# Whatcha Readin' Feb 2011 Edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 31, 2011, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635 "2011-01-31T12:28:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2011, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/21 "2011-02-01T19:45:14Z")
> [@Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](#): > > I’m reading Christopher Brookmyre’s _Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks_, which apparently is the “Winner of the 2007 Glenfiddich Spirit of Scotland Award for Writing”. The book is dedicated to James Randi and Chrisopher Dawkins, and it’s apparently going to pit scientists and one particular skeptic - “an observer who is an expert in deception” - against a set of spiritualists. I have high expectations - Brookmyre is very entertaining. I dinnae ken why he isn’t more popular. Just went on my TBR list. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Alice\_The\_Goon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Alice\_The\_Goon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alice_The_Goon)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2011, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/22 "2011-02-01T19:51:36Z")
Halfway through _The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno_, set in the 1860’s in P. T. Barnum’s American Museum in NYC. It’s not keeping me on the edge of my seat or anything, but it’s fine. ---
**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:** [February 1, 2011, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/23 "2011-02-01T19:57:17Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Just went on my TBR list. Thanks. You may want to start with _Quite Ugly One Morning_. The books do stand pretty well alone, but there are five of them featuring the same protagonist, and _Rubber Ducks_ is the last of them. ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2011, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/24 "2011-02-01T20:01:20Z")
I got a copy of Tom Clancy’s _Dead or Alive_ in the mail just today. Haven’t started it yet. ---
**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:** [February 1, 2011, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/25 "2011-02-01T21:00:35Z")
Halfway through Barbara Hambly’s _The Silent Tower_. Last night I had a bit of a queasy stomach and right then I came to a section of the book with these huge slug parasite thingies… ARGH. Still reading _Gödel, Escher, Bach_. I had to request a new copy from the library because the previous one was so highlightered that I kept getting distracted, and frankly I can’t afford the distraction with this book. Still reading _The Omnivore’s Dilemma_, and _Queen in Danger_. Almost done with the latter, about halfway on the former. In queue are the latest CJ Sansom mystery, _Shadow of a Broken Man_ by George Chesbro, and the next book in the _Tawny Man_ trilogy by Robin Hobb. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2011, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/26 "2011-02-01T23:47:16Z")
> [@Alice\_The\_Goon](#): > > Halfway through _The Transformation of Bartholomew Fortuno_, set in the 1860’s in P. T. Barnum’s American Museum in NYC. It’s not keeping me on the edge of my seat or anything, but it’s fine. Couldn’t get past the first chapter. ---
**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:** [February 2, 2011, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/27 "2011-02-02T01:54:19Z")
Just finished the okay-but-not-much-in-it-I-hadn’t-read-before **Doctor on Everest** , by Dr. Kenneth Kamler. Like most of the other Everest books I’ve read, we follow along while the team hits Kathmandu, Base Camp, the Khumbu Ice Fall, the Western Cwn, the South Col, the Lhotse Face, and …nah, no spoilers. We meet teams of loons, endure great discomfort, worry about bottled oxygen, crevasses, pulmonary edema and high altitude sickness, we feel badly about self inflicted tragedy and worse for the Sherpa guides and porters who die, and so on. Dr. Kamler goes up the mountain in 1994, but there a couple of chapters tacked on the end about the 1996 tragedy, which the author was also present for. I love these virtually identical Everest books, I admit, and this one wasn’t bad, but **Into Thin Air** was much better. Just started, **The Corner That Held Them** , by Sylvia Townsend Warner – a novel written in the 40s, set in a 14th century Benedictine nunnery. So far, very good. Also, **Murder in the High Himalaya** , by Jonathan Green. This one is about the murder of a 17 year old Tibetan nun and is more focused on political oppression than teams of crazy climbers. I like it a lot, but like I said, I’m a sucker for any book set above 15,000 feet. ---
