# Whatcha Readin' Dec 2012 Edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 30, 2012, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625 "2012-11-30T23:38:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**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 19, 2012, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/101 "2012-12-19T22:55:24Z")
> [@yellowval](#): > > I finished “The Time Machine” last night. It was a fun read. I’m now on to “Watership Down.” I’ve joined a new book club at the library and it’s our first selection. It’s not something I probably would have chosen for myself (rabbits?), but I’m hoping I enjoy it anyway. One of my all time favorite books! Hazel is a hero for all species. And it’s not a book I would give a young child, particularly a sensitive one, there are some very dark and drear things in it. Adams was not writing for the Winnie the Pooh crowd. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2012, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/102 "2012-12-19T23:05:36Z")
> [@yellowval](#): > > I finished “The Time Machine” last night. It was a fun read. I’m now on to “Watership Down.” I’ve joined a new book club at the library and it’s our first selection. It’s not something I probably would have chosen for myself (rabbits?), but I’m hoping I enjoy it anyway. Watership Down is one of my favorites as well–first put in my hands by my fifth-grade teacher, and read countless times since then. It keeps coming up, so I think maybe I’m due to read it again now. You will not be disappointed. ---
**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 20, 2012, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/103 "2012-12-20T01:35:29Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > I’m about three-quarters of the way through **Tuf Voyaging**. It’s more of a collection of novellas than one entire novel. The stories are entertaining, but I could not care less about the main character (Tuf). He may as well be a robot. I love love _love_ that book! Probably my all-time favorite sf book. Tuf is phlegmatic in the extreme, but his biting sarcasm, deadpan humor, political acumen and love of cats offsets it a bit, I think. ---
**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:** [December 20, 2012, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/104 "2012-12-20T03:01:37Z")
I’m on my 3rd attempt at **Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell**. This time I’m listening to Simon Prebble read it and think I’m going to go the distance. I’m also reading **Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream**. I love Neil Young and some parts of this book are fascinating, but I swear to God, it was outlined, organized and edited by Grandpa Simpson. Rambling doesn’t begin to describe it. ---
**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 20, 2012, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/105 "2012-12-20T03:16:43Z")
> [@koeeoaddi](#): > > I’m on my 3rd attempt at **Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell**. This time I’m listening to Simon Prebble read it and think I’m going to go the distance. I made it through the first time, but I can’t say it was really enjoyable. That woman NEEDS an editor. I started **Skull Duggery** by Aaron Elkins tonight. I am ridiculously happy to have a new Skeleton Detective book! ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/106 "2012-12-20T12:55:09Z")
Yeah, I put down **Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell** and never looked back. Some here love it, but it bored the piss out of me. I kept waiting for a plot to unfold. ---
**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 20, 2012, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/107 "2012-12-20T13:10:41Z")
I was intrigued enough by some of the secondary characters to plow through it but I really think it should have been three books. Interestingly enough, I could not sell it to the bookstore, they wouldn’t take it. I ended up donating it to Deseret Industries. (Utah’s homegrown Goodwill) ---
**Author:** ![yellowval](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/919ad9/32.png) [@yellowval](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowval)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/108 "2012-12-20T14:41:11Z")
> [@LawMonkey](#): > > Watership Down is one of my favorites as well–first put in my hands by my fifth-grade teacher, and read countless times since then. It keeps coming up, so I think maybe I’m due to read it again now. You will not be disappointed. [QUOTE=DZedNConfused] One of my all time favorite books! Hazel is a hero for all species. And it’s not a book I would give a young child, particularly a sensitive one, there are some very dark and drear things in it. Adams was not writing for the Winnie the Pooh crowd. [/QUOTE] I’m definitely getting into it now (am past the _bunnies?!?_ stage). It is reassuring to know people here like it. I can almost always trust Dopers to have good taste in books. 🙂 It does seem on the dark side for younger children. Fortunately the only child in my house is 2, so I’ll be sure not to let her read it. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Ian\_D.Bergkamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Ian\_D.Bergkamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ian_D.Bergkamp)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/109 "2012-12-20T16:04:29Z")
With all the Lord of the Rings discussion prompted by the new Hobbit movie, I’ve started re-reading the Silmarillion. I’ve read it once before, but it’s been a while and I’ve forgotten a lot of the details. I’m thinking that, once I finish it, it’s about time to start in on the Histories of Middle-Earth. ---
**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 20, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/110 "2012-12-20T16:04:37Z")
> [@yellowval](#): > > Fortunately the only child in my house is 2, so I’ll be sure not to let her read it. 😉 Well at least not for another year…😛 ---
**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 20, 2012, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/111 "2012-12-20T16:58:04Z")
> [@koeeoaddi](#): > > I’m on my 3rd attempt at **Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell**. This time I’m listening to Simon Prebble read it and think I’m going to go the distance… Good for you! You may have heard that the BBC will be making a miniseries of it: [Who would you cast in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell? - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=598702) Clarke’s short story collection _The Ladies of Grace Adieu_, set in the same universe as JS&MN, is also worth a look. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Excellent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Mr.Excellent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Excellent)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/112 "2012-12-20T17:10:03Z")
