# Whatcha Readin' August 2010 Edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 2, 2010, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894 "2010-08-02T14:59:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/21 "2010-08-04T02:28:35Z")
Well into _Drood_, by Dan Simmons and sorry, **Khadj** , but I think I love it! Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, loads of laudanum, oodles of opium, evil doers in Undertown, murder, mayhem and mental illness – what’s _not_ to love? Okay, it meanders [del]a little[/del], but still. ---
**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:** [August 4, 2010, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/22 "2010-08-04T17:56:02Z")
I’m still enjoying the soap opera that is the Inspector Lynley mystery series: just finished _Missing Joseph_. I read _The Graveyard Game_, the fourth book in The Company series by Kage Baker. I like these, but the first one remains my favorite. Right now I’m reading _Starfish_, by Peter Watts, and I’m not sure that I’m going to like it. I picked this up because I enjoyed his Hugo-nominated novel _Blindsight_. \*Starfish \*is about a team of people manning a facility at the bottom of the ocean that is harnessing geothermal power. Usually in these cases we send down the best and the brightest - the most psychologically stable people we can find, to handle the stressful environment, right? In this book management seems to have felt that it was a pity to screw up good resources, so instead they have sent down a collection of violent, perverted or otherwise emotionally damaged people, apparently on the theory that these folks are already “preadapted” for stressful situations. A whole team of unsympathetic characters worked in _Blindsight_, but it’s not working as well for me here. After watching the new movie about Charles Darwin, I bought a beautiful illustrated copy of _Origin of Species_. It’s full of excerpts from his personal papers and from _The Voyage of the Beagle_. These tidbits are scatted throughout the book and distract from the text, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/23 "2010-08-04T18:22:30Z")
Finished _American Bee._ Interesting; this guy is absolutely obsessed with the word _rijsttafel_. ---
**Author:** ![Misnomer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/misnomer/32/14897_2.png) [@Misnomer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misnomer)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/24 "2010-08-04T18:28:10Z")
I haven’t been in one of these threads in a while; I’m glad I’m able to get in on this one relatively early! I’m reading two books right now: [ul] [li]I’m about a quarter of the way into _[I Am Charlotte Simmons](http://www.amazon.com/I-Am-Charlotte-Simmons-Novel/dp/0374281580/)_ by Tom Wolfe (it’s been in my “to read” pile for three years)[/li][li]I’m about halfway through _[The Private Patient](http://www.amazon.com/Private-Patient-Vintage-P-D-James/dp/0307455289/)_ by P.D. James[/li][/ul] Both are good so far, but the size and heft of the Wolfe is really making a case for me getting an eReader. 🙂 I’m happy to be reading some James again: she’s been my favorite author for more than 25 years now. > [@Antigen](#): > > I just started **Unfriendly Fire: How the Gay Ban Undermines the Military and Weakens America** , by Nathaniel Frank. That sounds interesting! I’ll add it to my wishlist. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/25 "2010-08-04T19:48:57Z")
> [@koeeoaddi](#): > > Well into _Drood_, by Dan Simmons and sorry, **Khadj** , but I think I love it! Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, loads of laudanum, oodles of opium, evil doers in Undertown, murder, mayhem and mental illness – what’s _not_ to love? > > Okay, it meanders [del]a little[/del], but still. Glad you liked it better than I did. I’m always glad too when others voice differing opinions. I like to hope that that is part of what this thread is for. It bored the piss out of me. I tried to give it away, but the guy I gave it to gave it back - it bored the piss out of him too. All the characters were annoying and in the end I just wanted it \*to \*end. ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/26 "2010-08-04T21:13:53Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > Because of it’s near universal recommendation in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=567182) I’m in the middle of **Earth Abides**. > > The writer has very 40’s notions of race relations and although the changing ecology of a post human world is in detail the social aspects of this kind upheaval are pretty much ignored. Either people walk around in an unrecoverable shocked haze or essentially maintain the status quo. The book would be longer than _War and Peace_ if he included everything, but still, the characters feel two dimensional because the narrator is over-the-top analytical. > > And how did freakin’ lions come to California!?! I started that book and had to throw it across the room around a third of the way through because the main character was so cardboard and unbelievable. The