**Author:** ![TheMerchandise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b487fb/32.png) [@TheMerchandise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheMerchandise)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/28 "2011-02-02T15:19:23Z")
Recently I finished: **Rosemary’s Baby** , by Ira Levin. I read this for a book club, having already seen the movie over and over again. The writing was quite excellent, moreso because I despised the character of Rosemary. If she said “Oh I wasn’t bothered, not really” one more damn time, I was going to reach into the book and slap some backbone into her. For Levin to take a character that I so disliked and turn her story into something so riveting… well, good job. I was also envious of another girl in my book club who hadn’t seen the movie or didn’t know anything about the plot beforehand. I so wish the ending could have been a surprise for me! **Best Served Cold** , by Joe Abercrombie. A stand-alone novel that takes place in the same world as his epic First Law fantasy series. This book is a little uneven. The first half reads like a caper story, right down to putting together a team and making ridiculously elaborate plans that inevitably go awry. But instead of a big cash payoff in the end, there’s just bloody murder. The second half takes a dark, more philosophic tone. Right now, I’m reading **Outlander** by Diana Galbaldon. I’m not typically a romance reader, but the time travel elements are fun and I’m enjoying the gooshy parts too. ---
**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:** [February 2, 2011, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/29 "2011-02-02T15:35:44Z")
> [@TheMerchandise](#): > > Right now, I’m reading **Outlander** by Diana Galbaldon. I’m not typically a romance reader, but the time travel elements are fun and I’m enjoying the gooshy parts too. I’m not a big romance reader either, but I love Gabaldon’s books. ---
**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:** [February 2, 2011, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/30 "2011-02-02T16:15:51Z")
I’ve set myself the ambitious goal of finishing _Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell_ by Feb. 25, when my book club next meets. That’ll be 17 pages a day until then - I think I can do it! I’m really enjoying the book, but I’m pretty busy these days, and it’s _big_. I’ve also been very pleased with Emlyn Williams’s _Headlong_, a 1980 novel about a British actor who becomes king in 1935 when the entire Royal Family is killed in a freak dirigible accident. If it sounds familiar, it’s because the John Goodman comedy _King Ralph_ was verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry loosely based on it. The novel is tongue-in-cheek and fun, despite its grim initial premise. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/31 "2011-02-04T18:41:17Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > _I Shall Wear Midnight,_ by Terry Pratchett. Me too. ---
**Author:** ![Enterprise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/76d3ee/32.png) [@Enterprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enterprise)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/32 "2011-02-04T20:47:00Z")
Jasper Fforde’s _One of Our Thursdays Is Missing_, the latest Thursday Next volume. Surprisingly, the bookstore only carried a paperback, and that after I bought Fforde’s _The Last Dragonslayer_ in hardback…the logic escapes me. The _Next_ Series should have been established enough…but anyway, great read, as usual. I liked, but was not wowed by, _The Last Dragonslayer_. This new book is just amazing, though, not just inventive and clever, but it doesn’t shy away from really dumb jokes and really obscure gags. I love it. Also: Jonathan L. Howard’s _Johannes Cabal: The Detective_. A much more elegant volume than the previous installment, and a good read so far. Finally, Toni Morison’s _A Mercy_. What can I say. It’s okay. I never quite got why she received the Literature Nobel Prize, and this won’t change my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Enterprise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/76d3ee/32.png) [@Enterprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enterprise)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/33 "2011-02-04T20:54:14Z")
> [@TheMerchandise](#): > > **Best Served Cold** , by Joe Abercrombie. A stand-alone novel that takes place in the same world as his epic First Law fantasy series. This book is a little uneven. The first half reads like a caper story, right down to putting together a team and making ridiculously elaborate plans that inevitably go awry. But instead of a big cash payoff in the end, there’s just bloody murder. The second half takes a dark, more philosophic tone. Ooh, and that reminds me (apologies for the double-post) that I just finished _Heroes_ by Joe Abercrombie, which I’d rate possibly the finest piece of fantasy I’ve read in the last five years. The conceit: the entire book is set during a single battle between the Union (starring many old acquaintances from the trilogy and _Best Served Cold_) and the North (ditto). Great idea (that I’ve never seen done before), great execution (pun intended). Highly recommended. Incidentally, I agree with the assessment of _Best Served Cold_, though I would suppose the “unevenness” is intentional: When everything falls apart in the whorehouse, and then after, and the elaborately pieced together caper-troupe fall apart as a team and everybody goes after almost everybody else, that’s Abercrombie’s usual “this ain’t Tolkien, and it ain’t Clooney either” schtick. I gotta say, it came as a bit of a surprise to me… ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/34 "2011-02-04T21:19:10Z")
