# Whatcha Readin' July 2010 Edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 30, 2010, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121 "2010-06-30T21:57:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/81 "2010-07-17T01:07:39Z")
Finished \*Magnificent Mind at Any Age: Natural Ways to Unleash Your Brain’s Maximum Potential. _A very dry read. The first 1/3 was mostly about which supplements to take - and focused heavily on those with ADD_. \*Each time he spoke about a supplement he would start by saying that he had searched X studies and Y were positive and Z were negative. It was not uncommon for me to notice that the Y and Z were close numerically. (IOW, while \*he \*might recommend it, he was admitting that the medical world was split on the subject.) Oddly, I find it comforting when an expert admits that not everyone agrees, but in his experience something works - as long as the expert doesn’t claim that “they” are hiding this from you.) I used to have a great memory, but in the last 7 years or so it has been slipping away. I _am_ 48, but it seems I have lost more than middle-age should account for. I have sworn that my many operations have affected my brain, but my surgeon tells me I’m crazy. This books tells me that some people _are_ affected by general anesthesia. I don’t guess it matters, the surgery needed to be done, but I’m glad to see I’m not nuts. The last quarter of the book focused on people with self-destructive thought patterns. I saw a younger me in many of the pages and I wish I had read this book many years ago. He talks about what he calls ANTs (Automatic negative Thoughts.) This was something I used to do - for much of my life. The book was not bad - if you are seeking an alternative way to treat ADD, depression or OCD give it a read. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/82 "2010-07-17T02:08:57Z")
A couple of SF novels. _The Proteus Operation_ in honor of James Hogan’s memory. And _Idlewild_ by Nick Sagan because it happned to be on a nearby shelf when I felt like reading something. ---
**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 17, 2010, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/83 "2010-07-17T03:49:35Z")
Spent much of this afternoon looking for useful tidbits for a future Staff Report in three British political memoirs, _The Iron Lady_ by Hugo Young, _The Way the Wind Blows_ by Alec Douglas-Home, and _Majesty: Elizabeth II and the House of Windsor_ by Robert Lacey. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/84 "2010-07-17T11:51:20Z")
Was reading Jonathan Weiner’s _Beak of the Finch_ (on evolution in action, amongst Darwin’s finches in the Galapagos and in other animal populations), but the library wouldn’t let me renew it online while they thought I had an overdue book (I didn’t, someone had shelved it in the stacks without checking it in properly several weeks ago), and didn’t care enough to take it out again after I got that straightened out, so I’m leaving that at 3/4 read. Picked up _Living Oprah: My One-Year Experiment to Walk the Walk of the Queen of Talk_ by Robyn Okrant, who spent a year doing everything Oprah said on the show “you must do” or “you should do” and blogging about it. Quick, fun read – finished it in two days. Moderately self-reflective about women’s relationship with self-help experts in general and Oprah in particular, role of mass media in creating our expectations of ourselves and others, etc., but fairly superficial overall. Entertaining, but not a particularly strong recommendation. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/85 "2010-07-17T17:56:04Z")
Reading _Anansi Boys_ by Neil Gaiman. Not impressed. The writing feels tentative and mushy and I don’t really care what happens to any of the characters. I might not bother to finish it. I wasn’t that nuts about _American Gods_ either. It doesn’t help that occasionally he’ll write a sentence so full of subordinate clauses, and with so many words between subject and verb, that I have to re-read it for sense, and it’s not even a very important sentence. Sorta like the one I just wrote. 🙂 ---
**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 17, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/86 "2010-07-17T19:08:12Z")
We took a long trip in the car last weekend, and we got most of the way through Patrick O’Brian’s _Desolation Island_ on audiobook. This one is read by Simon Vance, and while I like his narration better than Patrick Tull’s, I don’t much like the voices he does for Jack and Stephen. Now I’m reading _Tigana_, by Guy Gavriel Kay. I’ve never read Kay before, but this has been on my list for a while, suggested as a good standalone fantasy novel. So far I like it pretty well. I’m still reading Elizabeth George’s Inspector Lynley mysteries: just finished _For the Sake of Elena_. I like them, though they’re a bit melodramatic, and I’m getting tired of the author’s fixation on the bodies of middle-aged women who have “let themselves go”. Tired of hearing about their crow’s feet, thickening waists, drooping breasts and sagging flesh, while the middle-aged men are merely burdened with lined faces and greying hair. ---
