# Khadaji's Whatcha Readin' Thread - October 2015 Edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 30, 2015, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052 "2015-09-30T16:27:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2015, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/41 "2015-10-07T06:23:54Z")
I just finished Michael Koryta’s **Cypress House** , and I am impressed with his writing. He brought supernatural aspects to a story of murder and corruption set in depression-era Florida and did it seamlessly. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/42 "2015-10-09T02:33:23Z")
I tore through the third Lockwood book, _The Hollow Boy_. This series continues to be impressive. For the _most_ part, I like the callbacks to genre kids mystery books, and it’s really succeeded in sustaining its momentum over three books. I also read a novel for adults, _The World Before Us_, by Aislinn Hunter, which I liked very much. An atmospheric story about two missing persons incidents, 100 years apart, that are obliquely related to each other. It’s not a thriller, though, or even really a mystery in the “solving a mystery” sense – it’s more about the impact of the events on those around them. I’m currently about halfway through with _We Are Not Ourselves_, by Matthew Thomas, which follows the life of an Irish American woman and her family in NYC. ---
**Author:** ![TheSpeculationElucidation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecc23a/32.png) [@TheSpeculationElucidation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheSpeculationElucidation)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/43 "2015-10-09T07:09:32Z")
I usually am reading 1 nonfiction book and 1 fiction book at a time, with a smattering of comics in between. Currently, I’m reading: Fiction - The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. I’m a huge fan of classic horror - though it’s hard to find good vampire books after it became a YA obsession. This is an exception. An excellent horror mystery. It started out slow but is picking up speed and I’m really enjoying it. Non-Fiction - The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking. Very good so far. As for comics, I just caught myself up on Rat Queens (if you haven’t read it, DO IT). I’ll be starting Ravine tomorrow (I love Stjepan Šejić). ---
**Author:** ![Future\_Londonite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9dc877/32.png) [@Future\_Londonite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Future_Londonite)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/44 "2015-10-09T08:58:01Z")
> [@lazybratsche](#): > > I’m about about halfway through this via audiobook, and I absolutely love it so far. It is exactly weird enough to hold my interest. > > IMO, when scifi reaches for biological inspiration for alien things, the results are usually unimpressive. So much of it boils down to “bugs are icky!” Even Lovecraft (to be entirely uncharitable) can often be reduced to “tentacles and brown people are so icky that you will go INSANE!” > > It’s even worse when many authors put in some kind of scientist character, who is somehow unable to put together the blindingly obvious clues the non-expert author gives to the non-expert reader. > > **The Southern Reach** (at least through the first book and halfway through the second) succeeds at portraying truly _alien_ phenomenon and the human attempts at understanding them. The result is a profound sense of epistemological terror. What if we are simply unable to understand part of the natural world, even with our best methods and approaches? What if we are actively opposed by the phenomenon in question? > > Given my own tiny attempts at understanding the unknown, some failed and some successful, all these ideas resonate rather profoundly with me. Especially since I’ve been trapped in a small dark room with a microscope for the past week, with nothing but a stack of my own slides of samples and these audiobooks… It wasn’t the premise of the book that I found weird - everything you mentioned is what appealed me and kept me interested in the book. It was more the writing-style that I had challenges with. I found too much of a chapter is about what goes on inside the characters mind and they sometimes act too irrational without any apparent reason especially given how much we know what’s going on inside their head…I hope that kind of makes sense ---
