# Whatcha Readin' June 2011 Edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 31, 2011, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834 "2011-05-31T09:57:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2011, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834/121 "2011-06-24T21:15:56Z")
I’ve just compleed Faulkner’s _ **The Sound and the Fury** _, followed by Dick Francis’ _ **Twice Shy.** _ I guess next time I hit the library, I have to pick another book from the Modern Library’s 100 Greatest Novels of the 20th Century. Care to recommend one? (Bearing in mind that I’ve already read _**Ulysses, Great Gatsby, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, The Sound and the Fury, Grapes of Wrath, Catch 22, Slaughterhouse-Five, Animal Farm, Handful of Dust, Lord of the Flies, Maltese Falcon, Zuleika Dobson, The Moviegoer, Death Comes for the Archbishop, Catcher in the Rye, Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Call of the Wild, and The Magnificent Ambersons).**_ [http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/](http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/) ---
**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:** [June 24, 2011, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834/122 "2011-06-24T21:23:40Z")
I’m not a huge fan, but _Brave New World_ is definitely worth reading. ---
**Author:** ![infinitii](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e8c25b/32.png) [@infinitii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/infinitii)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2011, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834/123 "2011-06-24T21:23:48Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Care to recommend one? (Bearing in mind that I’ve already read _**Ulysses, Great Gatsby, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, The Sound and the Fury, Grapes of Wrath, Catch 22, Slaughterhouse-Five, Animal Farm, Handful of Dust, Lord of the Flies, Maltese Falcon, Zuleika Dobson, The Moviegoer, Death Comes for the Archbishop, Catcher in the Rye, Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Call of the Wild, and The Magnificent Ambersons).**_ > > [http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/](http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/) _Pale Fire_ is one of the best on the list – highly recommended. (I actually like the reader’s list better though…) ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2011, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834/124 "2011-06-24T21:29:08Z")
I’d go with something by Sinclair Lewis – there are two on the list, Main Street and Arrowsmith. I’m reading Dodsworth now, but it’s not on the list. Stupid list. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2011, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834/125 "2011-06-24T21:45:36Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > I’d go with something by Sinclair Lewis – there are two on the list, Main Street and Arrowsmith. I’m reading Dodsworth now, but it’s not on the list. Stupid list. I liked _ **Babbitt** _, so I may follow your advice. ---
**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:** [June 25, 2011, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834/126 "2011-06-25T01:25:06Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > I’ve just compleed Faulkner’s _ **The Sound and the Fury** _, followed by Dick Francis’ _ **Twice Shy.** _ I guess next time I hit the library, I have to pick another book from the Modern Library’s 100 Greatest Novels of the 20th Century. > > Care to recommend one? (Bearing in mind that I’ve already read _**Ulysses, Great Gatsby, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, The Sound and the Fury, Grapes of Wrath, Catch 22, Slaughterhouse-Five, Animal Farm, Handful of Dust, Lord of the Flies, Maltese Falcon, Zuleika Dobson, The Moviegoer, Death Comes for the Archbishop, Catcher in the Rye, Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Call of the Wild, and The Magnificent Ambersons).**_ > > [http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/](http://www.modernlibrary.com/top-100/100-best-novels/) I second anything by Sinclair Lewis. Recently read _All the King’s Men_ (#36 on the list) and can recommend that. _An American Tragedy_ (#16) and _I, Claudius_ (#14) are especially good. ---
**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:** [June 25, 2011, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834/127 "2011-06-25T01:39:04Z")
From the Board’s list, I’d suggest _Brave New World, Darkness at Noon, 1984_, and _On the Road_. From the Readers’ list (generally more to my liking, except for so much Ayn Rand - ugh!), I’d suggest _The Lord of the Rings, To Kill a Mockingbird, Dune, The Moon is A Harsh Mistress, The Stand, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy, On the Beach, Starship Troopers, The Hunt for Red October_, and _The Puppet Masters_. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2011, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834/128 "2011-06-25T01:54:04Z")
