# Whatcha readin' March (08) edition
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [February 29, 2008, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631 "2008-02-29T12:28:25Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [February 29, 2008, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/1 "2008-02-29T12:28:25Z")
OK, here is the March thread.
I am still reading Red Seas Under Red Skies. It is going slowly because of issues at work and because it is an intricate read. However I am enjoying it so far.
I am reading about a half dozen C# books. Work has changed quite a bit and I need to learn this development tool.
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### Author:  [@Future\_Londonite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Future_Londonite)
#### Post date: [February 29, 2008, 12:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/2 "2008-02-29T12:52:07Z")
Just started Stephen Kings “Duma Key” (yay for airports selling the latest hardcovers in paperback way before the bookstores get the paperbacks). Not quite sure what to read next…
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### Author:  [@shijinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shijinn)
#### Post date: [February 29, 2008, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/3 "2008-02-29T12:55:43Z")
quick hijack: is there a monthly book discussion thread? if not, why not? if there isn’t a good reason why there isn’t might someone start one? if there is a monthly thread with the name of the book in the thread title, perhaps we might slowly build up reviews and discussions of a sort? more ifs and question marks at nine.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [February 29, 2008, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/4 "2008-02-29T12:56:47Z")
Currently reading The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope, a YA novel recommended by somebody around here.
> [@](#):
>
> In 1558 while imprisoned in a remote castle, a young girl becomes involved in a series of events that leads to an underground labyrinth peopled by the last practitioners of druidic magic.
It’s decent.
By the way, **Khadaji** , thanks for starting these threads and linking to the new ones each month. They’re my favorites.
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### Author:  [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)
#### Post date: [February 29, 2008, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/5 "2008-02-29T13:28:23Z")
**The Opium War** by W. travis Hanes and Frank Sanello. Good account of the 19th century war vbetween Britain and China, in which Britain forced China to open itself to drug traffic. The subtitle tells it all “The Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another”. More lively than other accounts of it I’ve read.
**The Humanoid Touch** by Jack Williamson. His belated sequel to “The Humanoids”, which was itself an amplification of his classic short story “With Folded Hands”. Robots take over running humanity for our own good. When Jack Williamsomn attended the last Noreascon (via telephone, from his bed in Arizona), Larry Niven cracked that he’d just seen his story at the movies – under the title **I, Robot**.
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [February 29, 2008, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/6 "2008-02-29T13:40:04Z")
I just started “This For Remembrance”, Rosemary Clooney’s autobiography. It’s pretty good. Anyone who starts her autobio by talking about her affair with a 16-year-younger married man then immediately dives into her addiction to barbiturates and her subsequent psychotic break, with first-person accounts of the Bobby Kennedy assassination thrown in, is one gutsy lady.
This probably should have gone into February, but I’m not looking for that one now. I just finished the whole “Acorna” cycle by Anne McCaffrey and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. They’re quick reads and fairly entertaining, if not exactly “Anna Karenina”. The only problem I have with them is the blurb on the front cover of every one, “The further adventures of the unicorn girl”, which made me look like I’m a 14-year-old girl mentally to anyone seeing me reading them.
I’m enjoying my mindless literary entertainment while it’s here. I have Carson McCullers on the horizon and I know that’s not exactly lighthearted stuff…
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### Author:  [@Zambini57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zambini57)
#### Post date: [February 29, 2008, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/7 "2008-02-29T13:43:30Z")
I’m re-reading “The Lensmen Chronicles”. Skimming portions of it actually until I get started on something new. I like reading about the Lensmen looking into their viewing “plates” while traveling through the “ether”, and about space battles resulting in racks of vacuum tubes getting blown, or about Samms taking his ship out of hyperdrive and then starting up his 16-cylinder Diesel for standby power.
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### Author:  [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)
#### Post date: [February 29, 2008, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/8 "2008-02-29T14:22:58Z")
I’m reading the Iceland stories by Halldór Laxness.
**shijinn** , I think a group read is a good idea. Group reads can be kind of complicated and time-consuming to set up – taking nominations and voting. Maybe what we could do is post a list of books we’re planning to read – it might be that one or two of those books are on other people’s lists.
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### Author:  [@Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine)
#### Post date: [February 29, 2008, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/9 "2008-02-29T14:44:50Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham]
**The Humanoid Touch** by Jack Williamson. His belated sequel to “The Humanoids”, which was itself an amplification of his classic short story “With Folded Hands”. Robots take over running humanity for our own good. When Jack Williamsomn attended the last Noreascon (via telephone, from his bed in Arizona), Larry Niven cracked that he’d just seen his story at the movies – under the title **I, Robot**.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve never read anything by Jack Williamson, but I recently read a short story by Connie Willis called “Nonstop to Portales” that’s an homage to him (tourists from the future come to see where he lived and worked). Apparently she’s a fan.
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### Author:  [@Burton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Burton)
#### Post date: [February 29, 2008, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/10 "2008-02-29T15:14:49Z")
To The Last Man - Jeff Shaara, A biography of Richard Francis Burton & a collection of Arthur Conan Doyle’s correspondence.