I’m reading Mary Doria Russell’s “The Sparrow” - it was recommended in another thread here, actually. It’s about first contact between a Jesuit mission and the first intelligent alien life humans have found - also, the evolving relationships between the characters and God. Very, very Catholic sort of story. I’m enjoying it, and I’d recommend it with qualifications. Parts of the story are very good, the first-contact plot is exciting, and Russell has a knack for making alien mind-sets (including the deeply religious human characters) relateable. That said, some of the religious discussion verges on glurge. The strongest criticism I’d level, though, is that all of the characters seem to be carrying a ginormous Idiot Ball at all times. There are plenty of examples, and I don’t want to spoil a mostly well-written novel, but here’s a major one. (Don’t click the spoiler box if you don’t want to see a major plot point revealed: [SPOILER]The mission has only one shuttle capable of conveying them between the alien planet and their orbiting starship. That shuttle has a very, very limited fuel capacity; it can take them from the starship to the surface and back, but with a margin of only 3% or so. One of the characters - a pilot whose _first act_ in flight prep should be to check the fuel level and compute expected fuel use - strands the entire mission on the alien planet when she uses the shuttle for a point-to-point hop on the surface, leaving the shuttle without enough fuel to get back to their starship. She could have taken the shuttle back to their starship to refuel, and thus avoided the entire disaster - but she simply didn’t think to do so, and was never trained to consider this possibility. Unrealistically stupid - but it follows from the equally unrealistic premise that there are _no_ experienced astronauts on the first manned mission to an alien world. Seriously - the Jesuits buy a spaceship from an asteroid-mining company, kit it out for interstellar flight, and never think to hire an experienced crew. Like the sort they could hire from the mining company. The stupid, it burns. I think part of the problem may be that Russell consciously brands herself as a “literary” writer, and wasn’t entirely comfortable with writing genre fiction. That’s just speculation, but it would explain part of her difficulty with engaging with the hard-science parts of this story. To an extent, that’s not a bad thing; if you’re writing a story about Jesuit Anthropologists in Space, you needn’t necessary be all that rigorous about how their spaceship works; it’s okay to focus on the aliens. But we _do_ know how successful space programs work, and it’s distracting when you see a program that clearly, obviously, does not work that way; especially since the Jesuits would be the very last folks to take such a slapdash, amateur-hour approach to an endeavor as complex as spaceflight. [/SPOILER] ---
**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 20, 2012, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/113 "2012-12-20T17:28:11Z")
That sounds like a reasonable criticism, **Mr. Excellent**. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/114 "2012-12-20T17:51:24Z")
> [@koeeoaddi](#): > > I’m on my 3rd attempt at **Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell**. This time I’m listening to Simon Prebble read it and think I’m going to go the distance. How does it handle the footnotes? I loved the book, but much of the richness was in the footnotes–it’d be a very different book without them. Thrilled to hear that there’s going to be a miniseries of it, though. 😃 ---
**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:** [December 20, 2012, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/115 "2012-12-20T18:31:28Z")
> [@LawMonkey](#): > > How does it handle the footnotes? I loved the book, but much of the richness was in the footnotes–it’d be a very different book without them. > > Thrilled to hear that there’s going to be a miniseries of it, though. 😃 They are read as they come up. I’m really enjoying them. 🙂 ---
**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 20, 2012, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/116 "2012-12-20T18:54:26Z")
> [@koeeoaddi](#): > > They are read as they come up. I’m really enjoying them. 🙂 On the CD, at least, you have the option of skipping the footnotes if you wish. Or so I’ve been told. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/117 "2012-12-20T19:08:18Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > On the CD, at least, you have the option of skipping the footnotes if you wish. Or so I’ve been told. That’s crazy! The footnotes are my favorite part. (The same cannot be said of _House of Leaves_, where the entire footnote plot and handling just irked me.) ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [December 20, 2012, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/118 "2012-12-20T19:32:10Z")
> [@koeeoaddi](#): > > They are read as they come up. I’m really enjoying them. 🙂 If you are absolutely panting for more footnotes when you finish Strange & Norrell, you might look at _**[City of Saints and Madmen](http://www.amazon.com/City-Saints-Madmen-Jeff-Vandermeer/dp/0553383574)**_, by Jeff Vandermeer. _The Hoegbotton Guide to the Early History of Ambergris_ uses them to good effect–the central conceit being that the author is a Serious Scholar who is rather annoyed at being asked/required to write a pamphlet for tourists, and he has therefore decided to put all of the most interesting material in the footnotes, which he knows the average reader will ignore. 😛 ---
**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:** [December 20, 2012, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/119 "2012-12-20T23:32:10Z")
I’ve just started _Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat_ by Bee Wilson. It’s very interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [December 21, 2012, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625/120 "2012-12-21T17:10:03Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > Yeah, I put down **Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell** and never looked back. Some here love it, but it bored the piss out of me. I kept waiting for a plot to unfold. Although I actually finished the book, this was my feeling exactly. It was funny for a short while, but unlike Dickens, Clarke didn’t realize that you can’t just write the same comedy-of-errors gag on every one of the 900 pages in the book. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-dec-2012-edition/642625.md?page=7)