point for me in reading post-apocalyptic novels is seeing how people react to such extreme circumstances. That guy didn’t react at all, which meant reading the novel had no point for me. The author also had a problem with telling too much instead of showing, and the writing just seemed very amateurish in general. And I know the book was written in 1949 but when the main character comes across the only people he’s seen in ages, a black family, and he reacts to them as though they weren’t people at all but dumb creatures he could possibly enslave if he felt like it…I was seriously turned off. Meeting the woman who chooses to have a baby in these circumstances, which strains all credulity, was the last straw. Back to the library it went. So in protest, I’ve started what promises to be a much better post-apocalyptic novel, Robert Charles Wilson’s **Julian Comstock**. [ETA: I didn’t see your post when I replied, **AuntiePam** , but I agree with your assessment as well.] I’ve also got the complete works of Flann O’Brien waiting for me, and since I loved the movie so much, I’m reading Daniel Woodrell’s **Winter’s Bone**. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2010, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/27 "2010-08-04T21:23:24Z")
Finished _Rosemary and Rue_ recommended in the “Urban Fantasy that isn’t Harlequin Romance with magic” thread. I liked it mostly. October ‘Toby’ Daye, is a changeling (although the author uses this word differently than I would have) half-human, half elf. She is also a detective. This first in the series has her compelled to find the murderer of a full-blood elf (who was her friend.) In the end there was one plot point that I didn’t follow - but overall (as I said) I mostly enjoyed it. I haven’t yet decided if I liked it enough to read the rest. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/28 "2010-08-05T01:14:12Z")
_The Windup Girl_ by Paolo Bacigalupi. It’s really good, really really good so far. (I’m 60 pages in.) It’s a mildly dystopian SF novel set in Thailand after oil runs out, costal cities are flooded, and genetically induced plagues have killed countless people and wiped out many species. Lots of characters, all well written, including the main character; an artificial human from Japan, created to labor for an aging society, now despised in her new home, considered soulless and forced to work as a dancer/prostitute. It’s a rich and original world, though the author owes a lot to Gibson and Stephenson. I’d be interested in what **Siam Sam** thinks of it’s portrayal of post-apocalyptic Thailand. The author admits he’s not an expert and it’s somewhat fanciful. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/29 "2010-08-05T02:23:55Z")
I finished **A Storm of Swords** by George R. R. Martin yesterday, and I’m a couple of chapters into **A Feast for Crows**. If I skip the chapters about Daenerys entirely, will I miss much? I hate the character and what’s going on in her storyline seems like pages from another book stuck in at random…and from reading the wiki article about the next book, I probably won’t like it. If it’s ever published. ---
**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:** [August 5, 2010, 3:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/30 "2010-08-05T03:37:29Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > I finished **A Storm of Swords** by George R. R. Martin yesterday, and I’m a couple of chapters into **A Feast for Crows**. If I skip the chapters about Daenerys entirely, will I miss much? I hate the character and what’s going on in her storyline seems like pages from another book stuck in at random…and from reading the wiki article about the next book, I probably won’t like it. If it’s ever published. IMHO, at least for the moment, the adventures of Daenerys are separate enough from what’s going on back in Westeros that you could skip them without too much difficulty, if she annoys you so much. But the stories will become ever more interlinked, and odds are she’s eventually going to go back to W. to claim her family’s ancestral throne with a dragon or two to back her up, and it’s going to get ugly. That’s when you might wish you’d kept tabs on her. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/31 "2010-08-05T03:45:53Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > Glad you liked it better than I did. I’m always glad too when others voice differing opinions. I like to hope that that is part of what this thread is for. > > It bored the piss out of me. I tried to give it away, but the guy I gave it to gave it back - it bored the piss out of him too. > > All the characters were annoying and in the end I just wanted it \*to \*end. It probably helps that I’m listening to the audiobook and the reader is the amazing Simon Prebble (my favorite reader). 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/32 "2010-08-05T12:32:42Z")
Oh, I like Simon Prebble too. I just listened to _Corduroy Mansions_, first in the new Alexander McCall Smith series. Didn’t like the book too much but Prebble did what he could – he was the best thing about it. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/33 "2010-08-05T17:08:04Z")
