# Khadaji's What'cha reading -- May 2014 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 1, 2014, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445 "2014-05-01T15:58:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2014, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/81 "2014-05-12T00:35:13Z")
Perhaps it’s not worth noting because it’s so short, but I read “The Giaour” by Lord Byron. I thought it was kind of a muddle; “The Corsair” was a better poem along similar lines. ---
**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:** [May 12, 2014, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/82 "2014-05-12T00:36:29Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > It’s weird how novels featuring people who are inspecting their inner selves seem to think they’re the only ones in turmoil. That’s the reason why I couldn’t stand Cees Nooteboom’s _All Soul’s Day_. The narrator was so wrapped up in his own b.s. he refused to notice all the other characters’ troubles, even when they banged him over the head with it. I just finished J.V. Jones’ _A Fortress of Grey Ice_, the second of a four-book series. I adore her books, but this series is hard to read. I love the characters and I can’t stand the absolute hell she’s dragging them through. After what happened to Raina in the first book and Ark in the second, I’m going to have to take a break before I resume. So I’m reading _Tom Jones_ for some lighthearted frolicking. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2014, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/83 "2014-05-12T10:01:27Z")
_The Glass Castle_ a memoir written by Jeannette Walls, recommended by others up thread. Yeah, Welch, WV is a place. Several times while reading this book I had to take a break. To let it sink in. To get away from it. Her chaotic childhood led to Welch holler, one of the most poverty-stricken areas in the US, and they were the poorest people in it. But she didn’t let the places where they’d lived become a state of mind, and just presents the bare-bone truth infused with what good was there. My MIL and I shared similar pasts, a bond that she regularly glossed over with her Cadillac and “help.” (A maid.) But she told me about, because of circumstances, her and some of her siblings being taken from the farm where they were born and sent to live at a little mining camp in Harlan, Kentucky. We took a day trip up there for her to see it one more time. It was dotted with towering heaps of slag. She said that, all of a sudden, she’d had to look straight up to see the sky. This book shows us a view. ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2014, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/84 "2014-05-12T11:22:00Z")
> [@Becky2844](#): > > I’m almost done with _The Glass Castle_ by Jeannette Walls. > > Now I know why Steve Harvey cried when he said he was from Welch. I read [The Glass Castle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Glass_Castle) about two months ago. Wonderful memoir and to be made into a movie according to Wiki. ---
**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:** [May 12, 2014, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/85 "2014-05-12T13:53:13Z")
> [@yellowval](#): > > This has been on my to-read list since “The Winter People,” which was my first encounter with Jennifer McMahon. (I also have a neighbor by that name. Heh.) Looks like I may have to check it out sooner than later. I’ve read a couple of McMahons so far and liked 'em fine, right up until the endings, which were :dubious:. But I still had a good enough time that I’m going to try some more. Currently I’m reading [The Book of Joe](http://www.amazon.com/Book-Joe-Jonathan-Tropper/dp/0385337418/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=8-7&qid=1399902609) by Jonathan Tropper, which I picked up after **Lucretia** posted a quote in a different thread. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2014, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/86 "2014-05-12T14:17:43Z")
> [@carnut](#): > > I’m now reading _The Omnivore’s Dilemma_. I recommend it to adults who understand that they are what they eat. A cow eats grass, so a cow is grass? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2014, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/87 "2014-05-12T15:38:42Z")
> [@sandra\_nz](#): > > _Hit Parade_ by Lawrence Block. Third novel (although they seem to be more in the form of short stories) about a hit man. Despite the topic, it’s quite a light read. I’m a big fan of Keller. It is very entertaining to watch the authour make a likable and sympathetic character of a guy who, when all is said and done, kills people for a living. ---
**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:** [May 12, 2014, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/88 "2014-05-12T16:10:03Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I’m a big fan of Keller. It is very entertaining to watch the authour make a likable and sympathetic character of a guy who, when all is said and done, kills people for a living. You might want to see _In Bruges_. A violent but very funny comedy about two hitmen tryng to lie low in a picturesque Belgian town. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2014, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/89 "2014-05-12T16:11:21Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > You might want to see _In Bruges_. A violent but very funny comedy about two hitmen tryng to lie low in a picturesque Belgian town. Heh, I meant to check that out when it came out, and forgot all about it. Good call. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2014, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/90 "2014-05-12T20:45:27Z")
Thanks, I’ll be looking for it **chiroptera**. ---