**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:** [July 17, 2010, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/87 "2010-07-17T19:29:37Z")
I just finished _The Lion_, by Nelson DeMille, which was a fast paced cartoon of a thriller. The mustache twirling, evil-doer bad guy is so over the top that he enjoys tasting his victim’s blood. :rolleyes: It’s a multiple snorter. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/88 "2010-07-17T19:46:35Z")
> [@koeeoaddi](#): > > It’s a multiple snorter. Rip and what else? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2010, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/89 "2010-07-17T20:12:47Z")
I really enjoyed Tiganna. It is probably the last book from Kay that I liked. (But I just bought a new one from him.) Finished There Were Giants Upon The Earth. Ever wonder who those morons are that keep the History Channel broadcasting the bad science shows? ::Hangs head::I am one of them. I don’t believe them, but the boy in me who wants there to be monsters and mysteries enjoy them. There Were Giants Upon The Earth is a book like those shows. von Däniken did it better (well, maybe not, I first read him when I was 12.) Despite being dry, this book was a fun diversion, and had an occasional clever view, but if you don’t like that type of book, it isn’t going to change anything. ---
**Author:** ![Enterprise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/76d3ee/32.png) [@Enterprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enterprise)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/90 "2010-07-19T13:42:04Z")
I’ve had a fairly interesting reading month so far, with a lot still in the works (and a short, three-day holiday coming up, so I might get some more reading in!). I’ve finished Truman Capote’s _In Cold Blood_, which was good, but not as super as it’s sometimes described. The last couple of dozen pages were a considerable let down, actually, veering off into psychoanalytic questions without really tying it all to the main narrative. But it’s a highly interesting kind of journalism that he’s written there. I’ve also finished Jeff Smith’s _Stupid, Stupid Rat Tails_, which makes me wish I’d never read _Bone_, so I could read it again, virginally. Great, great book. Others that I got through with: Kurt Busiek’s _Astro City (vol. 1)_ and _Marvels_, and Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips’s _Criminal_. I liked them all – _Astro City_, I thought, was the cleverest. Still. all quite worthwhile. I’ve got Brubaker’s _Sleeper_ on loan from a friend for the next couple of days. Otherwise, I’m currently enjoying _Conquest_ by Juliet Barker (sequel of sorts to her excellent _Agincourt_), as well as Hunter Thompson’s _Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas_. And of course there’s stuff I’m also reading that I’m not quite enjoying as much, so I won’t bother you with it… ---
**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 19, 2010, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/91 "2010-07-19T16:45:22Z")
> [@Enterprise](#): > > …I’ve finished Truman Capote’s _In Cold Blood_, which was good, but not as super as it’s sometimes described. The last couple of dozen pages were a considerable let down, actually, veering off into psychoanalytic questions without really tying it all to the main narrative. But it’s a highly interesting kind of journalism that he’s written there… My book club read it a few years ago and we all really enjoyed it. I thought it lived up to the hype. I highly recommend the 2006 movie _Infamous_, with Toby Jones as Capote and Sandra Bullock as Harper Lee, for its portrayal of the crime and then of Capote’s writing of the book. ---
**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:** [July 19, 2010, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/92 "2010-07-19T17:34:19Z")
Just finished Before I Fall, a YA novel by Lauren Oliver. I gave it four out of five stars over at Goodreads, but after reading all the rave reviews, I’m tempted to take one star away just to balance things out. It wasn’t the greatest darn book in the world! I struggled over the rating, but in the end, I rated it highly for two reasons: It was nice and thick, and I liked the author enough to put her on my list of writers I will look for in the future. The premise is basically Groundhog Day, with the Bill Murray character played by a popular high school girl. There were some annoying points (Everyone is so rich, Mr. Perfect has always loved her from afar), but on the whole it was very engrossing and I had a good time reading it. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/93 "2010-07-19T20:04:07Z")
