# Time for another installment of . . . "So, whatcha reading?" **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 14, 2001, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281 "2001-08-14T22:52:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![NothingMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b77776/32.png) [@NothingMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NothingMan)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/21 "2001-08-15T00:44:17Z")
_Rise To Rebellion_ the first of two volumes on the American Revolution written by Jeff Shaara. I have to admit I am quite impressed with Mr Shaara’s work. I loved the bookend novels he did on his dad’s _The Killer Angels_. After this one I may read the book he wrote on the Mexican War. ---
**Author:** ![False\_God](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ee7513/32.png) [@False\_God](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/False_God)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/22 "2001-08-15T00:45:45Z")
I just finished “Why Don’t Zebras Get Ulcers?” by Robert Sapolsky. Excellent specialized medical arcana with a good narrative voice, so non-doctors can read it and learn something. (the answer to the question posed in the title, BTW ,is that since they’re under different, specialized stress, they never have the chance to develop non-specific stressors that contribute to secondary stressor response, like hypertension.) Originally posted by Tretiak: I just finished The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’oh! of Homer, which taught me that Bart is not the Nietzschian ideal of the ubermensch. I read that last month and loved it. Just sold my copy online, too. I especially liked the chapter on the anti-intellectual bias of Americans. Originally posted by Montfort: My bedtime book is Is My Armor Straight? by Richard Berendzhen, a diary of a year in the life of a university president. He was my astronomy professor at American University and used to be the president there, too. The book is his diary of the '83-'84 academic year,as he struggled to raise the money to build the student/athletic center that I graduated AU in in 1995. I took Dr. B’s class in 99 in my senior year. Great guy-he got invited to our wedding. Really nice guy and always had time to talk to any of his students. Makes you wonder what was up with his having to leave office, doesn’t it? I’ve read the book as well, and it’s great. ---
**Author:** ![Lux\_Fiat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bc79bd/32.png) [@Lux\_Fiat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lux_Fiat)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/23 "2001-08-15T00:49:58Z")
I’m in the middle of _The Killer Angels_ by Michael Shaara, which shockingly, I’m only just reading for the first time. Also reading _Serendipities: Language and Lunacy_ by Umberto Eco, which is good stuff, and I have _The Return of Tarzan_, which I got free from [Project Gutenberg](http://www.gutenberg.net/), on my Visor. ---
**Author:** ![Maeglin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/24 "2001-08-15T00:51:48Z")
> [@](#): > > I just finished “Why Don’t Zebras Get Ulcers?” by Robert Sapolsky. This is actually a really good book, it a touch on the intuitive side. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about glucocorticoids. ---
**Author:** ![Agrippina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8797f3/32.png) [@Agrippina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agrippina)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/25 "2001-08-15T01:08:25Z")
I’m starting Tolkein’s **Lord of the Rings** trilogy for the first time. Stephen King’s **Four Past Midnight** : Just finished _The Langoliers_, which I really enjoyed, although for some reason the ending was a let down. I’m not sure why. I currently have skipped to _The Sun Dog_ because I love his Castle Rock stories. ---
**Author:** ![Lady\_Juliet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/cc9497/32.png) [@Lady\_Juliet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lady_Juliet)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/26 "2001-08-15T01:17:03Z")
Well today I just finished Pride and Prejudice. It’s now one of my favorite books. I’m such a sucker for romatic books with happy endings. 🙂 Now I’m off to the LOTR books because I haven’t actually read them yet, and I’m going to die if I don’t get to them soon! ---
**Author:** ![Rossarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/3e96dc/32.png) [@Rossarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rossarian)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/27 "2001-08-15T01:18:57Z")
Two books right now. Michael Shermer’s _How We Believe_, which is an interesting look at why humans have religion, and Harold G. Moore’s Vietnam classic, _We Were Soldiers Once…and Young._ ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/28 "2001-08-15T01:27:31Z")
