# Whatcha readin' gang? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 6, 2006, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-gang/359554 "2006-06-06T00:16:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-gang/359554/101 "2006-06-10T12:22:18Z")
I finished Working For the Devil by Lilith Saintcrow. It was pretty lame. I don’t expect much from these books, just light entertainment, but this one was worse than usual. I don’t recommend it. Next in the queue: An Unpardonable Crime, which features a young Edgar Alan Poe in a detective novel. It has promise - we’ll see. ---
**Author:** ![slortar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6bbea6/32.png) [@slortar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slortar)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 12:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-gang/359554/102 "2006-06-10T12:50:42Z")
[QUOTE=luvtinayothers] Quite possible the greatest book ever written. Highly recommended. [/QUOTE] Ah, yes. Just finished Jordan and am reading Demon Haunted World right now. It is, indeed, quite good. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-gang/359554/103 "2006-06-10T12:57:12Z")
[QUOTE=Khadaji] Next in the queue: An Unpardonable Crime, which features a young Edgar Alan Poe in a detective novel. It has promise - we’ll see. [/QUOTE] Which reminds me: _Entertainment Weekly_ just did a bit on not one but two new novels with Poe as a protagonist: **The Pale Blue Eye** , by Louise Bayard, about a murder mystery set during Poe’s time at West Point, and **The Poe Shadow** , by Matthew Pearl, about Poe’s death. Haven’t read either of them, but am curious about them, esp. the former. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-gang/359554/104 "2006-06-10T20:23:32Z")
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle] I never heard of or read Howl’s Moving Castle, but I just put it on hold at the library and will remedy the situation ASAP. [/QUOTE] You’ll love it. It’s so totally awesome. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-gang/359554/105 "2006-06-10T22:13:20Z")
I’m reading **20th Century Ghosts** , a collection of horror fiction by Joe Hill. Original and very well-written. I haven’t read any horror this good for years. I’m blown away. I want to sit and read it straight through, but I want to draw it out too. There’s a sweet story about a ghost who haunts a movie theater, a stomach-turner about a boy who turns into an insect, and a really horrific story-within-a-story about a horror editor who meets a horror writer. So far my favorite is “Pop Art”, about an inflatable boy. The book isn’t published in the US yet, so it’s pricey ($40), but libraries might have it. ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-gang/359554/106 "2006-06-10T22:39:29Z")
[QUOTE=irishgirl] re-reading The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, which makes me cry every time I read it, and is one of my favourite recent books. [/QUOTE] The first time I read it, I didn’t like overwhelmingly, but the second time I cried for hours. I was lent it by a friend, who said it was one of _his_ favourite books. I love it now, although I still want to smack both Henry and Claire sometimes. I am still waiting patiently for _Kushiel’s Scion_, and (very dumb guilty pleasure) the next Midnight Louie book, by Carole Nelson Douglas. There have been what, twenty? And the main characters are so flipping irritating! I think I just really want some kind of resolution to the soap opera of her main character’s love life. I just re-read _Bird By Bird_, Anne Lammott’s excellent book on writing. She’s very funny and irreverent. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-gang/359554/107 "2006-06-10T22:47:06Z")
[QUOTE=Lissla Lissar] I just re-read _Bird By Bird_, Anne Lammott’s excellent book on writing. She’s very funny and irreverent. [/QUOTE] Heh. Funny way to describe a staunch Christian. Have you read her **Traveling Mercies** , and the new one, the name of which I can’t think of offhand? I copied out her rules for living from the latter and have them hanging on the inside of my medicine cabinet (which is where I post all words of wisdom): > [@Anne Lamott](#): > > 1. When in doubt, read the instructions. > 2. Don’t be an asshole. I’m a big fan, and anyone who works with word, or wants to, absolutely must read **Bird by Bird** ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-gang/359554/108 "2006-06-10T23:18:23Z")
I finished _The Way of All Flesh_ a few days ago, and now I’m a few pages into _To the Lighthouse_ by Virginia Woolf. It’s a short one, and while I’m waiting for the library to get _I, Claudius_ on interloan, I got _An American Tragedy_ by Theodore Dreiser. That one will take longer, and it sounds like a barrel of laughs. ---
**Author:** ![kushiel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kushiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kushiel)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2006, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-gang/359554/109 "2006-06-10T23:59:22Z")
[QUOTE=AuntiePam] Is this the trilogy that started with The Bone Doll’s Twin? I’ve been waiting for the third book to be published. [/QUOTE] Yes, it is. It gets published this month, and seems to be coming straight to trade paperback like the other two books. ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2006, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-gang/359554/110 "2006-06-11T17:45:25Z")
[QUOTE=Zsofia] _Unknown_?! I loved that book as a kid! In fact, despite my love for Miyazaki I refuse to see the movie because I know he just didn’t get it right. Unknown?! I knew a lot of other kids who read it, too. [/QUOTE] Well _I’d_ never heard of it, and I’m the only one who counts. 😉 I’ve only just started, but I can see that certainly in the interests of brevity, Miyazaki has had to make some cuts. I’d still recommend the movie by itself, but then I recommend almost all his movies, so that’s nothing new. 🙂 _A Demon Haunted World_ is one of the few tomes I’ve read twice - I just think it’s a shame it had to be Sagan’s last book. Since I’m posting again, I’ll recommend [\* Phantoms in the brain\*](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0688172172/103-1337903-0819007?v=glance&n=283155) by Dr. Ramachandran (which was recommended by someone in another thread). It’s not _quite_ as good as Sacks _The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat_ as numbers of case studies go, but he’s quite good at explaining his reasonings and experiments and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Gulo\_gulo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bcef8e/32.png) [@Gulo\_gulo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gulo_gulo)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2006, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-gang/359554/111 "2006-06-11T17:57:32Z")
I was doing the 50-book challenge this year. It’s now the 100 book challenge as I hit 50 last month. 🙂 I recently discovered the Patrick O’Brien series but not very far into it yet. I just ordered the third in the series ([HMS Surprise](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393307611/ref=pd_sim_b_1/102-3433742-6366535?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155)) so I have a long way to go. Presently reading [The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679777547/qid=1150047809/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-3433742-6366535?s=books&v=glance&n=283155) which is extremely riveting and makes me wish I knew more about book collecting. Also reading the last of the Tripods series, [The Pool of Fire by John Cristopher](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0020427212/ref=pd_bxgy_text_b/102-3433742-6366535?%5Fencoding=UTF8), which was recommended on this board. It’s a young adult series which started out great but now I’m losing interest. Unfortunately when I start a series, I cannot leave it incomplete so I make myself continue. (This is why Robert Jordan tortures me so. Dave Sim too, but at least his series has an end that I’m slowly working towards.) Just finished [One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch by Alexander Solzhenitsyn](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0451527097/qid=1150048330/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-3433742-6366535?s=books&v=glance&n=283155), also recommended here I believe. As it’s title states, it’s a day in the life of a prisoner in a Siberian labour camp. Now that I think on it, I have to blame this board for my 500+ titles on my Amazon wish list. I need to avoid these threads! ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2006, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-gang/359554/112 "2006-06-11T18:02:31Z")
[QUOTE=twickster] Have you read her Traveling Mercies, and the new one, the name of which I can’t think of offhand? [/QUOTE] _Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith_. Yes, I’ve read it. I love the part about the importance of stoning 13 year olds, esepcially Jesus. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-gang/359554.md?page=5)