# Whatcha Readin' December 2011 Edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 30, 2011, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613 "2011-11-30T21:19:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [November 30, 2011, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/1 "2011-11-30T21:19:13Z")
First, the important stuff: Tomorrow I turn 50. :eek: Send cards! šŸ˜ƒ I am in the middle of _The Dead Path._ Well, actually, really near the beginning. I have not had time to form an opinion yet. Life has gotten busy and I have not been reading much lately. But maybe over the Holidays it will slow down again. [Last monthā€™s thread.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=629779) ---
**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:** [November 30, 2011, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/2 "2011-11-30T23:22:49Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > First, the important stuff: Tomorrow I turn 50. :eek: Glad to have you in the secret club of over-50ā€™s! ---
**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:** [December 1, 2011, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/3 "2011-12-01T01:11:15Z")
Welcome to the 50s! Youā€™ll find theyā€™re not so bad. Except for all those pesky body parts falling off. But you wonā€™t be needing those anymore anyway. Just started _The Firm_, by John Grisham. Heā€™s really very good. Iā€™m rapidly becoming a fan. ---
**Author:** ![pohjonen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pohjonen/32/423_2.png) [@pohjonen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pohjonen)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/4 "2011-12-01T02:45:52Z")
Earth Abides by George R. Stewart. ---
**Author:** ![pohjonen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pohjonen/32/423_2.png) [@pohjonen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pohjonen)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/5 "2011-12-01T03:00:48Z")
Iā€™ll try this again. _Earth Abides_ by George Stewart. Not very far in but I love apocalyptic fiction and even though this is an oldie (1949) itā€™s holding my interest nicely. I couldnā€™t get into _The Dead Path_ at all, and so gave up and took it back to the library. Just finished _The Walking Dead_ graphic book - pretty different from the series. Also reading _The Nine_ by Jeff Toobin and although I like it I keep putting it down to read other things. Also just finished _Into the Wild_, which I picked up to read again after having listened to the audiobook last year on vacation and thought must have been abridged, but it was just SHORT. I like Jon Krakauer and can recommend anything he writes without hesitation. (Also read _Into Thin Air_ about the fateful Everest expedition and \*Under the Banner of Heaven \*about the FLDS. Both were good) ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/6 "2011-12-01T03:05:33Z")
I just found a collection of all ten of the Amber novels by Roger Zelazny. Nice thick book. Should keep me going for a while. ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/7 "2011-12-01T03:09:47Z")
Heh, I read the Great Book of Amber back in October. My public library had all but the last one so I went several years never knowing how it all ended. I just finished rereading Pinkerā€™s The Language Instinct. I cannot get enough of that sort of book. But right now Iā€™m working my way through The Great Gatsby. Next on the list is Flowers for Algernon and then weā€™ll see. (I donā€™t really have any demands on my time once I get home from work now that Iā€™m no longer a college student and Iā€™ve decided Iā€™m going to read some of those classics that I avoided in school.) ---
**Author:** ![Seamack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/46a35a/32.png) [@Seamack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seamack)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 9:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/8 "2011-12-01T09:30:28Z")
Racing through Tim Dorseyā€™s ā€˜Florida Roadkillā€™ next up is either Will Selfā€™s ā€˜The Book of Daveā€™ or Irvine Welshā€™s ā€˜Crimeā€™. 11.22.63 is on my library reserve list too so it may raise itā€™s head during December too. ---
**Author:** ![Future\_Londonite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9dc877/32.png) [@Future\_Londonite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Future_Londonite)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/9 "2011-12-01T09:48:02Z")
Just finished **1Q84 - Book 1 and 2** and am now reading **1Q84 Book 3** by _Haruki Murakami_ and I have to say that Iā€™m enjoying them tremendously. Next up will be **Reamde** by _Neal Stephenson_ ---
**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:** [December 1, 2011, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/10 "2011-12-01T13:24:13Z")
I just finished reading Jules Verneā€™s **The Danube Pilot** and am now flying through Q.R. Markhamā€™s plagiarized spy thriller **Assassin of Secrets** , after which my wife and daughter insist I read **The Hunger Games**. On audio, Iā€™ve been listening to the unabridged **The Mysterious Stranger** by Mark Twain, **The Chessmen of Mars** by Edgar Rice Burroughs, **20,000 Leagues Under the Sea** by Jules Verne, a report on the first World war by H.G. Wells, and **The Hand of Fu Manchu** by Sax Rohmer, with Verneā€™s **Michael Strogoff** next in the queue. I picked up a stack of unabridged ā€œclassicsā€ in library bindings recently. The 20K Leagues is, unfortunately, the Mercier Lewis translation, which is butchered and abridged, but is in the public domain. I can hear every mistake in it. But Iā€™m glad to have Verne on audio. I havenā€™t read the Burroughs book since I started college, and this reminds me why. Burroughs had a fabulous imagination for situations and concepts, but his strories are repetitive and rote, and his characters would generally need more depth to be even two-dimensional. The Rohmer book is a fascinating piece of romantic racist adventure. Iā€™d never veven heard of the Wells book before. The Mysterious Stranger is the Paine version, of course, which is public domain. Again, Iā€™m happy to have audio versions of these classics, but the reading they give of "The Celebrated Jumping Frog (the book is an anthology of Twain) manages to use all of Twainā€™s colloquial words and phrases, yet sucks all the life out of them. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/11 "2011-12-01T16:31:22Z")