Nonfiction: **Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From The American Indie Underground** , by Michael Azerrad. **Low Life** by Luc Sante, about pimps and small-time hustlers in NYC in the late 1800s. Fiction: **The Insult** by Rupert Thomson. **How To Be Good** by Nick Hornby. ---
**Author:** ![sewalk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@sewalk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sewalk)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/29 "2001-08-15T01:45:45Z")
**The Nine Billion Names of God** byt Arthur C. Clarke, probably the best collection of short stories by a single author, at least in science fiction. **Black Star Rising** by Fred Pohl **L.A. Confidential** by James Ellroy, makes the movie pale in comparison (no small feat, that). **Be Cool** by Elmore Leonard, Chili Palmer is soooo cool. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/30 "2001-08-15T02:16:53Z")
Haruki Murakami ‘A Wild Sheep Chase’ - surreal humour of the highest order. Anyone else read this guy? The autobiography of Richard Dunwoody - very successful British jump jockey, now retired. Robert Hughes ‘The Fatal Shore’ - follows the fate of the 160,000 men, women and children transported from Britain to Australia between 1787 and 1868. Grim reading. Several travel brochures prior to a September visit to Barcelona - looks good. Instruction manual for a recently purchased vibrator, bought on behalf of an unnamed friend of Mrs. Dr. Schadenfreude (In Waiting) - highly complex. ---
**Author:** ![rjk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed655f/32.png) [@rjk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjk)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/31 "2001-08-15T02:18:44Z")
Right now my bus book is _Waterloo_ by Bernard Cornwell, “Sharpe’s final adventure”, and I’m partway through _“G” is for Grafton_ by Natalie Hevener Kaufman and Carol McGinnis Kay, all about Kinsey Millhone. (Hi, **TV time**!) Next, probably _Family Honor_ by Robert B. Parker (_not_ a Spenser book), and _The People v. Clarence Darrow_ by Geoffrey Cowan, about his bribery trial. And somewhere in there I’ll be going through _The Art of Giancarlo Impiglia_ to look at the pictures - nice stuff, if you like his style. Best of all, every book here came from either the remainder table or the Vancouver Public Library book sale! ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Creant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b487fb/32.png) [@Miss\_Creant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Creant)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/32 "2001-08-15T02:44:39Z")
Just finished **Practical Demonkeeping** courtesy of this thread -[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=73119](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=73119) Have now read _The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove_ and \*Bloodsucking Fiends \* I am now working my way through all his books. Just picked up _Coyote Blue_ over the weekend ---
**Author:** ![Zyada](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zyada/32/3028_2.png) [@Zyada](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zyada)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/33 "2001-08-15T02:48:24Z")
I too just finished _Pride and Prejudice_. In addition to enjoying this for the romance and the writing, I enjoyed reading what is basically the source novel for the romance sub-genre called regencies, of which I am an afficionado. I sent the following quote to rjk and told him he needed to take it to heart: Elizabeth to Darcy > [@](#): > > My good qualities are under your protection, and you are to exaggerate them as much as possible; and in return it belongs to me to find occasions for teasing and quarrelling with you as often as may be Oddly enough, he declined to comment 😉 To lower the tone a bit, I also just finished a regency romance called _The Painted Lady_ by Barbara Metzger. The story is about a duke who is also an excellent painter, and one of his paintings starts talking to him: “I’m a pigment of your imagination”. The dukes patrynomic is Cartland, which I suspect is an in-joke, since Barbara Cartland was a rather prolific hack in the genre, and teased about creating more dukes that were ever found in Debrett’s Peerage. ---
