# Khadaji's Whatcha Reading Thread - November 2019 edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 31, 2019, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2019-edition/842809 "2019-10-31T23:38:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 4
**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:** [November 25, 2019, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2019-edition/842809/61 "2019-11-25T13:35:28Z")
> [@Rough\_Draft](#): > > This sounds like it’s right up my alley! Please let us know your thoughts on the book once you’ve finished. I’m sorry to say, the book never lived up to its potential. It was a bit of murder mystery/ghost story/romance that wound up doing none of those things well. I’m not sure enough information was given to solve the mystery (I never can anyway); the ghosts were so tangential I think they could have been left out entirely without making any difference to the tale; and the romance was only ever vague. Apparently it won awards and has some good reviews at Amazon, so maybe I’m wrong, but I can’t recommend it. Onward now to [Stephen King and Philosophy](https://www.amazon.com/Stephen-King-Philosophy-Great-Authors/dp/1442253843/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1574688704&sr=8-1) edited by Jacob Held. Let me tell you right up front, this is a total snooze. It just happens to be what I’m passing time with this holiday week when I can’t afford to get too immersed in fiction. ---
**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 27, 2019, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2019-edition/842809/62 "2019-11-27T04:08:46Z")
I finished **Killers of the Flower Moon** by David Gann about the wave of genocidal murders on the Osage Reservation in the early 1900s over oil money. So many appalling things and murder is almost the least of them. It was well written, and while he obviously wanted you to side with the Osage, it wasn’t a book with an agenda beyond telling the story of the Reign of Terror and the FBI’s efforts to prosecute the criminals. ---
**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:** [November 27, 2019, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2019-edition/842809/63 "2019-11-27T04:36:59Z")
Oh, man. Are any of y’all Becky Chambers (A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet) fans? She has a novella out, [To Be Taught, If Fortunate](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43190272-to-be-taught-if-fortunate), and as much as I love her other work, this is one of the best things I’ve read in forever. Chambers just keeps getting better. If you like your science-fiction written beautifully but unpretentiously, if you like science fiction with plausible characters you’d want to be friends with, if you like your science fiction packed with ideas but not with glib answers, I just can’t recommend her highly enough. ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2019-edition/842809/64 "2019-11-27T05:28:08Z")
I’m re-reading _Perdido Street Station_ by China Mieville and enjoying it much more the second time around. Extraordinary world-building. I’ll read _The Scar_ next. ---
**Author:** ![Rough\_Draft](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@Rough\_Draft](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rough_Draft)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2019, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2019-edition/842809/65 "2019-11-27T16:01:24Z")
**A House of Ghosts, by W.C. Ryan** > [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > I’m sorry to say, the book never lived up to its potential. Oh well. I’ll probably read it anyway; I just got a notice from my library telling me it was ready for pickup. In other news, I read _The Circular Staircase_ by Mary Roberts Rinehart. It’s considered one of the classics of early murder mystery fiction, but to me it was a huge mess. The plot was very repetitive, with people breaking into houses and running into each other in the woods and appearing and disappearing over and over. And much of the plot resolution was revealed by a minor character who was absent for much of the book, but showed up to reveal all at the end. Also, aside from the protagonist (a strong, smart woman with a sense of humor who was the best thing about the book), the female characters spent way too much time fainting and having to take to their beds due to the trauma of seeing a shadow in the hallway or something. ---
**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, 2019, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2019-edition/842809/66 "2019-11-27T18:28:50Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > …Now I’ve started Ian Fleming’s 1956 James Bond novel _Diamonds Are Forever_. So far, so good. Finished it. Big differences from the movie - no surprise - but a pretty good tale as Bond takes on diamond smugglers in an adventure that goes from Africa to London to Vegas to shipboard (on the liner _Queen Elizabeth_, which would later show up in the 007 movie _The Man with the Golden Gun_) and back to Africa again. I’ve now begun _At the Water’s Edge_ by Sara Gruen, a novel picked by one of my book clubs, and I can’t say I’m loving it. It’s about an American