Gump-ing his way through the era, somehow encountering every possible intersection of social and political issues in which someone could be murdered. And I think the author (Barbara Hambly) does A LOT of excellent research in this historical period … but it always jumps out at me that she must dig up some interesting facts or phrases or expressions, and then starts using them in the books at wherever she is in the series. So multiple characters who have NEVER used a particular expression before will start dropping it into their speech all the time. I can see how this is a hazard of on-going research, because I am sure she is turning up genuinely interesting facts and wants to incorporate them into the story. ---
**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:** [November 29, 2014, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-november-2014-edition/703208/106 "2014-11-29T04:11:02Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > After **Eleanor** (I think) mentioned a new Benjamin January mystery, I looked up the series and realized I was quite a few books behind, and so I picked up\*Dead and Buried \* which was a fun, fast read. I like this series a lot (the main character is a free person of color in early 19th century New Orleans who solves murders) even though I noticed a few books ago that he’s no longer encountering only those mysteries that seem realistic, but is at the point where he’s Forrest Gump-ing his way through the era, somehow encountering every possible intersection of social and political issues in which someone could be murdered. And I think the author (Barbara Hambly) does A LOT of excellent research in this historical period … but it always jumps out at me that she must dig up some interesting facts or phrases or expressions, and then starts using them in the books at wherever she is in the series. So multiple characters who have NEVER used a particular expression before will start dropping it into their speech all the time. I can see how this is a hazard of on-going research, because I am sure she is turning up genuinely interesting facts and wants to incorporate them into the story. Ms Hambly is historian complete with degrees, teaches history too in california, or at least she was last time I heard her speak which was in 2010 I believe. Her history geek really comes through in the Ben January books and her Abigail Adams series under the pen name of Barbara Hamilton. ---
**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:** [November 29, 2014, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-november-2014-edition/703208/107 "2014-11-29T17:54:50Z")
Just read Joss Whedon et al’s _Serenity: Better Days_, a graphic novel collection of _Firefly_-related stories. There’s a nice short essay by Adam Baldwin, who played Jayne. The stories are hit or miss, overall, but worth a read for fans of the show. ---
**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:** [December 1, 2014, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-november-2014-edition/703208/108 "2014-12-01T15:01:52Z")
December’s thread: [Khadaji's Whatcha Readin' thread - December 2014 Edition - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=742274) ---
**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:** [December 1, 2014, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-november-2014-edition/703208/109 "2014-12-01T15:12:28Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > December’s thread: [Khadaji's Whatcha Readin' thread - December 2014 Edition - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=742274) Thank you! I was down hard yeserday with the worst cold I’ve had in ages. ---
**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:** [December 1, 2014, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-november-2014-edition/703208/110 "2014-12-01T15:26:59Z")
Hope you’re feeling better now! ---
**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:** [December 1, 2014, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-november-2014-edition/703208/111 "2014-12-01T15:32:44Z")
I believe I will live now. 😃 Thank you [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-november-2014-edition/703208.md?page=5)