# Whatcha Readin' Mar 2011 Edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 28, 2011, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906 "2011-02-28T12:01:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**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:** [March 17, 2011, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/101 "2011-03-17T15:03:42Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > It’s a mind-blower, isn’t it? 😃 > > A good follow-up (not on AI specifically, but still) I think is _Journey to the Ants_ (less hard science-y) and _The Superorganism_ (more hard science-y): > > [Amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/Journey-Ants-Story-Scientific-Exploration/dp/0674485262/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b) > > [Amazon.com](http://www.amazon.com/Superorganism-Beauty-Elegance-Strangeness-Societies/dp/0393067041/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b) > > … prepare to have your mind blown again. The theme is how do you get complexity out of simplicity - in this case, how social insects can to an extent mimic concious beings, without conciousness. Thanks. I’m seeing The Ants and also Journey to the Ants. The former looks like it was the precursor to the latter which is maybe more of a “making of”? I have to admit, I don’t like ants, so I’m feeling a bit leery of reading a whole book about them. I might itch and twitch my way through it! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2011, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/102 "2011-03-17T15:13:19Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > Thanks. I’m seeing The Ants and also Journey to the Ants. The former looks like it was the precursor to the latter which is maybe more of a “making of”? > > I have to admit, I don’t like ants, so I’m feeling a bit leery of reading a whole book about them. I might itch and twitch my way through it! 😃 “The Ants” is more of a massive science tome (for which they won the Pulitzer Prize, btw) - I’d go with “Journey”, which is a lot more non-ant-specialist friendly, and simply a good read overall. It is certainly mind-boggling stuff on the evolution of insect super-organisms, and indirectly on how complex evolves out of simple - though, admittedly, it will make pretty well anyone itchy. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [March 17, 2011, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/103 "2011-03-17T21:51:07Z")
I have put down _The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs Of Death._ Half way in and I have yet to see anything resembling a plot. Most of the characters are annoying - the others are just bland. But I might have at least flipped through the pages and finished it, except for the author’s amazingly annoying writing style. Charlie Huston has ignored the more conventional indicators of dialog - like quotes and stuff - for this style: > [@](#): > > He took a bite out of a Slim Jim he got from the box beneath the driver’s seat. > > - That’s why he can’t drive you home > -So what’s up with him? Know he keeps a sap in his glove box? And what’s with all that camping gear? > -Gabe’s between places of residence just now. > -What, he’s homeless? > -He prefers to have no fixed address at this time. > -Uh-huh. > I tapped my cheekbone. Don’t get me wrong, if the book was the least bit interesting, the extra effort of figuring out who said what might have been worth while - but being dull and hard work - well, I’m putting it down. ---
**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:** [March 17, 2011, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/104 "2011-03-17T22:24:12Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > But I might have at least flipped through the pages and finished it, except for the author’s amazingly annoying writing style. Charlie Huston has ignored the more conventional indicators of dialog - like quotes and stuff… I can certainly see where many people would find it annoying, but I’ve read several of Huston’s books and I really like his writing style. I was a little disappointed to find out that his newest book, _Sleepless_, is written with more traditional dialogue formatting. ---
**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:** [March 17, 2011, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/105 "2011-03-17T23:22:56Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Strong, strong recommendation. **koeeoaddi** – you particularly – it reminded me of Mark Helprin in some ways. Thanks, **twicks** , I’m there! (Well, almost there. I’m 28th in line at the library.) In the meantime, I’m reading [Shavetail](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2660699.Shavetail), a gritty, sweaty, dusty, rattlesnakey, period western, by Thomas Cobb. It’s too early to start making Larry McMurtry comparisons, but damn it’s good. Sucked me right in. ---
**Author:** ![Parenchyma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Parenchyma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Parenchyma)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2011, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/106 "2011-03-18T00:51:11Z")
After lots of recs here, I finally found _Star of the Sea_ at the library. It was good. Sometimes the depth of the famine-related suffering hit really hard. Randomly picked up Michele Young-Stone’s _The Handbook for Lightning Strike Survivors_ and was glad; it’s a sweet little book. Lee Child’s latest _Worth Dying For_ delivered his usual quality. I had read John Burdett’s last four books set in Thailand, and found the earlier \*The Last Six Million Seconds \* set in Hong Kong just before the changeover. Liked that it gave a little more background on his perceptions of Asian history and politics that illuminate his Bangkok books in retrospect. I’ve read most of Barry Maitland’s Brock and Kolla series, and was happy to also find the fine _Dark Mirror._ Closest to real literature was _The News Where You Are_ by Catherine O’Flynn. Very well written, often funny. In audiobooks, I trended more to the juvenile, having a little binge of the first four of the young adult _Bloody Jack_ series by L. A. Meyer. The reader is very entertaining, and even if the stories are somewhat predictable, they consistently deliver. Continuing with the YA theme I found _The Lies of Locke Lamora_ which I had seen rec’d here. More complex story than the Bloody Jacks but the reader was maybe a little repetitious in his voices; this would have benefited from a full cast but I doubt the producers can afford that. None of the libraries I have access to currently has the second Gentlemen Bastards book available for download, so I’ll wait. Now I’m just starting the third Didius Falco mystery, with another of James Church’s Inspector O novels on deck. ---
**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:** [March 18, 2011, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/107 "2011-03-18T01:44:07Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > “The Ants” is more of a massive science tome (for which they won the Pulitzer Prize, btw) - I’d go with “Journey”, which is a lot more non-ant-specialist friendly, and simply a good read overall. > > It is certainly mind-boggling stuff on the evolution of insect super-organisms, and indirectly on how complex evolves out of simple - though, admittedly, it will make pretty well anyone itchy. 😃 Thanks. It’s in my growing to-read pile! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2011, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/108 "2011-03-18T02:42:05Z")
Recently finished: [Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City](http://www.amazon.com/Fordlandia-Henry-Fords-Forgotten-Jungle/dp/0312429622/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300415856&sr=8-1) Now reading: [How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming](http://www.amazon.com/How-Killed-Pluto-Why-Coming/dp/0385531087/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1) Good stuff, both of them. ---
**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:** [March 18, 2011, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/109 "2011-03-18T14:57:08Z")
Finished _Tender is the Night_, by F Scott Fitzgerald. Very good. The rise and fall of a promising psychoanalyst whose schizophrenic wife is his patient. A very personal novel apparently, as Fitzgerald wrote it in 1933 at a time when Zelda was institutionalized in Baltimore with schizophrenia. The title is taken from part of a Keats poem. Next up: _A Handful of Dust_, by Evelyn Waugh. ---
**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:** [March 21, 2011, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/110 "2011-03-21T16:00:28Z")
I finally gave up on _Fatal Shore_. I hate to admint defeat, but the due date was coming fast and I still had 150 pages to go in this weighty tome, so I started skipping and speed-reading to get through the last of it. After 450 pages, it had pretty much turned into “. . .and then another sadistic bastard took over Norfolk Island and flogged the flesh off their bones.” For some needed relief, I downloaded a novel by an author named John Locke, based on the reviews. What a piece of unmitigated crap. My book fu is weak of late. ---
**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:** [March 21, 2011, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/111 "2011-03-21T18:59:06Z")
I’m currently about halfway through The Marbury Lens, by Andrew Smith. It’s a YA novel about a teenage boy who has one set of problems in this world, and a different set in another world, which he can access by looking through the lens. The story is very dark and I’m not crazy about the protagonist, but I still want to know how it all washes out. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/112 "2011-03-22T02:12:49Z")
Now reading Keith Richards’ autobiog. Pretty entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/113 "2011-03-22T02:16:18Z")
Spent a gift certificate and picked up two more by Tom Franklin, the new Hap and Leonard by Joe Lansdale, and _So Much Pretty_ by Cara Hoffman, which is getting a lot of good buzz. Buzzed books don’t usually work for me. We’ll see. ---
