# Khadaji's Whatcha Reading Thread--March 2019 edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 3, 2019, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465 "2019-03-03T03:38:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**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:** [March 3, 2019, 3:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/1 "2019-03-03T03:38:42Z")
March…can we just have spring already? For those of us up in the Northern Hemisphere this winter has been damn cold… and I’m not even in the path of the Polar Vortex. On the upside my daffodills are coming up… to snow. _sigh_ So what are you all reading? I’ve been bouncing back and forth between m/m romance and whodunnits with the occasional urban fantasy thrown in to keep thing…errr unreal? I think it’s cozy time! I haven’t read a good cozy in ages 😉 ```auto Khadaji was one of the earlier members of 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, who started these threads way back in the Stone Age of 2005. Consequently when he suddenly and quite unexpectantly passed away, January of 2013 we decided to rename this thread in his honor and to keep his memory, if not his ghost, alive. ``` ---
**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:** [March 3, 2019, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/2 "2019-03-03T03:41:08Z")
Last month’s thread: [Well that’s February in the ashcan…](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=870166) ---
**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:** [March 3, 2019, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/3 "2019-03-03T05:01:35Z")
We are suffering in Hawaii too. Temperatures are plunging into the 60s at night. The horror. Almost halfway through _Dreamcatcher_, by Stephen King. Very good. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2019, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/4 "2019-03-03T17:32:03Z")
I filled in N. K. Jemisin’s Inheritance Trilogy with the short story collection _Shade in Shadows_ and the novella \*The Awakened Kingdom. \* I enjoyed Martha Wells’s novella _All Systems Red_ (The Murderbot Diaries #1), though if I were her editor I’d have had her tighten a few loose threads. With _Lethal White_ and _The Crimes of Grindelwald,_ I believe I’ve read all of J. K. Rowling’s published books (excluding a couple of the Pottermore “publish every scrap of exposition and back story” ebooks). ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2019, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/5 "2019-03-03T18:44:42Z")
I’m halfway through Book 4 of Glen Cook’s _The Black Company_ series. These novels are wonderful for military fantasy. Not quite as good as the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, which were partly inspired by them. But still wonderful. ---
**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:** [March 3, 2019, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/6 "2019-03-03T21:44:37Z")
This afternoon I finished Michelle Obama’s excellent memoir _Becoming_, which is well-written, clear-eyed and basically optimistic, but doesn’t shy away from the less pleasant aspects of American society or her loathing of the current White House occupant. I feel I know her much better now. I’m taking a break from Patrick O’Brian’s very good Napoleonic naval adventure _Master and Commander_, and have just begun John Scalzi’s _The Android’s Dream_, about the ins and outs of interstellar diplomacy. Not into it far enough to have an opinion yet. ---
**Author:** ![Lancia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lancia/32/17174_2.png) [@Lancia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lancia)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2019, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/7 "2019-03-04T22:07:26Z")
So I just picked up _[The Sex Lives of Cannibals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sex_Lives_of_Cannibals)_ by J. Maarten Troost. It’s travelogue, and the first chapter is subtitled > [@](#): > > In which the Author expresses some Dissatisfaction with the State of his Life, ponders briefly prior Adventures and Misfortunes and with the aid of his Beguiling Girlfriend, decides to Quit the Life that is known to him and make forth with all Due Haste to Parts Unknown. I think I’m going to love this. I’ll let you know how it goes. ---
**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:** [March 4, 2019, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/8 "2019-03-04T23:40:38Z")
> [@Lancia](#): > > So I just picked up _[The Sex Lives of Cannibals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sex_Lives_of_Cannibals)_ by J. Maarten Troost. It’s travelogue, and the first chapter is subtitled > > I think I’m going to love this. I’ll let you know how it goes. I read about half of it before his constant bitching got on my nerves… but it was very revealing about South Pacific exploitation by other countries. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/9 "2019-03-05T00:59:58Z")
I longed to read what Troost’s girlfriend would have written. ---
**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:** [March 8, 2019, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/10 "2019-03-08T14:08:37Z")
I just finished [The Hod King](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0356510840/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i3) by Josiah Bancroft, the third book in his Books of Babel series. It was the best one yet! These are just some of the most wonderful books I’ve read in years. I won’t get to start anything new until Monday, but that’s cool because I’m having major afterglow right 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:** [March 8, 2019, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/11 "2019-03-08T18:05:02Z")
Ohh that afterglow… 🙂 I have not been keeping up here: _hangs head_ I finished **Only See Me** by JD Chambers, last Saturday, a lovely story about a man in the midst of a nasty divorce falling for a nonbinary individual named Malcolm. Really sweet and straight to my own NB little heart. A couple days ago I finished **Murder on the Flying Scotsman** by Lee Straus, a loving paeon to the Orient Express and married sleuths of the classic era, complete with a small dog. I started **The Housewife Assasin’s Handbook** by Josie Brown. A bit of a screwball comedy and biting satire of the glories of suburbia and gated communities. So far a lot of fun. This morning at the gym, I started **The Glorious Heresies** by Lisa McInery in audiobook. I’m not far in but I’m pleased the woman reading it is Irish. I tend to abandon the books my bookclub picks but I may stick with this one just to hear her voice. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2019, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/12 "2019-03-08T18:22:58Z")