**Author:** ![Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e4f/32.png) [@Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2014, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/91 "2014-05-12T20:53:46Z")
I’m reading [Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker’s War, 1941-1945](http://www.amazon.com/Between-Silk-Cyanide-Codemakers-1941-1945/dp/068486780X/), a fascinating memoir by cryptographer Leo Marks. He was the son of the co-owner of the Marks & Co antiquarian bookshop, which was made famous by Helene Hanff’s book _84 Charing Cross Road_ (a nice read for bibliophiles). At the age of 22 Marks was deemed unsuitable for Bletchley Park due to his “originality” and flippant sense of humor (much in evidence in the book) and was sent to work for the Special Operations Executive instead, where he supervised encoded messages to and from intelligence agents in the field. The book has a very narrow focus. So far it’s mostly concerned with two of Marks’s most urgent goals, and it’s astonishing to read about the inter-departmental rivalries which hindered these goals and risked or wasted the lives of heroic field agents. First he wanted to replace the alarmingly insecure poem codes used by agents with the much safer “worked-out-codes”, which would be printed on silk for agents to carry. (Silk is easy to hide in clothing - it won’t rustle during a pat-down search.) Marks’s second goal was to convince his superiors that many, if not all, of the Dutch intelligence agents had been captured and their messages were in fact being manufactured by the Germans. (The Germans called it [Das Englandspiel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Das_Englandspiel), “The England Game”.) Marks became suspicious because the messages from the Netherlands had a markedly low rate of coding errors, a much lower rate than the agents of any other country. I don’t understand every single point that Marks makes in the book, but I’m riveted by the story and entertained by his self-deprecating humor. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2014, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/92 "2014-05-12T21:02:46Z")
I read a harrowing, but very good, memoir by a Cambodian woman about her childhood growing up under the Khmer Rouge. It is called _First They Killed My Father_. I thought it was very well written; and naturally, emotionally draining. The horrors she experienced are made all the worse by the fact she was a young chld, yet old enough to understand them. > **[First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers: Ung, Loung:...](https://www.amazon.ca/First-They-Killed-Father-Remembers/dp/0060856262)** > > First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers: Ung, Loung: 9780060856267: Books - Amazon.ca The same author has written two other books about her experiences later in life - I have ordered them. In particular, her second book looks interesting - it deals with her immediate post-Khmer Rouge life, after she has immigrated to America. It is called _Lucky Child_ and it deals, I understand, with her eventual reunion with her beloved sister who also survived the Khmer Rouge, but remained in Cambodia (the surviving extended family only had enough cash to get the authour out, and her sister had to stay behind - that’s why the author is the “lucky child” of the title). > **[Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind:...](https://www.amazon.ca/Lucky-Child-Daughter-Cambodia-Reunites/dp/0060733950)** > > Lucky Child: A Daughter of Cambodia Reunites with the Sister She Left Behind: Ung, Loung: 9780060733957: Books - Amazon.ca ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2014, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/93 "2014-05-12T23:47:37Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > To Kill A Mockingbird. Funny you should mention that. Somehow it came up the other day that my father who was an English major at a Really Good School had never read TKAM. I said, aaaawww, I love that book you have to read it. “Nah, I’ve seen the movie”. :eek: ---
**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:** [May 13, 2014, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/94 "2014-05-13T00:44:33Z")
I had flu all last week,consequently my attention span wasn’t up to a full book (neither was my wrist since I spend three of the five days lying down) but I read several volumes of Ouran High School Host Club, Ai Ore, Kizuna and Awkward Silence… All of which are manga, perfect for short attention spans and a tendency to fall asleep, not to mention much easier to hold while lying down.😃 ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/95 "2014-05-13T01:07:36Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > “Nah, I’ve seen the movie”. :eek: Surely you exaggerate. I cannot believe an English major would say that. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 4:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/96 "2014-05-13T04:11:20Z")
> [@Isamu](#): > > A cow eats grass, so a cow is grass? A cow eats many grasses. If it is lucky. And if you are lucky, you get to munch on a grass-eating cow. ---
**Author:** ![Michael\_Winters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e8c25b/32.png) [@Michael\_Winters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael_Winters)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 9:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/97 "2014-05-13T09:42:22Z")
Six Years by Harlan Coben, and I’m on the home stretch of Snuff by Terry Pratchett. I love a good mystery. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2014, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/98 "2014-05-13T17:10:19Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Surely you exaggerate. I cannot believe an English major would say that. > :dubious: I was shocked because he reads Very Important Books and I’d never heard him resort to “I’ve seen the movie”. ---
**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:** [May 14, 2014, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/99 "2014-05-14T12:29:42Z")
Finished up _The Book of Joe_, a quick easy read about a guy who writes a tell-all book about his hometown. When his father becomes ill, he has to return to this town where everyone is pissed off at him, and try to deal with events that happened during his senior year of high school. Now on to [Wintersmith](http://www.amazon.com/Wintersmith-Discworld-Terry-Pratchett/dp/0060890339/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1400070514&sr=1-1&keywords=wintersmith). ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2014, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445/100 "2014-05-14T12:39:52Z")
I’m about 30% into Richard Holmes’ [_The Age of Wonder_](http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1400031877?pc_redir=1399960948&robot_redir=1). Terrific book. William Herschel just discovered Uranus. I remember this event being mentioned in Pynchon’s hilarious _Mason and Dixon_, and it was a pleasure to have the episode fleshed out so vividly. Herschel was more a musician and composer than anything else; and, like Handel, a product of 18th-century friendship (at the royal level, too, as embodied by the king) between parts of Germany (especially Hanover) and England – driven partly by their having a common enemy in France. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-may-2014/687445.md?page=6)