> [@Enterprise](#): > > \ > > Also: Jonathan L. Howard’s _Johannes Cabal: The Detective_. A much more elegant volume than the previous installment, and a good read so far. > \ Interesting. I was luke warm on the first, but thought it had some promise. Maybe I’ll check it out. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/35 "2011-02-04T21:19:33Z")
I’m about a third of the way slogging through _Stalingrad_. Stalin was such a bloody tyrant, easily the psychotic equal of Hitler. Speaking of Adolf, this emoticon was in the funnies this morning: //:^=/ ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2011, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/36 "2011-02-04T21:25:08Z")
> [@Enterprise](#): > > Jasper Fforde’s _One of Our Thursdays Is Missing_, the latest Thursday Next volume. Surprisingly, the bookstore only carried a paperback Amazon lists that as being published March 8, 2011; you must have somehow gotten an advance copy. (Oh, as for me, I’m currently reading, and enjoying, _Water for Elephants_ by Sara Gruen (because the Kindle edition was only $5), _Strange Brains and Genius_ by Clifford Pickover, and _Strange Itineraries_ by Tim Powers.) ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 10:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/37 "2011-02-05T10:37:18Z")
Finished Amortals by Matt Forbek - a bleak predictable sci-fi set about 200 years in the future in a time where man become “amortal” by having his brain backed up and restored to his clone (think Dollhouse.) It wrestled with the idea of souls and whether the new person is _really_ the same as the original. It didn’t really introduce much that was new to the discussion and was very much a page flipper. I copped this synopsis directly from Amazon’s: \*When Secret Service agent Ronan “Methusaleh” Dooley is brutally murdered, he’s brought back from the dead one more time to hunt his killer, but this time those who wanted him dead are much closer to home. \*I say give it a pass. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/38 "2011-02-05T14:14:53Z")
> [@Enterprise](#): > > Ooh, and that reminds me (apologies for the double-post) that I just finished _Heroes_ by Joe Abercrombie, which I’d rate possibly the finest piece of fantasy I’ve read in the last five years. The conceit: the entire book is set during a single battle between the Union (starring many old acquaintances from the trilogy and _Best Served Cold_) and the North (ditto). Great idea (that I’ve never seen done before), great execution (pun intended). Highly recommended. Incidentally, I agree with the assessment of _Best Served Cold_, though I would suppose the “unevenness” is intentional: > > When everything falls apart in the whorehouse, and then after, and the elaborately pieced together caper-troupe fall apart as a team and everybody goes after almost everybody else, that’s Abercrombie’s usual “this ain’t Tolkien, and it ain’t Clooney either” schtick. I gotta say, it came as a bit of a surprise to me… I read the trilogy and enjoyed the first two but was disappointed with the ending. Having a mastermind basically controlling both sides in the game made the entire story pointless, a bit like mental masturbation. That said I started the latest Abercrombie but gave up on it when the main character developed an incredible similarity with a main character in the trilogy despite being of the opposite sex. (Trying not to spoil it for any new readers) I’m wondering if Abercrombie has run out of inspiration. ---
**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:** [February 5, 2011, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/39 "2011-02-05T18:17:59Z")
> [@Lust4Life](#): > > I read the trilogy and enjoyed the first two but was disappointed with the ending. I loved the ending of the trilogy! I had to ruminate a bit on it, but I finally decided it was perfect. **Enterprise** , I’m glad to hear that \*Heroes \*is so good. I look forward to it. I enjoyed _Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks_ - a book to win a skeptic’s heart. It wasn’t the funniest thing I’ve read by Brookmyre, but it had satisfying twists and turns. (An “unsinkable rubber duck” is James Randi’s phrase for a person who is determined to believe in “woo” no matter how much evidence to the contrary they are presented with.) My only criticism is that I wasn’t impressed with what the characters were pleased to consider rigorously controlled laboratory conditions. Now I’m reading _Middlemarch_ on my Kindle. It was free, and it has the formatting issues to prove it. I like the book so far, but good grief, that lady could write some convoluted sentences. Austen has nothing on her. I can work through most of them, but once in a while I admit defeat and move on. ---
**Author:** ![joyfool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@joyfool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joyfool)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2011, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635/40 "2011-02-05T18:47:39Z")
I’m reading Stephen King’s _Full Dark, No Stars_. It’s got four (well, one is really too short to call that, but it’s too long for a short story) novellas and so far the first three have been pretty decent. Not quite up to his writing from the early days, but good. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-feb-2011-edition/569635.md?page=3)