# Whatcha readin' December edition
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [November 30, 2007, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298 "2007-11-30T13:22:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2007, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/61 "2007-12-09T04:18:37Z")
[QUOTE=Glassy]
Frankly, I haven’t read anything really good in a while, and nothing I pick up appeals to me. I’m combing this thread for ideas.
[/QUOTE]
I keep wishing I hadn’t just read _Eifelheim_ by Michael Flynn. It’s my favorite book since June, which was the best book month of the year, hell – ever. _The Book Thief_ by Markus Zusak, _The Book of Lost Things_ by John Connolly, _Cloud Atlas_ by David Mitchell, _The Anubis Gates_ by Tim Powers, Francine Prose’s book on reading/writing, _The Pest House_ by Jim Crace, _What the Dead Know_ by Laura Lippman, and _Softspoken_ by Lucius Shepard.
I’d recommend any of those as a cure for a reading slump.
---
### Author:  [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2007, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/62 "2007-12-09T04:18:26Z")
Well, let’s see… If I look at the books with a page-corner folded inwards…
The Machine Gunners
Lord of the Flies
The God Dellusion
The Selfish Gene
Ghostwritten
Cloud Atlas
Robot Dreams
The Reality Dysfunction
The Penultimate Truth
We Can Remember it for you Wholesale
The Amber Spyglass
The Angry Island
The Satanic Verses
George Orwell Essays
Stranger in a Strange Land
These are all books I am technically ‘currently reading’ with varying degrees of frequency. It depends what mood I’m in on any particular night.
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### Author:  [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2007, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/63 "2007-12-09T04:20:05Z")
[QUOTE=Lobsang]
Well, let’s see… If I look at the books with a page-corner folded inwards…
[/QUOTE]
Heathen! 😛
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### Author:  [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2007, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/64 "2007-12-09T04:42:56Z")
I’m about 50 pages into **The Last of Her Kind** , by Sigrid Nunez. I’m giving it 50 more pages before I hurl it at the wall.
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### Author:  [@gardentraveler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gardentraveler)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2007, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/65 "2007-12-09T14:17:48Z")
Wanted to post a link to a compilation of lists of [Best Books of 2007](http://www.fimoculous.com/year-review-2007.cfm?cat=books). It’s on a blog with lots of other interesting links. (The book list is part of a list of lists.) Got this from the GoodReads Librarians group.
I’m still reading (and very much enjoying) _Freedom and Necessity_. Should be done in the next couple of days. Somehow, my reading time has been limited. Still deciding what my next book will be. Maybe something in German because I’ll be in Germany over New Year’s and my German is feeling particularly rusty.
GT
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### Author:  [@eenerms](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eenerms)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2007, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/66 "2007-12-09T14:43:10Z")
Just finished **900 Days: Siege of Leningrad \*\* by Harrison Sailsbury, Started on** A Thousand Splendid Suns \*\* by Khaled Hosseini
\*\*900 Days \*\* was a brutal read!
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### Author:  [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)
#### Post date: [December 9, 2007, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/67 "2007-12-09T15:09:13Z")
[QUOTE=eenerms]
Just finished **900 Days: Siege of Leningrad \*\* by Harrison Sailsbury, Started on** A Thousand Splendid Suns \*\* by Khaled Hosseini
[/QUOTE]
What will the 1100 book be?
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### Author:  [@eenerms](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eenerms)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2007, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/68 "2007-12-10T04:00:53Z")
[QUOTE=twickster]
What will the 1100 book be?
[/QUOTE]
I hadn’t realized the progression. 🆒
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### Author:  [@Queen\_Bruin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Bruin)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2007, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/69 "2007-12-10T04:27:19Z")
I am taking _[Villa Ariadne](http://www.amazon.com/Villa-Ariadne-Dilys-Powell/dp/1888173661)_ with me to the beach next week. Nothing new and fresh, but I am looking forward to it anyhow. I don’t get to read for pleasure much. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2007, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/70 "2007-12-10T13:18:12Z")
Still listening to the audiobook of American Gods. Since I only spend about 80 minutes per week alone in the car, the going is quite slow and if I miss a few days sometimes I’ll forget what was happening. One annoying thing about this audio cassette version is that it doesn’t say “American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, cassette six, side two” (or whatever) at the beginning of each side, so I’m continually losing my place and listening to a part I already heard. Yet the book is still holding my interest.
