# Khadaji's Whatcha Reading Thread - December 2019 edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 1, 2019, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2019-edition/844217 "2019-12-01T00:03:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**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:** [December 30, 2019, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2019-edition/844217/61 "2019-12-30T12:59:02Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Glad to! > > Lots of time to read over the holidays, fortunately. I finished Michelle Alexander’s _The New Jim Crow_, which is a bit too polemical but makes some good points and is worth a read for anyone interested in criminal justice reform. > > I also read, in a day, the new graphic novel _The Handmaid’s Tale_, with text adapted from her own book by Margaret Atwood and artwork by Renee Nault. I haven’t read the original book or seen the TV series, but thought this was pretty good - scary, unsettling and hopeful in appropriate measure. > Hope you’ll check out _Arthur Rex_ by Thomas Berger, if you haven’t already. A clever, engrossing take on Arthurian legend; his retelling of Sir Gawaine’s tale is particularly good. I read that one when it came out. The Sir Gawaine part was excerpted in Playboy that year. Not surprising, considering Berger’s take on that tale. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2019-edition/844217/62 "2019-12-30T16:21:27Z")
I finished reading [Six of Crows](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23437156-six-of-crows), a cracking fantasy heist novel. The author juggles a group of disparate ne’er-do-wells very adroitly, and it hits pretty much every heist beat it needs to hit. Tremendous fun. [It’ll be a Netflix show](https://www.polygon.com/2019/10/2/20895199/shadow-and-bone-grisha-leigh-bardugo-six-of-crows-cast-netflix) at some point, using elements from this book and from a previous trilogy set in the same world. My wife pressed this book into my hands, and now I’m anxiously waiting for her to finish its sequel so I can read it. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2019, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2019-edition/844217/63 "2019-12-30T22:13:26Z")
Finished _The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe_, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, which was okay. Now I’m reading _Looking Backward_, by Edward Bellamy. ---
**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 31, 2019, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2019-edition/844217/64 "2019-12-31T01:46:58Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I read that one when it came out. > > The Sir Gawaine part was excerpted in Playboy that year. Not surprising, considering Berger’s take on that tale. Ah, good. ---
**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:** [December 31, 2019, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2019-edition/844217/65 "2019-12-31T12:28:05Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Ah, good. Here’s the illustration Frank Frazetta painted to illustrate the story. This requires a two-click rule [spoiler]Here it is: [https://transistoradio.tumblr.com/post/79399695016/frank-frazetta-castle-of-sin-1978-oil-on/amp[/spoiler]](https://transistoradio.tumblr.com/post/79399695016/frank-frazetta-castle-of-sin-1978-oil-on/amp%5B/spoiler%5D) ---
**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 31, 2019, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2019-edition/844217/66 "2019-12-31T14:28:23Z")
Ahhh Frank Frazetta… your fetishes never fail to amuse. 😃 ---
**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 31, 2019, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2019-edition/844217/67 "2019-12-31T14:52:53Z")
Indeed. Never saw that before - thanks, **CalMeacham**! I finished the Joe Haldeman collection _A Separate War and Other Stories_ (the best were the title story, a “sidequel” to _The Forever War_; “Giza,” about the genetically-engineered inhabitants of an asteroid colony who collectively turn murderous; and “For White Hill,” about which I wrote more upthread), and have returned to an old Haldeman favorite of mine, _Tool of the Trade_, about a Soviet deep-cover agent on the MIT faculty c. 1987 who invents a practical method of mind control. One of Haldeman’s all-time best IMHO. ---
**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:** [January 1, 2020, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2019-edition/844217/68 "2020-01-01T04:47:18Z")
Your Top Ten books of 2019?: [https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=887688](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=887688) ---
**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:** [January 1, 2020, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2019-edition/844217/69 "2020-01-01T07:16:48Z")
Finished _The Reckoning_, by Sharon Kay Penman, and with that, also the author’s Welsh Princes trilogy of historical fiction – _Here Be Dragons_, _Falls the Shadow_ and _The Reckoning_. Very good. The entire trilogy covers 100 years, from 1183-1283. At the end, the Welsh have been mightily defeated, subjugated under English rule forever. That’s hardly a spoiler, but it was very interesting to see the process and learn more about the fabled Welsh princes Llewelyn the Great and his grandson Llewelyn ap Gruffydd. It also touched on the horrors of medieval childbirth as well as the plight of the Jews in England at that time. (King Edward I kicks the Jews out of England at one point.) I am very glad I read this. Next up is _Napoleon: A Life_, by Andrew Roberts. ---
**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:** [January 1, 2020, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2019-edition/844217/70 "2020-01-01T14:04:33Z")
New Year, New Thread: [Here’s too the Twenties!](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=22056152#post22056152) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-december-2019-edition/844217.md?page=3)