**Author:** ![Pepper\_Mill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Pepper\_Mill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pepper_Mill)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/34 "2001-08-15T02:50:18Z")
**The Bes of James Blish** , the last in the wonderful Del Rey series “The Best of…” that they published from 1974 to 1979. I’ve read all but three of them now. Regrettably, onl one of them (The Best of Lester Del Rey) is currently in print. ---
**Author:** ![CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crankyasanoldman/32/11670_2.png) [@CrankyAsAnOldMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrankyAsAnOldMan)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/35 "2001-08-15T02:52:41Z")
I just bought **Word Freak** for my mom (a book about diehard Scrabble players) but I started reading it myself as I was waiting for the bus today and was hooked by page 5. I think the “for my mom” thing may end up being a little off. I just finished yet another Elinor Lipman novel (I love all her stuff) and another Ken Haruf (ditto). I loathe them both for ending their books because they coulda had me for another 1000 pages with their characters. I have now started **Bread Alone** (Can’t remember author) which my Mother in Law lent me. I can tell I’m gonna love it. I leave on vacation tomorrow and will also take along my Roland Merullo novel **Revere Beach Boulevard** that I just got from the library. I’d never heard of him before, but he wrote a novella that was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education last spring and I really liked it. I got **The Battle for God** on the recommendation of several dopers. It’s been sitting by my bed since December. I _plan_ to read it…does that count? Oh, and in case my committee chair is reading this, I am giving Braxton & Hargens’ lit review on academic disciplines another good look-over, too. ---
**Author:** ![hardygrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@hardygrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hardygrrl)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/36 "2001-08-15T03:54:26Z")
Just finished **Experience** , Martin Amis’ autobiography, for probably the 23rd time. The man can write. 🙂 Now I have \*\* Heavier Than Heaven\*\*, a Kurt Cobain biography, to read. And I dip into **The Divine Comedy** by Dante, every so often. ---
**Author:** ![rackensack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@rackensack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rackensack)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/37 "2001-08-15T04:32:55Z")
Lessee, in the last month or so . . . Three of George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman novels: _Flashman and the Redskins_, _Flashman at the Charge_, and currently _Flashman’s Lady_); I have trouble finding them here in Atlanta, but I lucked out on my next-to-last trip to my company headquarters in Campbell, CA – the Barnes & Noble around the corner from the office had several in stock, and I’ll pick up a few more next trip out. Patrick O’Brian’s _The Ionian Mission_; I’ve done the whole Aubrey/Maturin series once as unabridged books on tape from the library (I’d almost rather listen to Patrick Tull read than sit down with the books myself), but since my first pass their copy of _The Ionian Mission_ has disappeared, so when I reached that point in my second pass (number eight of twenty) I had to get the dead-tree version. I also have a copy of O’Brian’s biography of Sir Joseph Banks that I’ve started but have set aside for the time being. Four Tom Sharpe novels: _Riotous Assembly_, _Indecent Exposure_, _Vintage Stuff_, and _The Throwback_. Evelyn Waugh’s _The Loved One_. Other non-fiction stuff: Matt Ridley’s _The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature_ and Jared Diamond’s _Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution of Human Sexuality_; I had the hardest time finding a copy of the Diamond book, despite looking everywhere for it since reading _The Third Chimpanzee_ several years ago. Once again, the Barnes & Noble in Campbell came to my rescue. Next up in the non-fiction pile: Antonio Damasio’s _Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain_. And I still have Steven Pinker’s _Words and Rules_ to get to sometime soon, among other things I’ve bought but not yet read. ---
**Author:** ![racinchikki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/eada6e/32.png) [@racinchikki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/racinchikki)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/38 "2001-08-15T04:45:25Z")
Larry McMurtry’s **Lonesome Dove** , for the fourth time. It’s the only novel I have in my dorm room. ---
**Author:** ![Sophie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/35a633/32.png) [@Sophie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophie)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/39 "2001-08-15T04:58:27Z")
Just finished “Blue Angel” by Francine Prose. Now reading “Jane Eyre” and will read “Black Flower” by Howard Bahr next. ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2001, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281/40 "2001-08-15T05:06:00Z")
Just finished _Hit Man_ by Lawrence Block The _entire Dune_ Series. _Heretics of Dune_ is my current bedtime reader. Also recently read _the Fourth Hand_ by John Irving [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/time-for-another-installment-of-so-whatcha-reading/76281.md?page=3)