Just started to read [Breakfast with Buddha](http://www.amazon.com/Breakfast-Buddha-Novel-Roland-Merullo/dp/1565125525/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197291710&sr=1-1) by Roland Merullo. It’s about a not-terribly-religious regular guy taking a road trip with his flaky sister’s spiritual leader. It sounded like it might be an entertaining story, and so far it is, but I’m worried that it will veer into proselytizing or Chicken Soup for the Soul type stuff and then I’ll dump it.
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### Author:  [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2007, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/71 "2007-12-10T14:07:54Z")
I finished up _A Handbook to Luck_ today. It’s a good story, but I wish one of the characters had had a better ending. Of course, she was doomed from the start because of her location.
I’ve picked up Dylan Thomas’ _Adventures in the Skin Trade and Other Stories_ to replace it in the queue. I read this earlier in the year, but I forgot what happened in it so I wasn’t sure if my Goodreads rating was accurate. Based on what I’ve reread so far, it isn’t.
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### Author:  [@Nzinga\_Seated](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nzinga_Seated)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2007, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/72 "2007-12-10T17:45:24Z")
I am reading the Spiderwick books. I am not overly impressed with them. My daughter loves them though. She puts them down and I pick them up, intending to read just enough to converse with her on them. But before you know it, the book is done. They are very short books.
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### Author:  [@Tapiotar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapiotar)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2007, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/73 "2007-12-10T18:18:23Z")
Since I’ve been sick for the last two weeks with an enervating respiratory nastiness, I dropped all of my previously planned reading, and went into rereading the Discworld books. I sorely needed the infusion of humor. Still do.
Recently finished Christopher Moore’s A Dirty Job. Not bad, but not his best work. Comic horror and heartfelt tribute to hospice workers are both good things, but they don’t mix well. And it seemed to be very strongly influenced by both Good Omens and Discworld. Discworld is better.
Of books others have mentioned:
Three Bags Full – I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Jonathan Strange and Mister Norell – I loved the use of footnotes and spoof of Victorian academic style – but got 50 pages from the end and stopped reading.
I think the Golden Compass was the best of Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, and the final book does not fulfill the high expectations set up by the beginning.
Sunshine – better than most of the overdone vampire fiction. So many people are writing vampire stories today that they have become boring…a sad fate for a vampire.
Does anyone else feel that Gaiman is overrated? Or that he hasn’t reached his potential yet?
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### Author:  [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2007, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/74 "2007-12-10T18:29:19Z")
I’m getting lots of good ideas from this thread.
Last month I read _The Animal Dialogues_ (which officially comes out in a few days–I had an advance copy). Wow. Just wow. This is some of the best nature writing ever.
Before that, I read _Mr. Sebastian and the Negro Magician_. Most of it was okay, but the ending stunk. They closed it with pretty much every issue unresolved. Every question that you thought was answered got “un-answered” at the end. I have no idea what the author really intended the story to be.
At the moment, I’m reading _This is Your Brain on Music_. It’s a really cool book about how music affects the brain and how it differs in various societies and individuals. It gets a little slow sometimes, but I’m enjoying it.
I tried to read _Guns, Germs & Steel_ a while ago, but I’m so busy these days I can only read in half-hour snippets and I kept getting lost. I’m going to start it again next time we go on vacation and I can have longer sessions with it.
Our book club is preparing to read the original _Foundation_ trilogy by Asimov. I loved it when I first read it many years ago and I’m looking forward to reading it again–although I do remember it seeming to be aimed at young adult readers. Perhaps that just my memory of it.
Oh, and to respond to **Tapiotar** , after reading _American Gods_ I thought Gaiman was overrated. After reading _Good Omens_ I think he (and his co-author) is fantastic. And Moore’s book _You Suck,_ which I read a couple of months ago, was absolutely hilarious. Loved it.
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle]
I’m listening to George Guidall’s reading of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, and at one point, the main character orders a pasty in a diner (some kind of meat pie). Now, any time I’ve run across this word before, I thought it was pronounced _pay_-stee, same as the things a stripper wears. But George is saying _past_-ee.