couple who move to Scotland early in WWII, and their problems. ---
**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 28, 2019, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2019-edition/842809/67 "2019-11-28T17:06:59Z")
Finished _Stalking the Angel_, by Robert Crais. His second LA noir featuring private eye Elvis Cole and his partner, ex-cop Joe Pike. Enjoyable but not as good as the other two I’ve read. Oddly, he’s a year off when he mentions that Elvis Presley’s death was in 1978. For that and a few other reasons, he could use a better editor. Also strange is that in his novels that are 30 years apart, the same characters stay the same age – his tough old street cat that had previously been shot in the head with a .22 is just as alive in 2017 as he was in 1987, and his 40-something contact at a film studio is still 40-something in 2017. But he’s still worth reading, and I plan to seek out more. Not sure what I will read next. The author of the Tri Angles mystery trilogy set here in Honolulu and which I’ve mentioned before says she’s going to lend me the third book at a Thanksgiving get-together tonight. So I’m going to hold off starting anything new until I see if I get that. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2019, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2019-edition/842809/68 "2019-11-28T17:38:32Z")
Just downloaded _America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States_ by Erika Lee. Just finished _The American Way Of Death Revisited_ by Jessica Mitford. ---
**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:** [November 28, 2019, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2019-edition/842809/69 "2019-11-28T23:02:16Z")
Finished _A Second Browser’s Dictionary: A Compendium of Curious Expressions and Intriguing Facts_, by John Ciardi, which was okay. Now I’m reading _The Uncommon Reader_, a novella by Alan Bennett. ---
**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:** [November 30, 2019, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2019-edition/842809/70 "2019-11-30T21:07:59Z")
Finished \*The Uncommon Reader \*by Alan Bennett, which I enjoyed. Now I’m reading _Pinball Wizards: Jackpots, Drains, and the Cult of the Silver Ball_, by Adam Ruben. ---
**Author:** ![Amara\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7993a0/32.png) [@Amara\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amara_1)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2019, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2019-edition/842809/71 "2019-11-30T21:32:23Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Oh, man. Are any of y’all Becky Chambers (A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet) fans? She has a novella out, [To Be Taught, If Fortunate](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43190272-to-be-taught-if-fortunate), and as much as I love her other work, this is one of the best things I’ve read in forever. > > Chambers just keeps getting better. If you like your science-fiction written beautifully but unpretentiously, if you like science fiction with plausible characters you’d want to be friends with, if you like your science fiction packed with ideas but not with glib answers, I just can’t recommend her highly enough. I just read this and enjoyed it tremendously. It felt quite different from her other books and really felt like she had leveled up. ---
**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 30, 2019, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2019-edition/842809/72 "2019-11-30T21:42:09Z")
> [@Dendarii\_Dame](#): > > Finished \*The Uncommon Reader \*by Alan Bennett, which I enjoyed… I read it a few years ago, and I liked it, too. The Queen discovers the joys of literature and finds her royal horizons comically broadened - good stuff. And the last paragraph is a beaut! ---
**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:** [November 30, 2019, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2019-edition/842809/73 "2019-11-30T22:28:29Z")
> [@Amara\_1](#): > > I just read this and enjoyed it tremendously. It felt quite different from her other books and really felt like she had leveled up. Agreed. There’s something she’s doing that’s pretty different from any other SF author I’ve ever read, even including Le Guin. It’s a mild spoiler, but a spoiler nonetheless: This book, and **Record of a Spaceborn Few** , have virtually no violence at all in them. It takes the focus off whiz-bang action, or even the deep social injustice questions that rooted Le Guin’s work, and onto other topics. It’s weirdly exhilarating. ---
**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, 2019, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2019-edition/842809/74 "2019-12-01T00:06:17Z")
New thread: [Is that sleigh bells I hear?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=22002094&posted=1#post22002094) ---
**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 8, 2019, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2019-edition/842809/75 "2019-12-08T04:33:33Z")
edit: oops, meant to post this in December! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/khadajis-whatcha-reading-thread-november-2019-edition/842809.md?page=3)