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### Author:  [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)
#### Post date: [February 29, 2008, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/11 "2008-02-29T15:43:09Z")
Still working on the _Illiad_
Also reading Obama’s _The Audacity of Hope_. For a book written by a politician, it’s astonishingly good. I think he promises way more than he can deliver, but that’s a subject for another thread.
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### Author:  [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)
#### Post date: [February 29, 2008, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/12 "2008-02-29T15:59:36Z")
Currently in the queue, being read either in the car, on the throne or while watching TV:
_Warfish_ - \*\*George Grider \*\* This is a re-re-read. The self-penned story of the captain of the most successful US submarine in WW2.
_Boundary_ - **Eric Flint/Ryk Spoor** Paleontology on Mars, I think. Just started it. SF by an author I love.
_[Doonesbury.com](http://Doonesbury.com)’s The Sandbox: Dispatches from Troops In Iraq and Afghanistan_ - Short stories and blog entries. Perfect for readin on the throne.
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### Author:  [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2008, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/13 "2008-03-01T16:04:57Z")
Still working on **A Distant Mirror**. It’s a very dense book both in terms of subject matter and heft. Good, though. Someone on GoodReads recommended reading the plague chapter when you have the flu to put things in perspective. I did and it does.
Finished **Sandman: Endless Nights** last night during a bout with insomnia. Great read, although I wouldn’t recommend reading the Despair chapter when your brain is spinning its wheels. I also gave up on **Rebecca**. The writing was too plodding and flowering. I’ll take the Hitchcock movie, thanks. It moves more quickly.
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### Author:  [@lilflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lilflower)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2008, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/14 "2008-03-01T20:01:06Z")
I’m reading this month’s selection for my book club: **Water for Elephants**. The writing is actually quite good but the overall story line and the characters are pretty boring.
I just finished reading **Between, Georgia** , which was so crappy that I’m pretty sure it will be a Hallmark made-for-TV movie next week. It was so melodramatic and all the characters were so caught up in their own crap that it was excruciating to finish. But, I promised a friend I would read it. Now I have good reason to never again read anything she suggests!
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### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2008, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/15 "2008-03-01T20:41:17Z")
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle]
Currently reading The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope, a YA novel recommended by somebody around here. It’s decent.
By the way, **Khadaji** , thanks for starting these threads and linking to the new ones each month. They’re my favorites.
[/QUOTE]
🙂 Mine too. I always get some great recommendations.
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### Author:  [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2008, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/16 "2008-03-01T20:51:12Z")
I’m currently finishing up:
_The Courage of Their Convictions: Sixteen Americans Who Fought Their Way to the Supreme Court_ by Peter Irons.
Irons introduces 16 Americans who had the courage and perseverance to pursue a belief in their constitutional rights all the way to the Surpreme Court. Their cases, decided by the Surpreme Court between 1940 and 1986, raise four major issues of our time – religion, race, protest, and privacy.
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### Author:  [@descamisado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/descamisado)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2008, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/17 "2008-03-01T21:07:47Z")
I also intend to skim rather than read _DON’T SHOOT! I’m Coming Out: How to “Man-Up” and Set Heterosexuals “Straight”_ by Benn Jeffrey. [Link](http://aalbc.com/reviews/dont_shoot.htm).
I’ll probably be doing a lot of laughing too at what appears to an advice manual on how gays should remain in the closet, or at least come out and try to hide in plain sight. It appears that the author himself is gay and that the book is self-published, but I’m just curious about what I’m checked out so far and why he would want to write such a book.
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### Author:  [@maggenpye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maggenpye)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2008, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/18 "2008-03-02T01:16:09Z")
_Shakespeare’s Women_ by Angela Pitt, because I couldn’t find the reference book I wanted and this one looked the most interesting out of those on the shelf.
Armistead Maupin’s _Michael Tolliver Lives_, because he was my favourite character in the rest of the series (not that this is a continuation of the series, according to the author).
And _Asterix and the Secret Weapon_ and whatever Dr Who books my kid has finished with. I’m enjoying reliving my youth through her - I wasn’t much of a Who fan, but the current incarnation is great and the books are stand alone stories rather than episode novelisations.
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### Author:  [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2008, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/19 "2008-03-02T01:32:12Z")
I chickened out and chose to read “The Skeptic”, a biography of H.L. Mencken, before I get into McCullers.
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### Author:  [@uncle\_squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/uncle_squeegee)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2008, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/20 "2008-03-02T05:02:12Z")
[The Invention of Hugo Cabret](http://www.amazon.com/Invention-Hugo-Cabret-Brian-Selznick/dp/0439813786/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204433796&sr=8-1) by Brian Selznick, started and finished today (it’s a kid’s book). Good story told with prose, drawings, and a couple photos.
[Bridge of Sighs](http://www.amazon.com/Bridge-of-Sighs/dp/B000W916O8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204433965&sr=8-3) by Richard Russo.
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