**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:** [March 22, 2011, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/114 "2011-03-22T02:42:37Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > After 450 pages, it had pretty much turned into “. . .and then another sadistic bastard … flogged the flesh off their bones.” It’s an Aussie tradition. I see them doing that here a lot. ---
**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:** [March 22, 2011, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/115 "2011-03-22T13:48:37Z")
Finished The Marbury Lens. It was disappointing. I never grew to like the protagonist, a couple of the subplots could have been completely excised without loss, and the ending leaves things properly posed for a sequel. Also, if the words “Fuck you, Jack” were taken out from all the random places they were sprinkled, the book would be ten pages shorter. Next up will be Kate Morton’s The House at Riverdale. ---
**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:** [March 22, 2011, 2:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/116 "2011-03-22T14:47:28Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > It’s an Aussie tradition. I see them doing that here a lot. It’s a very informative and well-researched book, but tough going at times. ---
**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:** [March 24, 2011, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/117 "2011-03-24T14:27:30Z")
Finished _A Handful of Dust_, by Evelyn Waugh. Very enjoyable. A biting parody of upper-class British society in early-1930s England, a milieu he was very familiar with personally. A bit odd though is that the book almost seems like two different stories, as the mood completely changes once Tony sets sail for Brazil in the wake of his marital troubles. In fact, it seems that Waugh, as an ending, tacked on a short story he had written earlier called “The Man Who Liked Dickens.” The copy I have includes an alternate ending he had to write when an American magazine wanted to serialize it but could not due to some sort of copyright issue with it ending with that short story. I think I actually like the tacked-on ending better myself. Next up: _All the King’s Men_, by Robert Penn Warren. ---
**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:** [March 24, 2011, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/118 "2011-03-24T15:37:53Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > Next up will be Kate Morton’s The House at Riverdale. Scratch that, I decided I’d rather move on to the next book on the pile, The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Vol. 1. If the stories I _haven’t_ read are as good as the ones I _have_, this book will be incredible! I’m going to spoiler the table of contents just to make this post look tidy:[spoiler] A Martian Odyssey – Stanley G. Weinbaum Twilight – John W. Campbell Helen O’Loy – Lester del Rey The Roads Must Roll – Robert A. Heinlein Microcosmic God – Theodore Sturgeon Nightfall – Isaac Asimov The Weapon Shop – A. E. van Vogt Mimsy Were the Borogoves – Lewis Padgett Huddling Place – Clifford D. Simak Arena – Fredric Brown First Contact – Murray Leinster That Only a Mother – Judith Merril Scanners Live in Vain – Cordwainer Smith Mars is Heaven – Ray Bradbury The Little Black Bag – C. M. Kornbluth Born of Man and Woman – Richard Matheson Coming Attraction – Fritz Leiber The Quest for Saint Aquin – Anthony Boucher Surface Tension – James Blish The Nine Billion Names of God – Arthur C. Clarke It’s a Good Life – Jerome Bixby The Cold Equations – Tom Godwin Fondly Fahrenheit – Alfred Bester The Country of the Kind – Damon Knight Flowers for Algernon – Daniel Keyes A Rose for Ecclesiastes – Roger Zelazny[/spoiler] ---
**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:** [March 24, 2011, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/119 "2011-03-24T16:10:23Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I finally gave up on _Fatal Shore_… Color me unsurprised. History shouldn’t be dull and plodding, but that book sure was. **Dung Beetle** , that’s a great collection of short sf! It’s already been mentioned in the current favorite-short-stories thread. My dad had a copy and I read it as a kid. Of all the stories you listed, I particularly like: “A Martian Odyssey”- Stanley G. Weinbaum “Microcosmic God” - Theodore Sturgeon “Nightfall” - Isaac Asimov “The Nine Billion Names of God” - Arthur C. Clarke “It’s a Good Life” - Jerome Bixby “The Cold Equations” - Tom Godwin “Flowers for Algernon” - Daniel Keyes ---
**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:** [March 24, 2011, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906/120 "2011-03-24T17:20:27Z")
I gave the book to my fourteen year old last night and asked him to read “Born of Man and Woman”. He didn’t mind, since it’s only about two pages long. When he brought the book back, his first comment was, “Doubleyou tee eff?” and then he pestered me for a while with, “What was it? What was it?” 😃 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-mar-2011-edition/572906.md?page=7)