Happy birthday, **Khadaji**! This is the time of year I tend to go through a lot of new kidlit and YA titles, as I like to have read as many of them as possible before the Newbery and other awards are announced in January. I liked _A Monster Calls_ by Patrick Ness, it wasnā€™t as intense as the _Chaos Walking_ series, but nice to have a recent work by an author I love. _Between Shades of Gray_ is a YA title about an exiled Lithuanian family during the Soviet occupation during WWII. It reminded me a lot of _The Endless Steppe_. It was okay, and interesting because not a lot of fiction (relatively speaking) covers this aspect of WWII. _Mo Wren, Lost and Found_ by Tricia Springstubb was fine, but I donā€™t think an award-contender. I am now taking a little break from books for kids with a collection of Connie Willis short stories, _Impossible Things_. So far, I am realizing I either love or hate Connie Willis stories. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/12 "2011-12-01T16:33:35Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > The Rohmer book is a fascinating piece of romantic racist adventure. Gosh, they are SO awful and I ADORE them. I found (most of) the series in a box of dusty old paperbacks at my grandmotherā€™s house when I was a kid, and read them over and over. Letā€™s hope they didnā€™t have too much of an impact on my moral compass. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/13 "2011-12-01T16:43:22Z")
_Reading Murder in the First-Class Carriage: The First Victorian Railway Killing_ by Kate Colquhoun, recommended in the November thread. ---
**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:** [December 1, 2011, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/14 "2011-12-01T16:45:07Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > I am now taking a little break from books for kids with a collection of Connie Willis short stories, _Impossible Things_. So far, I am realizing I either love or hate Connie Willis stories. Yeah, mostly I love her, but some of her short stories are seriously WTF? I just bought an electronic copy of the December Asimovā€™s magazine, because Willis has a new Christmas story in it. My copy of Diana Gabaldonā€™s new book is on its way to me: _The Scottish Prisoner_. The Lord John books arenā€™t as good as the Outlander series, but this one is Lord John Grey/Jamie Fraser. The slash may be appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/15 "2011-12-01T17:05:44Z")
Finished _The Procedure_ by Harry Mulisch (compulsively readable but the narrator was unlikable and the ending was odd) and barely started [Anilā€™s Ghost](http://www.amazon.com/Anils-Ghost-Novel-Michael-Ondaatje/dp/0375724370) by Michael Ondaatje. Most everything Iā€™ve read in the last few months has been from the library sale ā€“ older stuff that nobodyā€™s talking about anymore (if they ever talked about it at all). With newer books, you can usually find a discussion somewhere, even if itā€™s just Amazon. ---
**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 1, 2011, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/16 "2011-12-01T21:08:15Z")
_Good Omens_ by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet gets a lot of praise around here, doesnā€™t it? Iā€™m 100 pages in and Iā€™m not really feeling it. I donā€™t hate it. The humor is similar to that of Christopher Mooreā€™s _Lamb_ (the only book of his Iā€™ve read), which I did not like. _Good Omens_ at least has a somewhat amusing plot, so Iā€™ll finish it unless things really start going downhill. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2011, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/17 "2011-12-05T17:27:08Z")
> [@Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](#): > > Yeah, mostly I love her, but some of her short stories are seriously WTF? I just bought an electronic copy of the December Asimovā€™s magazine, because Willis has a new Christmas story in it. After finishing that book of short stories, Iā€™ve decided I will pass on her when she is trying to be funny - her sense of humor doesnā€™t resonate with me at all. (_To Say Nothing of the Dog_ must be an exception, because I do like that). I loved the story about Shakespeare, that was a high point. Another quick kidlit read - _Inside Out and Back Again_ by Thanhha Lai, a book told in poems from the POV of a 10 year old Vietnamese girl who fled to the US after the fall of Saigon. I was not expecting to like this as much as I did, because it seems like a book that is supposed to teach kids something, but it ended up being very sweet and compelling. Iā€™m about 1/3 the way though _Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife_ by Francine Prose, non-fiction that focuses on the diary as a deliberate literary effort. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2011, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/18 "2011-12-05T19:17:45Z")
Finished _The Hideout_ by Kathleen George; now on _The Burning Soul_ by John Connolly. ---
**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:** [December 7, 2011, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/19 "2011-12-07T15:09:57Z")
Iā€™m almost halfway through _Anna Dressed in Blood_, by Kendare Blake. Itā€™s a YA novel about a boy who hunts and ā€œkillsā€ ghosts. Five-star title, three-star tale so far. ---
**Author:** ![Crawlspace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Crawlspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crawlspace)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2011, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613/20 "2011-12-07T16:00:12Z")
I re-read **The Big Short** by Michael Lewis over the weekend. Itā€™s a look at the sub-prime backed mortgage bond mess through the eyes of about 12 bankers at 3-4 hedge funds that saw the collapse coming years in advance. **Fools Gold** , which looks at the same topic from the other side (or so I understand) is up next, but right now Iā€™m on **A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius**. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-2011-edition/604613.md?page=2)