**Author:** ![Grrlbrarian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrlbrarian/32/4048_2.png) [@Grrlbrarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrlbrarian)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/45 "2015-10-09T16:09:12Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > I tore through the third Lockwood book, _The Hollow Boy_. This series continues to be impressive. For the _most_ part, I like the callbacks to genre kids mystery books, and it’s really succeeded in sustaining its momentum over three books. I just finished **[The Hollow Boy](http://www.amazon.com/Lockwood-Co-Book-Three-Hollow/dp/1484709683/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444406999&sr=8-1&keywords=hollow+boy)** last night and agree completely with your comments, **delphica**. **Dung Beetle** , **DZedandConfused** , I know that wasn’t your reaction - you felt this was a lesser entry. Do you remember why - was it the Lucy and Lockwood relationship details? At any rate, I’m already pining to read the next one… it’ll be a long wait. ☹ I’ve recently finished **[Why Not Me?](http://www.amazon.com/Why-Not-Me-Mindy-Kaling/dp/0804138141/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444406839&sr=8-1&keywords=why+not+me)** by Mindy Kaling. It’s feather-light, for the most part, but very entertaining nonetheless. I’ve never seen The Mindy Project but might seek it out; I enjoyed Kaling’s humor. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/46 "2015-10-09T17:33:26Z")
I am taking my second stab at _Hyperion_ by Dan Simmons, as my dog-walking audiobook. So far, so good - can’t remember why I didn’t get further the first time. Before that, on paper, was _The Law of the Land_ on the US Constitution, which was too dry (big surprise, huh) and didn’t suit my mood at the time. Also _The Conservative Heart_ by Arthur Brooks, which was also dull - many pages of “I’m nice, dammit” and addressing an issue that isn’t a problem. I must get to the library this weekend - need bedtime reading. Regards, Shodan ---
**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:** [October 9, 2015, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/47 "2015-10-09T18:03:58Z")
**Grrlbrarian** , I’ve got nothing but love for the Lockwood books. You must have remembered me griping about something else. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/48 "2015-10-09T18:05:32Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I am taking my second stab at _Hyperion_ by Dan Simmons, as my dog-walking audiobook. So far, so good - can’t remember why I didn’t get further the first time. Before that, on paper, was _The Law of the Land_ on the US Constitution, which was too dry (big surprise, huh) and didn’t suit my mood at the time. Also _The Conservative Heart_ by Arthur Brooks, which was also dull - many pages of “I’m nice, dammit” and addressing an issue that isn’t a problem. > > I must get to the library this weekend - need bedtime reading. > > Regards, > Shodan I didn’t know **Hyperion** existed as an audiobook. I read it in paperback, and loved it. The different sections are written in different styles, which might be what put you off, but it’s worth sticking with. Be advised, though, that it’s not a complete story. You have to read **the Fall of Hyperion** to get everything resolved. Then, of course, there’s the sequel sequence **Endymion** and **the Rise of Endymion** , which must also be read as a pair. ---
**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:** [October 9, 2015, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/49 "2015-10-09T19:43:31Z")
I’m reading **The Bone Clocks** , by David Mitchell (the same guy who wrote Cloud Atlas). It’s dizzyingly good! ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2015, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/50 "2015-10-09T21:31:17Z")
> [@koeeoaddi](#): > > I’m reading **The Bone Clocks** , by David Mitchell (the same guy who wrote Cloud Atlas). It’s dizzyingly good! There’s no horrible dialect in it, is there? I still have the urge to throw _Cloud Atlas_ across the room every time I get to Sloosha’s Crossin’. ---
**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:** [October 9, 2015, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/51 "2015-10-09T22:31:45Z")
> [@Grrlbrarian](#): > > I just finished **[The Hollow Boy](http://www.amazon.com/Lockwood-Co-Book-Three-Hollow/dp/1484709683/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1444406999&sr=8-1&keywords=hollow+boy)** last night and agree completely with your comments, **delphica**. **Dung Beetle** , **DZedandConfused** , I know that wasn’t your reaction - you felt this was a lesser entry. Do you remember why - was it the Lucy and Lockwood relationship details? At any rate, I’m already pining to read the next one… it’ll be a long wait. ☹ Nope, wasn’t me. I loved the book. Read it in two days I think, Stroud is just getting better and better. > [@Khadaji's Whatcha Readin' Thread - September 2015 Edition](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-september-2015-edition/729572/94): > > Finished **The Hollow Boy** by Jonathon Stroud just minutes ago! WOW! What a ride! And what an EVIL, EVIL cliffhanger to leave us on! > > **Dung Beetle** want to take bets on who owned that cigarette? Or do wee think it is glaringly obvious? ---
