# Whatcha Readin' (July 09) Edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 30, 2009, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467 "2009-06-30T13:36:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 9
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/161 "2009-07-20T17:44:39Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Is that actually any fun to read? I saw it on the shelf, and I sorta thought it might be one of those books where the _concept_ was the best part. Yeah, it’s fun. He doesn’t _quite_ have Austen’s voice down (the parts he wrote, not Austen), but it still works well. Sentences like > [@Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smithe](#): > > At present, indeed, they were well supplied both with news and happiness by the recent arrival of a militia regiment in the neighbourhood; it was to remain the whole winter, wresting coffins from the hardened earth and setting fire to them. catch me off guard, and I laugh out loud (which I usually don’t do - Christopher Moore, Terry Pratchett and other funny writers are fine, but I don’t laugh out loud at them). ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/162 "2009-07-20T18:05:47Z")
Sniff. I’m finished with the fifth and final Kedrigern novel – _A Remembrance for Kedrigern_. The series ended nicely, with an ongoing plot point wrapped up, and a big THE END at the end. Morressy sticks some book titles into his writing. I’m not sure I caught them all, but in _Charming Couple_ he talks about “the curious incident of the wolf in the nighttime”, and in _Remembrance_, someone references an “appointment in Samarra”. And this made me groan, but one character had experienced some miraculous events and was anxious to get home and tell his brother about his unbelievable adventures. His brother Horatio is a philosopher. You know the rest. Next up is _Best Served Cold_ by Joe Abercrombie. And thanks to the Jack Vance thread, I’m gonna look for some of his books when I go to Seattle in August. ---
**Author:** ![yellowval](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/919ad9/32.png) [@yellowval](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowval)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/163 "2009-07-20T18:14:05Z")
I finally finished “For Whom the Bell Tolls” yesterday. It took me a long time to finish it, but it was really great and worth the effort. My husband, on the other hand, was incredibly disappointed to learn that it was not about Metallica. 😉 Today, in spite of warnings from others and my better judgment, I checked out “The Hour I First Believed” by Wally Lamb. I have “Prodigal Summer” by Barbara Kingsolver as a backup just in case. I also checked out my first-ever audio book today. I spend several hours a week at the gym and sometimes get sick of the same old music and TV just doesn’t distract me enough. I have a hard time trying to read on the elliptical and obviously can’t read while doing strength training. So I decided to give audio books a shot. I checked out “The Almost Moon” by Alice Sebold. Anyone read this one? I see now that it got a lot of bad reviews on Goodreads. Oh, well. It’s an experiment anyway. ---
**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:** [July 21, 2009, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/164 "2009-07-21T16:03:32Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Now I’m reading **Pride and Prejudice and Zombies** - about 50 pages in, and already I really really want to hear this is going to be a movie. A followup has been announced: [Sense and Sensibility and Seamonsters](http://scifiwire.com/2009/07/video-preview-sense-and-s.php). With “40 percent additional monster chaos”. P&P&Z apparently only has 15% new text. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2009, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/165 "2009-07-21T17:08:27Z")
Also coming up is **Darcy’s Hunger: A Vampire Retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice** (different author - Regina Jeffers. no Jane Austen writing credit that I see). Due in December. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2009, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/166 "2009-07-21T18:22:35Z")
Today, after dawdling for three months, I have finished _Flashman and the Angel of the Lord._ ---
**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:** [July 22, 2009, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/167 "2009-07-22T01:49:30Z")
> [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](#): > > Today, after dawdling for three months, I have finished _Flashman and the Angel of the Lord._ I finished that one not too long ago myself. That leaves only two or three I think I’ve not read. Been putting off searching for them, because I don’t want the series to end. (That and they’re not always easy to find here.) ---
**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:** [July 22, 2009, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/168 "2009-07-22T02:28:17Z")
Just finished the graphic novel _Stephen King’s The Stand: Captain Trips_, which was pretty good, and Vol. II of _Tolkien Studies_ (2005), which had some interesting articles but was overall a bit too academically musty for my tastes. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/169 "2009-07-22T10:58:28Z")
Just finished Simon Green’s _The Spy who haunted me_ - a very weak follow-up to his _The Spy In The Golden Torque._ He did so many things in this edition of his series that annoyed me that I may give up the series. His writings very often feel contrived to me and sometimes I have to wonder what is wrong with me that I keep reading him. Most egregiously though He is overly fond of time travel, something I don’t care for in most books and he makes use of it too often. Worse, Eddie Drood goes into the future to pull in a character from one of Green’s other series - the _DeathStalker_ series. Giles DeathStalker apparently is distantly related to the Droods. An overall disappointment of a book. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/170 "2009-07-22T16:01:27Z")
I am going to attempt \*\* Gone Away World\*\* because of the promise of apocalypse and ninjas. I hope I don’t have to have a PhD and smoke dope to figure out whats going on. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/171 "2009-07-22T18:12:05Z")