I’m still reading _From Colony to Superpower_. It’s slow going. I just started summer school so it’s had to go on the backburner, which disappoints me because I am loving it so far. I’m only 16% done with it, but it’s around a thousand pages, so I’m making pretty good progress. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2011, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834/129 "2011-06-26T20:33:49Z")
Finished _World War Z_ and did not enjoy it as much as many here. I found it repetitive and depressing. I thought there wasn’t enough substance in the end it was a page flipper. Finished _Red-Headed Stepchild_ the third in the Sabina Cain urban fantasy series. It was good enough to pass the time, but not good enough to recommend. ---
**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:** [June 26, 2011, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834/130 "2011-06-26T22:29:48Z")
> [@infinitii](#): > > _Pale Fire_ is one of the best on the list – highly recommended. (I actually like the reader’s list better though…) That’s up next for me. 🙂 Right now I’m listening to The Winter Ghosts (audiobook) , by Kate Mosse. It’s slow going and not helped at all by the narrator, who hesitates constantly to add drama, I suppose. Whatever his intention, he sounds affected and unnatural and it’s very annoying. ---
**Author:** ![Parenchyma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Parenchyma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Parenchyma)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834/131 "2011-06-27T05:12:21Z")
Finally read Tana French’s _ **In The Woods** _ which has been discussed here a bit. I wasn’t bothered too much by the older mystery that went unsolved, and I was relieved that at least Adam didn’t discover he was the killer, though disappointed by his personal failures towards the end of the case and I really loved the characters and the way the newer mystery developed. It was gripping enough that after there was a little rain today, I just stayed in and read the book straight through. Now I don’t know when I’ll be able to fall asleep. ---
**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:** [June 27, 2011, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834/132 "2011-06-27T15:17:51Z")
Finished _Suttree_, by Cormac McCarthy. Very good. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but enjoyed it a lot. A bunch of white and black trash in Knoxville, Tennessee in the early 1950s, the protagonist just a tad better than the others. I learn from doing a bit of research that it is semi-autobiographical and was written over the space of three decades. Recommended. McCarthy sure has a thing against quotation marks though, doesn’t he? I like to use them myself, but then I’m not an “artiste.” He seems somewhat ambiguous about apostrophes, using them sometimes, sometimes not. Next up: Even though it’s still just over nine months until our next trip to the US, I’m going to read through the _Lonely Planet: New York City_ guidebook. ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834/133 "2011-06-27T17:11:03Z")
I bumped my queue so that I could get to _Cutthroats: The Adventures of a Sherman Tank Driver in the Pacific_ by Robert C. Dick. Less that 24 hours in and I’m already past 60 pages. Shouldn’t take long at all. ---
**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:** [June 27, 2011, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834/134 "2011-06-27T17:23:13Z")
I actually reached the bottom of my TBR pile. The library should be sending more soon, but in the meantime, I’m revisiting A Simple Plan, by Scott Smith. I really enjoyed this book in the past, but it’s been a few years now, so it’ll be interesting to see if it holds up. If not, I’ll go root out Pat Conroy’s Lords of Discipline. ---
**Author:** ![BetsQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@BetsQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BetsQ)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2011, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834/135 "2011-06-27T17:24:16Z")
I’ve been plodding through _The Three Musketeers_. The story is so familiar - despite the fact that I’ve never read the book before, the pacing is so leisurely, and I can’t tell Athos, Porthos, and Aramis apart. May come back to it later. In the meantime, I’ve just barely started Martha Wells’ _The Cloud Roads_. I’m excited! I really liked _The Elegance of the Hedgehog_, too, but have spent a lot of time trying decide how it should have ended. I didn’t like the way it ended, but what should have happened instead? ---
**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:** [June 27, 2011, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834/136 "2011-06-27T17:26:55Z")
> [@BetsQ](#): > > I’ve been plodding through _The Three Musketeers_. The story is so familiar - despite the fact that I’ve never read the book before, the pacing is so leisurely, and I can’t tell Athos, Porthos, and Aramis apart. If you make it through the end of the entire series of books, you’ll learn how most of them eventually die … all except for one, who is still left alive. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834/137 "2011-06-30T20:32:45Z")
[Link](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=13974501#post13974501)to July’s thread. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-june-2011-edition/583834.md?page=6)