**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:** [October 9, 2015, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/52 "2015-10-09T22:35:17Z")
I finished **The Shepard’s Crown** by Terry Pratchett. The bits written BY him were great but the rest yeah, I don’t hold out high hopes for the continuation of Discworld under another writer… > [@](#): > > ``` > The book is definitely unfinished, oh, it was a beginning, middle and end, but had Sir Terry lived another 6 months it would have had so much MORE. Tiffany is a bit too preachy for my taste and the whole "we are friends" theme was pretty cloying. The elves lacked any real menace and the final confrontation was so lacking in anything that I read it twice to make certain pages hadn't stuck together. > > ``` > > On the plus side, the witches pulling together was fanastic and so good to see Magrat in action again. The “old boys” were pure delight and so totally Pratchett, I adore them. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/53 "2015-10-11T16:08:02Z")
Just finished a book, somewhere between a mystery and a thriller I suppose, called “Little Black Lies” by a British writer named Sharon Bolton. The book takes place over a five-day period in the mid-nineties. It is the only novel I have ever read that takes place in the Falkland Islands. Three years earlier, there was a horrible tragedy in which Catrin’s best friend Rachel left Catrin’s two sons alone in her car while it was parked too close to a cliff…you can guess what happened. Catrin has been consumed with rage since and is plotting something (we don’t know exactly what) against Rachel. Rachel, for her own part, is not exactly the picture of mental health. The novel takes place against the backdrop of several children who have disappeared in the time since the accident, and brings in several other interesting characters–notably Callum, a veteran of the Falkland Islands conflict in 1982 who stayed on after the war and suffers from PTSD, flashbacks, and blackouts. The interactions between the three as the three-year anniversary of the accident approaches make up the bulk of the book. The book is well-written and generally gripping, though some of the events toward the end seem implausible (it’s fiction, what can I say?). The Falklands setting is what really made it for me, though. Living in this harsh climate on these isolated, lightly populated islands seems at once extremely intriguing and well, about the last thing I’d ever want to do… Anyway, I now want to travel there, which I probably won’t do for all kinds of reasons, but then again vicarious travel is one of the reasons to read, yes? ---
**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:** [October 11, 2015, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/54 "2015-10-11T20:03:04Z")
> [@Catamount](#): > > There’s no horrible dialect in it, is there? I still have the urge to throw _Cloud Atlas_ across the room every time I get to Sloosha’s Crossin’. Not yet, but I’m only about half way through. I loved _Cloud Atlas_ but the only way I could get through that dire vernacular bit was to listen to the audiobook. That excepted, Mr. Mitchell really knows how to tell a story! ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/55 "2015-10-11T20:26:13Z")
I finished _The Year of Living Biblically_ and I have to say I wasn’t impressed. That’s mainly due to the organization. If A.J. Jacobs had arranged it thematically rather than chronologically I think his point would have been better made. As it was, it tended too much towards navel-gazing. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2015, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/56 "2015-10-11T23:07:50Z")
I’m reading “1636: Commander Cantrell in the West Indies” by Eric Flint and Charles E. Gannon. It’s the _ **18th** _ book in Flint’s “Ring of Fire” series. The first book, “1632”, was about a West Virginia town being mysteriously transported to Germany in the middle of the Thirty Years’ War, and how the American culture and technology have transformed the world in the four years since. This book deals with the Americans and their allies looking for easily-discovered oil in the West Indies, in particular Pitch Lake in Trinidad, which at this time was a Spanish possession (the Spanish don’t like the Americans). As in our history, the Dutch colony of Recife in Brazil has been kicked out of Brazil by the Portuguese; in our timeline, most of the Dutch went to New Amsterdam, but in this timeline, they’ve gone to the Dutch colonies in the West Indies, in particular St. Eustatia. As with all of the books in this series, there is a mingling of fictional and real historical characters. There’s one passage when one of the Americans is talking to a real-history character, the Reverend Johannes Polhemius, who was a Dutch Reformed Church pastor in Recife. The Reverend Polhemius is one of my ancestors. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/57 "2015-10-12T01:07:51Z")