[/QUOTE]
The spelling is “pastie” and the pronunciation is PAST-ee. It’s a marvelous Cornish meatpie.
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### Author:  [@Tapiotar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapiotar)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2007, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/75 "2007-12-10T18:58:18Z")
[QUOTE=Miss Purl McKnittington]
This absolutely blew my mind, because I could not imagine anyone not knowing what a pasty was, since they seem to pop up on the SDMB fairly often. I feel like I’m in some sort of meat pie cult now. The greasy horror.
Pasty rhymes with nasty, but they are anything but. They’re made with alternating layers of meat, potatoes, onions and sometimes rutabaga or turnip in a sturdy pastry crust. You can put just about anything in them, since they sort of started out as the Cornish version of taking leftovers from dinner to work the next day..
[/QUOTE]
We say päs-ti-ä, a fennicized version of pasty, in my family. Mom uses a normal pie crust, baked in a pie pan – less pastry than the original hand-held types, more delicious meat filling. Hers is very simple – ground beef, potatoes, onions, carrots, and seasoning – and tastier than the simplicity would lead you to believe.
As far as Christopher Moore goes, I think that **Lamb: the Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal** , is his best, followed by **Practical Demonkeeping** and **The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove**.
And I think that **Good Omens** is so good is mainly due to the influence of Terry Pratchett, author of the Discworld series. Neil on his own is in the close, but no cigar range. Although **Anansi Boys** is by far the best he’s done since the Sandman comic.
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### Author:  [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2007, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/76 "2007-12-10T19:01:52Z")
Bill Brysons _Made in America \* and \* The Complete Notes_
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### Author:  [@ForumBot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ForumBot)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2007, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/77 "2007-12-10T19:15:18Z")
**Synaptic Self** by Joseph Ledoux
**A Confederacy of Dunces** by John Kennedy Toole
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### Author:  [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2007, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/78 "2007-12-10T19:48:50Z")
_Beowulf_- the Heaney translation. I keep falling asleep before I finish and have to re-start the whole thing (this is not Heaney’s fault, I’m reading too late at night).
I finished re-reading \*Anansi Boys \* yesterday, and I still love Gaiman, it’s just a lot more predictable after the first read. His short stories are awesome though, there’s one called “Other People” which is particularly difficult to forget.
Am looking for something good to read in a couple of days whenI finally finish the epic poem…
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### Author:  [@Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine)
#### Post date: [December 10, 2007, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/79 "2007-12-10T19:59:03Z")
[QUOTE=Tapiotar]
Sunshine – better than most of the overdone vampire fiction. So many people are writing vampire stories today that they have become boring…a sad fate for a vampire.
[/QUOTE]
\*Sunshine \*is one of my favorite vampire books.
I’ve been too busy to read much lately, but right now I’m in the middle of _Mutiny on the Bounty_, by Nordhoff & Hall. It’s pretty good.
Next I’ll probably read my borrowed copy of Charlaine Harris’s _An Ice Cold Grave_ so that I can return it. I’m not expecting very much. I don’t like this series as much as her Southern Vampire books.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [December 11, 2007, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-december-edition/428298/80 "2007-12-11T14:29:20Z")
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle]
Just started to read [Breakfast with Buddha](http://www.amazon.com/Breakfast-Buddha-Novel-Roland-Merullo/dp/1565125525/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197291710&sr=1-1) by Roland Merullo. It’s about a not-terribly-religious regular guy taking a road trip with his flaky sister’s spiritual leader. It sounded like it might be an entertaining story, and so far it is, but I’m worried that it will veer into proselytizing or Chicken Soup for the Soul type stuff and then I’ll dump it.
[/QUOTE]
Dumped about halfway through. It wasn’t so much the glurge factor, though. The story moved so slowly, and the main character kept saying how, despite all his annoying ways, the guru was so likable. I just wasn’t feeling it. I guess I used up all my suspension of disbelief on the part where he agrees to take this guy on the road trip in the first place.
Last night, I read my kids The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming: A Christmas Story, by Lemony Snicket. It’s for a younger audience than us, but we all dig that Lemony flavor. 🙂
Now I’m on to Darkness Creeping: Twenty Twisted Tales, by Neal Shusterman. Short “scary” stories for kids (about middle school level). I’m not reading it to my kids, I’m just reading it.
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