Just started **No Beast So Fierce** , the story of the Champawat tiger, an animal that was seriously wounded and turned to hunting humans for food. It terrorized an area on the India/Nepal border from 1900-1907, killing some 400+ people before finally being hunted down by renowned British hunter Jim Corbett, after all else had failed (including a team of Ghurkas). ---
**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:** [March 9, 2019, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/13 "2019-03-09T02:23:35Z")
I read John Grisham’s newest book, _The Reckoning_. A WW2 veteran, a well-off farmer in Mississippi, wakes up one day and shoots and kills the pastor of a local church. He refuses to tell anyone why he did it and is eventually executed. That’s the premise. I can’t say I _enjoyed_ it, exactly: it’s pretty grim. In particular, the middle of the book is taken up with a drawn-out nothing-held-back description of the Bataan Death March during WW2. But that’s not the only depressing part of the novel, by any means. On the other hand, it’s well written, the background is interesting, the characters are well-drawn, and the story is compelling. Even if it’s sad. I’ve read most of Grisham’s novels, and though I appreciate most of his writing I’ll admit that a lot of them blend together. This one–doesn’t. ---
**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:** [March 9, 2019, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/14 "2019-03-09T06:06:59Z")
I finished Patrick O’Brian’s Napoleonic naval adventure _Master and Commander_, and enjoyed it immensely. I’ve now begun Iain M. Banks’s _Consider Phlebas_, his first sf novel about a high-tech, distant future human society, the Culture. I’m not loving it, not yet anyway, but am willing to keep going with it. Haven’t gotten back to John Scalzi’s sf novel _The Android’s Dream_ just yet. ---
**Author:** ![Caldris\_bal\_Comar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce7236/32.png) [@Caldris\_bal\_Comar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caldris_bal_Comar)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2019, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/15 "2019-03-09T16:24:39Z")
_Consider Phlebas_ isn’t generally regarded as among the strongest of the Culture books. _Player of Games_ and _Use of Weapons_, the next two in the series, are often suggested as starting points as they have more in common with subsequent books than _Consider Phlebas_, which is kind of an outlier in writing style and layout. ---
**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:** [March 10, 2019, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/16 "2019-03-10T03:25:46Z")
Huh. I thought I’d read awhile back that _Consider Phlebas_ is the one to start with. ---
**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:** [March 10, 2019, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/17 "2019-03-10T20:14:16Z")
Finished _Middlemarch_, by George Eliot. Very good, especially toward the end. Now I’m reading _We_, by Yevgeny Zamyatin. (Translated by Mirra Ginsburg) ---
**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:** [March 11, 2019, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/18 "2019-03-11T12:22:20Z")
Finishing up E.E. Smith’s _Galactic Patrol_. I picked up a copy of _The Universes of E.E. Smith_ by Ron Ellik and Bill Evans at Boskone to read afterwards – it’s a concordance to Smith’s Lensman and Skylark series, so it explains all the weird Smithian characters and places (including **Qadgop the Mercotan** , who gets his own entry – “A horribly slithering, clawed, snouted, metal-eating Bug-Eyed Monster in a novel by Sybly White. Qadgop’s sole purpose in life was to capture, outrage, kill, and devour the human wench Cynthia.” There’s a drawing of him.) I’m also reading **Writings from Ancient Egypt** , a Penguin book translated and edited by Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson. It collects all sorts of writings across a 3000 year period, including tomb inscriptions, carvings on statues, and writings on papyri. Even granting that the translations are necessarily rather loose, I’m surprised at how textured and detailed even the inscriptions are. The book is pretty new, having come out in 2016, but this is the first I’ve seen of it, at an overstock and used bookstore in New Hampshire. ---
**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:** [March 11, 2019, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/19 "2019-03-11T12:39:11Z")
[Foundryside](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37173847-foundryside) is some pure heist entertainment. A blurb on the back describes it as something like “The best cyberpunk novel in years, set in a fantasy world,” and that’s pretty accurate. You’ve got a decaying metropolis ruled by megacorporations with enormous headquarters under ultra-tight AI-run security systems, and the corporations hire teams of hackers to break into rival headquarters to steal software, only the jobs inevitably go wrong. The only difference is that the megacorporations are actually family-run Houses, and the AI-run security systems and the software targets are actually magical spells. It’s tremendous fun. First in a series, but with a satisfying ending. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2019, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465/20 "2019-03-11T12:43:07Z")
I’m re-reading most of Ben Aaronovitch’s **Rivers of London** series while I wait for the latest book to either come out in paperback or to become available at the library. I’m currently on **Whispers Underground** and noting that the author seeds the earlier books with clues and little events that have an impact in later books. Also on the go - two books of short stories: **Stories of Your Life and Others** by Ted Chiang, which is riddled with skilled and deeply considered explorations of different sci-fi scenarios (the film _Arrival_ comes from one of the stories); and **Dead Man’s Hand: An Anthology of the Weird West** which I picked up very cheaply from the remainders table. The nice thing about short story anthologies is that I can dip in and out as the whim takes me and not worry about forgetting what happened earlier, because the stories are all discrete. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-march-2019-edition/830465.md?page=2)