# What are you reading this month, dopers? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 25, 2006, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011 "2006-09-25T02:47:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/101 "2006-09-30T18:10:53Z")
**Ignorance** by Milan Kundera. Marverlous, marvelous book. One of my favorites of his novels. On the table next to my bed are also a collection of poems by Coleridge (“That sunny dome! those caves of ice!”) and **Failed States** by Noam Chomsky, which has done nothing for me. I’m going to exchange it for something else. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/102 "2006-09-30T19:40:26Z")
Duel, which is about the first 80 days of WWII, as Hitler vs. Churchill. Little dry, but a different perspective than most histories of the era. Hollywood, Interrupted - a gossip book about how dreadful celebrities are. Mask Market, the latest from Andrew Vachss. I am wondering if I am not getting burned out on the Burke series. Why Me?, a follow-up autobiography from Sammy Davis, Jr. I read Yes I Can many years back, when he was still married to May Britt. My gosh, what a self-centered ass hole he seems to have been. And I just got a bunch of old, old hand-to-hand combat/jujitsu instructional manuals on CD. And I read myself to sleep at night with my copies of The Development of Muscular Bulk and Power and The Development of Physical Strength, by Anthony Ditillo. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/103 "2006-09-30T20:17:33Z")
**By Brother’s Blues** by Pearl Cleage. The book is not only set in my hometown, but in the actual neighborhood I grew up in. It’s alright, except that Cleage’s attempts at magical realism falls a little short. Also, the description of the setting is not really accurate. She would have done better creating a new neighborhood from wholecloth rather than using an existing one. But it was still a blast to read. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2006, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/104 "2006-09-30T20:18:36Z")
That should be **Baby Brother’s Blues**. ---
**Author:** ![wonderlust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonderlust/32/7237_2.png) [@wonderlust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderlust)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2006, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/105 "2006-10-01T00:43:01Z")
I guess this counts: I just ordered the new next-generation eInk [Sony Reader](http://www.learningcenter.sony.us/assets/itpd/reader/) . It doesn’t ship until November. ---
**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:** [October 2, 2006, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/106 "2006-10-02T01:15:41Z")
[QUOTE=Rebecca DiMwitter] Are you enjoying this? Enough to recommend? I had to add it to my library request list after reading your post as the subject matter interests me greatly. [/QUOTE] I wanted to wait until I was finished to reply, but it’s been a busy weekend so I’m only halfway through it. I am enjoying it. I don’t know what the author’s conclusions are going to be, so it’s reading like a murder mystery. The depiction of the Elizabethan intelligence network is fascinating. There are quite a lot of “characters” to keep up with, but so far I’m following it okay. I’ve read biographies of the Tudor and Stewart royals, so I’m familiar with most of the famous people mentioned, but that’s about the extent of my knowlege of this period. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2006, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/107 "2006-10-02T03:37:50Z")
Currently, I am alternating between **Perry Rhodan** (english translations) and the **Destroyer** series. I read one book from one series and then one from the other, uh, yeah, that’d be alternating :rolleyes: I download them and put them on my Palm. I figure I’ve got well over 750 books on it now. In between times I’m working on a book called **‘Life is a series of Presentations’** by Tony Jeary and one called **‘The Culture Code’** by Clotaire Rapaille, a pretty interesting read. Both books I read a bit then digest before coming back to them. When I get home I’ll have **“Letters to a Christian Nation”** by Sam Harris, and **“The God Delusion”** by Richard Dawkins, bought together at Amazon. I just wish I didn’t read so damn slow. And during all this I’m only up to episode #416 in MST3K. Is there any cure for this sleep business because it’s really cutting into more important things? ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2006, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/108 "2006-10-02T04:53:22Z")
Update, wot? I turned in my books at the library and got: Heinlein’s _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_, H.P. Lovecraft’s _Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories_, _All Quiet on the Western Front_, _The Once and Future King_ and _The Sword in the Stone_, _Twelve Impossible Things Before Breakfast_ by Jane Yolen, Louis de Bernieres’s _Birds Without Wings_, _Mimus_ by Lilli Thal, _Wideacre_ by Philippa Gregory, and _The First Vial_ by Linnea Heinrichs. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2006, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/109 "2006-10-02T11:36:43Z")
[QUOTE=Uzi] Currently, I am alternating between **Perry Rhodan** (english translations) and the **Destroyer** series. \ [/QUOTE] Is that the Destroyer series originally created by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir? ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2006, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/110 "2006-10-02T11:44:50Z")
[QUOTE=Khadaji] Is that the Destroyer series originally created by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir? [/QUOTE] That’s the one. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2006, 11:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/111 "2006-10-02T11:46:48Z")
[QUOTE=Uzi] That’s the one. [/QUOTE] I used to love those! OK, it would never be mistaken for great lit, but they were fun. I stopped reading them after Murphy stopped writing. They lost his zing. But they were fun for many years. ---
**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:** [October 2, 2006, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/112 "2006-10-02T14:06:22Z")
[QUOTE=Kythereia] Update, wot? I turned in my books at the library and got: Heinlein’s _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_, H.P. Lovecraft’s _Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories_, _All Quiet on the Western Front_, _The Once and Future King_ and _The Sword in the Stone_, _Twelve Impossible Things Before Breakfast_ by Jane Yolen, Louis de Bernieres’s _Birds Without Wings_, _Mimus_ by Lilli Thal, _Wideacre_ by Philippa Gregory, and _The First Vial_ by Linnea Heinrichs. [/QUOTE] Kythereia, I’d be interested to hear what you think about _Wideacre_. I have kept almost every single book I’ve ever bought, but that’s one of the few I’ve despised enough to get rid of. Looking at the Amazon reviews, it seems that people either love or hate this book. I really wanted to like Gregory - she’s prolific and she writes the kind of historical fiction that I should enjoy. I tried a couple of her other books, and I just can’t read her. ---