I just finished **Design for Great-Day** by Alan Dean Foster and Eric Frank Russell. When I saw it, I thought – "Neat! A story started or outlined by the underappreciated Eric Frank Russell, and finished by Foster. These haven’t generally been all that great, IMHO, but they’re worth having a look at. In general, though, the books feel like they’re not really a collaboration, but the work of the living author. _Variable Star_ didn’t feel at all like Heinlein, despite it being his plot, and Spider Robinson being a downright worshipful fan of Heinlein – it feels like a Spider Robinson novel. _Tarzan -=- The Lost Adventure_ didn’t feel like an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel – it felt like a Joe Lansdale novel. And so on. This was no exception. Despite the trappings of a Russell novel, this book felt like an Alan Dean Foster novel. In fact, it reads like a _bad_ Alan Dean Foster novel (No gibes – yes, there IS such a thing.) It is abysmally plotted and padded. Pushing myself through the last parts was torture, but I was determined to finish the damned thing. Then I looked into it and learned that it’s NOT some “lost” Eric Frank Russell novel. Foster took a finished and published Russell short story and simply bloated it up into a full-length novel. I’d even read the short story before, only under its more common title, _The Ultimate Invader_. It’s in the NESFA Press collection _Major Ingredients_ under that title. ("Design for Great-Day\* was the original publication title, and I have to wonder if, like Asimov’s “Green Patches”, which was first published as “Misbegotten Missionary”, this was the result of editorial imposition). Avoid at all costs. There’s a rave review on the cover from the Tampa Tribune-Times that I _have_ to believe is the result of blackmail on someone’s part. ---
**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:** [October 12, 2015, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/58 "2015-10-12T15:28:54Z")
I started today on [The Wasp Factory](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684853159?keywords=the%20wasp%20factory&qid=1444663400&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1) by Ian Banks. Very interesting so far, about a teenage psychopath who lives on a Scottish island. There are a lot of parts in this book where animals get hurt and killed, but I knew that going in and am skimming that stuff quickly. Nothing excessively detailed on that front so far. And the story itself is riveting. ---
**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:** [October 12, 2015, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/59 "2015-10-12T15:38:34Z")
Over the weekend, I zipped through Rick Beyer’s and Elizabeth Sayles’s _The Ghost Army of World War II_. It’s about the 23rd Headquarters Special Troops, a U.S. Army unit dedicated to deceiving the Germans in Western Europe using loudspeakers, fake unit insignia, inflatable tanks and jeeps, and misleading radio transmissions. Many of the men were specially assigned because of their artistic and creative talents and went on to later fame, including fashion designer Bill Blass, painter Ellsworth Kelly and artist Art Kane. An interesting book and very well-illustrated. Still enjoying Lawrence Hill’s _The Book of Negroes_, a novel about a young African woman stolen into slavery. She’s getting settled into life in 1740s South Carolina, has made some friends among her fellow slaves, but is still yearning for freedom. Kind of stalled with TS Hottle’s sf novella _The First One’s Free_, which just isn’t blowing me away. ---
**Author:** ![Bonaventure](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c57346/32.png) [@Bonaventure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonaventure)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2015, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052/60 "2015-10-12T15:46:19Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > I started today on [The Wasp Factory](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684853159?keywords=the%20wasp%20factory&qid=1444663400&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1) by Ian Banks. Very interesting so far, about a teenage psychopath who lives on a Scottish island. There are a lot of parts in this book where animals get hurt and killed, but I knew that going in and am skimming that stuff quickly. Nothing excessively detailed on that front so far. And the story itself is riveting. People either love _The Wasp Factory_ or it puts them off reading permanently. I’ve heard too many gross things about it to risk it. I’m reading “The Secret in Their Eyes” before the movie comes out and ruins it. So far it seems a pretty decent police procedural with nothing in common with the movie trailer. I like David Mitchell but I really disliked the “fantasy” portions of _The Bone Clocks_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-readin-thread-october-2015-edition/733052.md?page=4)