I dumped _True Evil_ by Greg Iles after just a couple of pages. The author is telling me **everything**! He’s telling me things about the characters that would be better if they were revealed gradually, or if he let me figure them out on my own. Very disappointing. ---
**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:** [August 5, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/34 "2010-08-05T18:10:54Z")
I didn’t like \*Starfish \*after all, and Watts is depressing. (The quote he’s so proud of is “Whenever I find my will to live becoming too strong, I read Peter Watts.”). So I picked up the next No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency book, to get my cozy fix. _The Miracle at Speed Motors_: Mma Ramotswe is searching for a woman’s family, and also Mma Makutsi’s new bed won’t fit into her house. ---
**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:** [August 5, 2010, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/35 "2010-08-05T19:15:29Z")
I’ve gotten a small start on I Am Not a Serial Killer, by Dan Wells. Seems like it’s going to be good. ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2010, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/36 "2010-08-05T19:22:25Z")
After spending years reading almost exclusively nonfiction (and mostly rock biographies), I have finally decided to do something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile – switch to reading literature. I just recently finished **Silas Marner** and I’m about two-thirds of the way through **Jane Eyre.** Funny how I just happened to pick two books that share a major plot element … ---
**Author:** ![Gulo\_gulo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bcef8e/32.png) [@Gulo\_gulo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gulo_gulo)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2010, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/37 "2010-08-07T21:15:17Z")
Finished: **The Escapement (Engineer Trilogy)** by K.J. Parker ~ I can’t figure out what to think of this series. It’s well-written & interesting but the characters are all vile. **Into The Wild** by Jon Krakauer ~ Awesome. There are also some vids on YouTube of the bus and people who hike to it. It’s becomes a sort of hiker’s memorial destination. **The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon** by David Grann ~ Loved this book. **Sweet Silver Blues** by Glen Cook ~ lame. **Alone With the Devil: Famous Cases of a Courtroom Psychiatrist** by Ronald Markham ~ Ok fare about a psychiatrist who interviewed many infamous murderers. I was startled to see that someone is asking $135 for this book on Amazon. **More Adventures of the Great Brain** by John D Fitzgerald ~ Nostalgia! Loved this series. **The Prince of Shadow (Seven Brothers, Book 1)** by Curt Benjamin ~ Starting a new series. Pretty good fantasy with an Oriental flair. Bogs down in a few places but will continue to the next book. **Dragon Avenger (Age of Fire, Book 2)** ~ Restarts where the first book did but in the POV of one of the dragon siblings. I think I liked this one better than the first. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2010, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/38 "2010-08-07T23:45:10Z")
Finished _The Postmistress_ by Sarah Blake. It had its moments, but I can’t recommend it. If your characters are going to do something that doesn’t make sense, then rewrite the character, or tell me more about her so that it **does** make sense. Also, if you start with a teaser about a character who does something shocking, well, your character needs to do something shocking. And don’t preach at me. Just started _The Gargoyle_ by Andrew Davidson. Rocky first few pages, with a clumsy (“and then”, “and there was”, “and then”, and “it felt like”) description of a car accident, but it’s getting better. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Woodhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/838e76/32.png) [@Miss\_Woodhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Woodhouse)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/39 "2010-08-08T00:35:22Z")
**Eleanor of Aquitaine** , I just finished reading _Starfish_ today myself. I didn’t like it either. It felt like the author didn’t quite know how to end the book he started so he threw in a major curve ball at the end to wrap things up. Either book would have been ok, but two books squished together didn’t work for me. The narration was also very dispassionate and distant from the characters in a “I’m a great writer!” type of way. Didn’t do anything for me. Interesting concepts though. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894/40 "2010-08-08T00:47:49Z")
_In the Shadow of Gotham_ by Stephanie Pintoff, which won the Edgar for Best First (mystery) Novel and the inaugural Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Competition. Fascinating so far. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2010-edition/548894.md?page=3)