**Author:** ![pinkfreud](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pinkfreud/32/17603_2.png) [@pinkfreud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pinkfreud)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2006, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/113 "2006-10-05T20:23:47Z")
[QUOTE=AuntiePam] Come back and say how you’re liking **The Lincoln Lawyer** , please. I’ve been thinking about getting that one. [/QUOTE] It’s a dandy. Michael Connelly is in fine form here. This is a gritty, cynical legal thriller, with a not-very-likeable protagonist/narrator, and it moves along at a nice brisk pace. I think I like Connelly’s cop books better, but if he writes more legal stuff, I’ll definitely be interested. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2006, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/114 "2006-10-05T21:10:46Z")
**pinkfreud** , thanks. My replacement Amazon gift certificate came in the mail (I accidentally tossed the first one) so I ordered the Connelly book. Also ordered the Kristen Lavandstratter (sp) books, and one other title I’ve forgotten. I’m about halfway through **Martha Peake** by Patrick McGrath. The OP asks us to say why we choose a book. I grabbed this one because it’s been in the TBR for years and I was tired of looking at it. Then I wonder why I should bother to read it, because the DJ blurb and the book’s first few pages seem to give away the whole story. Martha’s tormented drunken father does something terrible to her, she emigrates from England to the Colonies and dies young, after doing something heroic to help the American Revolution. Well, it’s damn good. McGrath writes like a dream. He’s fleshing things out nicely and telling a great story. ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2006, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/115 "2006-10-06T04:35:24Z")
[QUOTE=Eleanor of Aquitaine] Kythereia, I’d be interested to hear what you think about _Wideacre_… [/QUOTE] Finished it, and… well, I’m still a fan of Philippa Gregory. But the patience is starting to wearing thin. Beatrice turns me off. I can’t sympathize with her as a heroine, and I can’t appreciate her as a well-crafted villain. All of the other characters (with the exception of Celia) seem one-note and equally tiresome. I’ve been outraged by books and I’ve been enthralled, but this is one of the few where I just gave up because it didn’t feel like it was worth the effort. First _The Virgin’s Lover_ and _Virgin Earth_, and now this. I really did like _The Other Boleyn Girl_ (in spite of the ludicrous way Gregory portrays Anne Boleyn sometimes) and _The Constant Princess_, but there are other just as good portraits out there (Robin Maxwell’s _The Queen’s Bastard_, for example). I’m starting on Heinlein now, after reading the Lovecraft stories. This should be fun. 🙂 ---
**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:** [October 6, 2006, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/116 "2006-10-06T12:55:52Z")
_Recently read:_ Hit by a farm : how I learned to stop worrying and love the barn by Catherine Friend. Good title, huh? The book was a decent light read but nothing special. Remember me : a lively tour of the new American way of death by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen. Morbidly interesting, but Mary Roach’s Stiff was better. _Currently reading:_ Packaging girlhood : rescuing our daughters from marketers’ schemes by Sharon Lamb. Enjoying this one, though the author’s just preaching to the choir. I’m hoping that by the time it’s over, I’ll have more new constructive ideas about daughter-raising. _In the To-Be-Read Pile, I’m catching up on my kiddie lit as usual:_ The wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken The children of Green Knowe by L.M. Boston Charmed life by Diana Wynne Jones A wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin _Plus:_ Service and style : how the American department store fashioned the middle class by Jan Whitaker McLibel : burger culture on trial by John Vidal. (I’m nearly always reading something about the evils of food or food production, it seems.) Jeans : a cultural history of an American icon by James Sullivan Last laughs : funny tombstone quotes and famous last words by Kathleen E. Miller _Waiting for me at the library:_ The beasts of Clawstone Castle by Eva Ibbotson Chuck Klosterman IV : a decade of curious people and dangerous ideas by Chuck Klosterman Rumspringa : to be or not to be Amish by Tom Shachtman Prisoner of Trebekistan : a decade in Jeopardy! by Bob Harris ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2006, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/117 "2006-10-06T13:17:46Z")
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle] The wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken [/quote] Quite possibly my most favorite book of my well-read childhood. > [@](#): > > (I’m nearly always reading something about the evils of food or food production, it seems.) If you haven’t read Michael Pollan’s **Omnivore’s Dilemma** yet, add it to the to-be-read pile. ---
**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:** [October 6, 2006, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/118 "2006-10-06T13:41:56Z")
[QUOTE=twickster] If you haven’t read Michael Pollan’s **Omnivore’s Dilemma** yet, add it to the to-be-read pile. [/QUOTE] I read it not too long ago, and it really was a good one. Thanks! ---
**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 30, 2011, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/119 "2011-12-30T02:06:49Z")
Thanks, **Quasi**. We have regular monthly book threads now; here’s the current one: [Whatcha Readin' December 2011 Edition - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=633201) I’ll suggest a mod close this zombie thread. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 30, 2011, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011/120 "2011-12-30T02:09:15Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Thanks, **Quasi**. We have regular monthly book threads now; here’s the current one: [Whatcha Readin' December 2011 Edition - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=633201) > > I’ll suggest a mod close this zombie thread. Thanks, **Elendil’s Heir**. **Quasimodem** , I hope you’ll join the active discussion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-you-reading-this-month-dopers/374011.md?page=5)