> [@Shirley\_Ujest](#): > > I am going to attempt \*\* Gone Away World\*\* because of the promise of apocalypse and ninjas. > > I hope I don’t have to have a PhD and smoke dope to figure out whats going on. 🙂 I’m going to say: don’t do it! But that is only so, if you hate it, I can say: Told you so! 🙂 ---
**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:** [July 22, 2009, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/172 "2009-07-22T18:45:49Z")
I just finished reading all three books, back to back, in Robin Hobb’s Farseer trilogy. Whew! The books are not without some serious flaws, but I was really sucked in by her writing. I’m in the middle of _How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapters_, by Sherwin Nuland. A physician tries to diminish the popular myth of a “death with dignity” by explaining the actual way in which most of us will die. It’s fascinating so far, particularly the chapter on the mechanisms of heart disease, which has exactly the right amount of detail for an interested layman and leaves you wondering about the state of your own coronary arteries. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/173 "2009-07-22T23:06:50Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > 🙂 I’m going to say: don’t do it! > > But that is only so, if you hate it, I can say: Told you so! 🙂 Don’t smoke dope and read it or don’t read it at all? I hate it when I miss the ‘messages’. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [July 22, 2009, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/174 "2009-07-22T23:50:05Z")
> [@Shirley\_Ujest](#): > > Don’t smoke dope and read it or don’t read it at all? > > I hate it when I miss the ‘messages’. I’m pretty much in the minority here - I hated the book. [Here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=11290578&postcount=163) is what I have said. But others here really like it. ---
**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:** [July 23, 2009, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/175 "2009-07-23T01:05:47Z")
> [@Shirley\_Ujest](#): > > I am going to attempt \*\* Gone Away World\*\* because of the promise of apocalypse and ninjas. > > I hope I don’t have to have a PhD and smoke dope to figure out whats going on. I don’t smoke pot and have no PhD. It’s not rocket science. I’m still reading it, and it’s the human stories that keep me glued, not the tech (which is pretty far-fetched imho)! ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/176 "2009-07-23T19:57:13Z")
I’m someone else who wasn’t wowed by _Gone Away World_ – liked it well enough to finish it, but my socks were still definitely on my feet when I reached the last page. I’ve finished Mary Stewart’s Merlin trilogy – I liked the first one (his early life, through the night when Arthur was conceived) best, and the third better than the second, but they were all well done and entertaining; a very good read. I’ve taken _The Wicked Day_ (about Mordred) out of the library, despite some “not as good as the trilogy” comments from various folks in one of these threads – I’m curious about her take on Mordred, having seen what she’s done with some of the other elements of the legend, and suspect that “not as good” is still a hell of a lot better than other crap I could be reading. Plus I bought a used copy of _Arthur Rex_ today – not sure if I’ll tackle that immediately or wait a while. I’d been planning to wait a while, but the tone looks very different (read several pages in the bookstore) and I think it will be an interesting compare-and-contrast, not overkill. My vacation (yes, unemployed people go on vacation) is the week after next, and it actually strikes me as a good beach read. I’m weird that way. ---
**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:** [July 23, 2009, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/177 "2009-07-23T20:57:06Z")
Re: _Gone Away World_, ya know, I thought the big reveal was supposed to have happened before now. Now I’m worried that it was so subtle I missed it. I know from another spoiler that the narrator is Gonzo’s other side. I’m past the halfway mark, the boss-daddy of Piper 90 was fired, the Bey’s waxing poetic about giant corporations evolving to be less and less human. The narrator’s already married. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2009, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/178 "2009-07-23T21:10:18Z")
The reveal doesn’t come until very near the end, but some astute readers (of which I am not one) probably figured it out earlier. I think the biggest clue was when we first meet him, he’s what – seven or eight years old, but he’s homeless, no parents, he just goes home with Gonzo (or was it the girl?) and nobody asks any questions.. ---
**Author:** ![Other\_Dreams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Other\_Dreams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Other_Dreams)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/179 "2009-07-24T04:36:18Z")
Reading… Picture of Dorian Gray Lolita A Crack in the Line Soon to be reading: Stiff: The Secret Lives of Human Cadavers (Something like that) Dorian Gray is really good; marvelous writing. Lolita is a tad confusing, mainly because I am unsure who the narrator is. I am reading “A Crack in the Line” because my sister liked it so much. I like the concept, at least. I am going to be reading that book about human cadavers because I frequent this board now, and you are determined to enlighten me. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![tr0psn4j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@tr0psn4j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tr0psn4j)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2009, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467/180 "2009-07-24T05:09:28Z")
So far I’ve read all but the 9th of the Sookie Stack House Novels, The Great Gatsby and I’m currently reading The Princess Bride. There just isn’t much else to do when the computer doesn’t work. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467.md?page=8) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-09-edition/501467.md?page=10)