_The Frightened Man_ was very good. I hope there will be more in the series. Read _Half Broke Horses_ (superb!) by Jeannette Walls; now on _The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag_ by Alan Bradley, sequel to _The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie_. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/94 "2010-07-20T01:00:37Z")
Yay, I get to post in this thread! Yesterday I bought: Jaws (Benchley) Ender’s Game (Card) Congo (Critchton…3rd copy, I lost the first two.) I am Legend (Matheson…I’ve read it many times, but my wife hasn’t, and couldn’t get it on eBook.) I wanted to buy Exorcist (Blatty) but the book at B&N had a damaged cover and they didn’t have a replacement (hey if I’m buying new, it better be perfect.) So far, I’m about halfway through Jaws. I’m surprised how much was left out of the movie. It’s kind of like Steinbeck’s The Pearl, but the pearl is a shark. ---
**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:** [July 20, 2010, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/95 "2010-07-20T02:21:53Z")
Finished Reading the new (2005\_ wesleyan University press translation of Jules Verne’s **The Begum’s Millions** by Stansford Luce, comparing it against the ARCO/“Fitzroy” translation (presumably by I.O. Evans). Despite all the nasty things the new translators say about the older ones, I think the old one holds up pretty well. And, although the new translation is superior to the old one (rendering “painted papers” as the more reasonable “wallpaper”), there is at least one place where the old translation is superior to the new one. I also read Verne’s **Godfrey Morgan** , which I downloaded from Project Gutenberg. The book has an alternate title, which gives away the plot twist. I hate people who do that. And I’m now reading Clark Ashton Smith’s collected **Zothique** stories. ---
**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 20, 2010, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/96 "2010-07-20T02:49:07Z")
I’m closing in on _Lucky You_, another excellent read by Carl Hiaasen. His books are all enjoyable, but with one or two exceptions I often can’t remember much about them later on. The wife and I are entering Laos tomorrow (Wednesday), where I hope to finish it, then start on _The Ambassadors_, by Henry James. Will be back by the weekend; see you then! ---
**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/97 "2010-07-20T05:17:31Z")
I just finished **Confederates in the Attic** , by Tony Horwitz, which he describes as “notes from the unfinished Civil War”. A look at Civil war re-enactors and what drives them to authenticity in terms of uniforms, food, language, etc. Fascinating. ---
**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 20, 2010, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/98 "2010-07-20T12:55:34Z")
[Change your Brain , Change your Life](http://www.amazon.com/Change-Your-Brain-Life-Obsessiveness/dp/0812929985/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1279630286&sr=8-2). Nonfic. I’ve been into a brain kick lately and this book was on the Buy One/Get One 50% off at Borders. Very readable and helpful in breaking down not only what parts of the cue zombie speak BRAIIIIIIIIIIN does and how it works and doesn’t work, but give real life patient stories. It is engaging. ---
**Author:** ![TheMerchandise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b487fb/32.png) [@TheMerchandise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheMerchandise)\ **Post date:** [July 20, 2010, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/99 "2010-07-20T15:11:38Z")
> [@movingfinger](#): > > I just finished **Confederates in the Attic** , by Tony Horwitz, which he describes as “notes from the unfinished Civil War”. A look at Civil war re-enactors and what drives them to authenticity in terms of uniforms, food, language, etc. Fascinating. I read this book last year and also found it compelling, especially the Japanese’s fascination with Scarlett O’Hara. I finished _The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death_, which I recommend for anyone with a strong stomach and a love of gritty action and bad language. I just started _The Blade Itself_, by Joe Ambercrombie, on the insistence of a friend. ---
**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 20, 2010, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121/100 "2010-07-20T16:31:14Z")
> [@movingfinger](#): > > I just finished **Confederates in the Attic** , by Tony Horwitz, which he describes as “notes from the unfinished Civil War”. A look at Civil war re-enactors and what drives them to authenticity in terms of uniforms, food, language, etc. Fascinating. I was a Union infantry reenactor for five years and have always meant to read this, but just never got around to it. It’s even on my shelf! Someday, someday… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-july-2010-edition/545121.md?page=6)