# Whatcha Readin' August 2012 Edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 31, 2012, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986 "2012-07-31T19:52:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/81 "2012-08-14T15:21:19Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > Then you’d probably like _Hell or High Water_ by Joy Castro. I’m not finished yet but it’s shaping up to be a five-star read. I’m on page 44. So far I’m very interested in this book. But I find it amusing that the character carries a Sharpie marker so she can go around correcting graffiti, and yet the book misspells “minuscule.” ---
**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 14, 2012, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/82 "2012-08-14T16:58:10Z")
> [@Snickers](#): > > I finished [The Diary of Anne Frank](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diary_of_anne_frank) last week - a really good read. I do rather wish that she would’ve focused more on politics and what was going on for Jews, but she was also a) 13 - 14 and b) stuck in the Annex all of the time, and thus might not have known. Very sobering, and very tragic. Highly recommended for background and photos: [Anne Frank: Her life in words and pictures from the archives of The Anne Frank House: Metselaar, Menno, van der Rol, Ruud, Pomerans, Arnold J.: 9781596435476: Amazon.com: Books](http://www.amazon.com/Anne-Frank-words-pictures-archives/dp/159643547X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344962118&sr=8-1&keywords=anne+frank+her+life+in+words) ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/83 "2012-08-14T17:16:08Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > I’m on page 44. So far I’m very interested in this book. But I find it amusing that the character carries a Sharpie marker so she can go around correcting graffiti, and yet the book misspells “minuscule.” I found one site that says “miniscule” is okay, but most disagree. Yep, that’s almost a Gaudere’s Law thing right there. 🙂 I’m reading _Pale Criminal_, the third in Philip Kerr’s Berlin Noir trilogy. It’s set in the fall of 1938, and PI Bernie Gunther is back with the police department and looking for a serial killer. Julius Strecher is prominently featured. I looked him up at Wiki and was pleased to read that his execution didn’t go smoothly. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/84 "2012-08-14T17:28:09Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > I found one site that says “miniscule” is okay, but most disagree. Yep, that’s almost a Gaudere’s Law thing right there. 🙂 > > I’m reading _Pale Criminal_, the third in Philip Kerr’s Berlin Noir trilogy. It’s set in the fall of 1938, and PI Bernie Gunther is back with the police department and looking for a serial killer. Julius Strecher is prominently featured. I looked him up at Wiki and was pleased to read that his execution didn’t go smoothly. Be sure to read the subsequent Bernie Gunther novels that follow the Berlin Noir trilogy. If anything, I find that Kerr has grown as an author. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/85 "2012-08-14T17:34:26Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Be sure to read the subsequent Bernie Gunther novels that follow the Berlin Noir trilogy. If anything, I find that Kerr has grown as an author. I plan to. But does he get laid in every book? Women are falling into his, er, lap in the first two books. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/86 "2012-08-14T17:40:54Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > I’m reading [Beany Malone](http://www.amazon.com/Beany-Malone-Lenora-Mattingly-Weber/dp/0963960741/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1344860470&sr=1-1&keywords=beany+Malone), by Lenora Mattingly Weber, a teen read published in 1948. Cozy and wholesome to the max. I loved this series when I was a kid … it’s SO dated but I think that’s partly why I liked them, I was intrigued with all the weird (to me) details about life in the 1940s and 50s. ---
**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:** [August 14, 2012, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/87 "2012-08-14T17:51:13Z")
Reading Ken Follett’s _World Without End_(the sequel to _Pillars of the Earth_) on audio. I have _two_ hardcover copies at home that I never got into, but it’s easy to read on my commute to and from work. I’m also reading Robert Booth’s **Death of an Empire**. I’ve been looking for a book on tyhis topic for a long time – until the first half of the 19th century, Salem Masachusetts was a rival in trading, power, and money with Boston. It had a worldwide trade empire, and the world’s richest man lived there. But during that time Salem fell, never to rise again. I always wondered how and why, and assumed that it had something to do with the shallowness of Salem’s port, which couldn’t accommodate ships of deeper draft as it could the brigs of the earlier period. But huge ships can still come in to Salem’s outer harbor (abnd have, in recent years, to deliver cargos of oil to the Salem power plant), so if that was all there was to it, the trade could have migrated out to the outer harbor, instead of totally disappearing. It’s a complex story. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/88 "2012-08-14T17:53:31Z")
I listened to one of the Bernie Gunther novels on audio book and couldn’t get into it. It’s just the kind of thing I’d like, so I don’t know why. Maybe I’ll give Kerr another try. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2012, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/89 "2012-08-14T18:10:12Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > I plan to. But does he get laid in every book? Women are falling into his, er, lap in the first two books. He gets increasingly world-weary, but basically yeah. It’s a noir obligation, that the cynical detective have doomed relationships with dangerous women. 😉 I will say this though - in the later books his doomed relationships are well worked into the plots, providing some real jaw-dropping twists. ---
**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 14, 2012, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/90 "2012-08-14T18:11:38Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > I loved this series when I was a kid … it’s SO dated but I think that’s partly why I liked them, I was intrigued with all the weird (to me) details about life in the 1940s and 50s. Yeah, I’m digging it, but my library doesn’t have any of them…I don’t know if I want to put them through fourteen more interlibrary loans. 🙂 ---
**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 15, 2012, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/91 "2012-08-15T01:05:08Z")
Just finished reading Robert Lawson’s _Mr. Revere and I_ with my two youngest boys. I liked it more than they did, but the Boston setting was timely, given our recent visit there. Tonight we start Robert Heinlein’s _Have Space Suit - Will Travel_. > [@AuntiePam](#): > > …I’m reading _Pale Criminal_, the third in Philip Kerr’s Berlin Noir trilogy. It’s set in the fall of 1938, and PI Bernie Gunther is back with the police department and looking for a serial killer. Julius Strecher is prominently featured. I looked him up at Wiki and was pleased to read that his execution didn’t go smoothly. Robert Harris’s alt-history masterpiece _Fatherland_ offers a very interesting look at the Berlin police and criminal subcultures under the Nazi regime. ---
**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:** [August 15, 2012, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/92 "2012-08-15T03:14:58Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > Robert Harris’s alt-history masterpiece _Fatherland_ offers a very interesting look at the Berlin police and criminal subcultures under the Nazi regime. I second _Fatherland_. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2012, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/93 "2012-08-15T11:48:59Z")
> [@FoieGrasIsEvil](#): > > I also have **Firebird** by Jack McDevitt, a sci-fi novel. I’ve never heard of this writer…is he any good? I like him a lot and read this one in h/c last year. It’s volume 5 in an ongoing series but I hadn’t read the previous 3 and had no problems with it. (I had read vol 1 back in 1989!) I thought it sagged a little in the middle with lots of short scenes which didn’t appear to progress the plot much but it picked up again. Very good. Currently I’m making my way through the complete _Kefahuchi Tract Trilogy_ by **M. John Harrison**. I bought _Light_ when it came out in 2002 but failed to read it, so I wasn’t able to read _Nova Swing_ when it came out in 2006, but now _Empty Space_ is out, I’ve finally started! I’m now about 2/3rds of the way through the final volume. 🙂 Great stuff, but not an easy read. ---
**Author:** ![Stowed\_Bob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stowed_bob/32/3312_2.png) [@Stowed\_Bob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stowed_Bob)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2012, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/94 "2012-08-15T12:03:21Z")
**Metaplanetary** by Tony Daniel. I’ve only known him for a short story I read over a decade ago called [A Dry, Quiet War](http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/quietwar.htm). I got instantly hooked, which I didn’t expect and haven’t experienced for years, so I’ll have to fish through his backlog of novels. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2012, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/95 "2012-08-15T14:22:43Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > Then you’d probably like _Hell or High Water_ by Joy Castro. I’m not finished yet but it’s shaping up to be a five-star read. OK, I finished and I thought it was extraordinary. I definitely will read this author’s next book, and I think she has the makings of a series here. In her acknowledgements she cites Ned Sublette’s _The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square_, and I read that one before it was even published. And she’s coming to Bouchercon so I can meet her! ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2012, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/96 "2012-08-15T23:02:08Z")
> [@RandMcnally](#): > > I’m about a quarter of the way through _Cloud Atlas_. It’s a book I would never read myself, but my friend raved about it over and over, so I’m pushing my way through it. I’m liking it so far. It’s…different. I just finished it. It took a while for me to get really into it, but once I did I finished it faster than I anticipated. Now I have no idea how they’re going to do the movie. ---
**Author:** ![slm2955](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c6cbf5/32.png) [@slm2955](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slm2955)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/97 "2012-08-16T14:26:33Z")
Casual vacancy- J.k rowling ---
**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 16, 2012, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/98 "2012-08-16T15:00:27Z")
Starting on [Wool](http://www.amazon.com/Wool-Omnibus-Edition-Hugh-Howey/dp/1469984202/ref=tmm_pap_title_0/184-2796579-1930527), by Hugh Howey. Sci-fi about an underground society. ---
**Author:** ![yanceylebeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yanceylebeef/32/12290_2.png) [@yanceylebeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yanceylebeef)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/99 "2012-08-16T15:18:35Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > Starting on [Wool](http://www.amazon.com/Wool-Omnibus-Edition-Hugh-Howey/dp/1469984202/ref=tmm_pap_title_0/184-2796579-1930527), by Hugh Howey. Sci-fi about an underground society. You are in for a ride. I tore through the five books in about a week and a half. Great world building! ---
**Author:** ![Rollo\_Tomasi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/58956e/32.png) [@Rollo\_Tomasi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rollo_Tomasi)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2012, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986/100 "2012-08-16T16:02:48Z")
> [@slm2955](#): > > Casual vacancy- J.k rowling Did you get an advance reader copy? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-august-2012-edition/629986.md?page=6)