# Whatcha readin' March (08) edition **URL:** \ **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:** 8
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2008, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/141 "2008-03-24T18:58:03Z")
[QUOTE=Gulo gulo] I’m now most of the way through [Anatomy of Deception](http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Deception-Lawrence-Goldstone/dp/0385341342). [/QUOTE] This is the group read for April at the Doper [Goodreads](http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/822.SDMB_Straight_Dope) group. I liked it a lot. Currently reading _In A Faraway Place_ by Thomas Spanbauer. It purports to be a coming of age story – I like those. ---
**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 24, 2008, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/142 "2008-03-24T20:55:31Z")
[QUOTE=AuntiePam] This is the group read for April at the Doper [Goodreads](http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/822.SDMB_Straight_Dope) group. I liked it a lot. [/QUOTE] Since I’m the last Doper on earth who hasn’t read it, I picked up _Ender’s Game_ to tide me over until _Anatomy of Deception_ comes in for me at the library. I really like it, so far. ---
**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 25, 2008, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/143 "2008-03-25T03:45:08Z")
[QUOTE=koeeoaddi] Since I’m the last Doper on earth who hasn’t read it, I picked up _Ender’s Game_ to tide me over until _Anatomy of Deception_ comes in for me at the library. I really like it, so far. [/QUOTE] I’ve not read it either. I finished Carl Hiassen’s _Nature Girl_. Very good. Today I begin _Rabbit Is Rich_, by John Updike, the third in his Rabbit series. ---
**Author:** ![Sunrazor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sunrazor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunrazor)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2008, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/144 "2008-03-25T03:49:54Z")
I’m reading the assignments for my English MA class this semester (Literary Criticism Theory) so right now that includes Freud’s “Civilization and its Discontents”; Shoshona Felman, “Teaching terminable and interminable”_; Joan Copjec, “Sex and the euthanasia of reason”_; Joan Copjec, “The Tomb of Perseverance: On Antigone”\*; Tim Dean, “Art as Symptom: Žižek and the ethics of psychoanalytic criticism” Okay, okay, that’s what I’m supposed to read. I’ll be lucky to get through the fucking Freud! ---
**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 25, 2008, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/145 "2008-03-25T12:00:10Z")
[QUOTE=AuntiePam] Yeah, I do. [Garnethill](http://www.amazon.com/Garnethill-Denise-Mina/dp/0316016780/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1205955163&sr=1-1) by Denise Mina. Scottish noir, is how it’s labeled. A young woman with a psychiatric history wakes up to find her married lover murdered in her apartment. [/QUOTE] It came! It came! I dug right in to it. I’m probably a quarter of the way through. The Scots talk so cute, don’t they? I knew I was going to like it on the first page, when Maureen realizes that her interest in a romantic relationship of several months has “passed as suddenly as a fart.” Have you read her other books? ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2008, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/146 "2008-03-25T17:08:18Z")
I loved that line too. Wasn’t it an “enormous” fart? 😃 I haven’t read any of her other books yet but I probably will. She has a series with a woman cop or detective named Paddy something, and those sound pretty good. ---
**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 26, 2008, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/147 "2008-03-26T12:15:20Z")
**twickster** , send me your address soon–I’m almost done with the Mina book. Then I’ve got the other that **AuntiePam** sent me, a couple of **Atrael** ’s suggestions ready at the library… _wipes away a tear_ I’m going to \*live! \* ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2008, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/148 "2008-03-26T13:13:12Z")
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle] **twickster** , send me your address soon… [/QUOTE] PM sent – yay! looking forward to reading this! Currently reading [_My Mother’s Lovers_](http://www.amazon.com/My-Mothers-Lovers-Christopher-Hope/dp/080211850X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206536934&sr=1-1) by Christopher Hope – about South Africa, and a guy’s relationship with his larger-than-life, Karen-Blixenish mother. Liking it a lot. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2008, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/149 "2008-03-26T13:49:35Z")
I gave up on _Mean Spirit_. Too much despair for me right now. I picked up _The Dragonbone Chair_ again now that I have the whole series (SDMB rocks!). I also found _Kushiel’s Justice_ at the library when I popped in on Monday and I grabbed it. I haven’t seen it there in months. So now my Huge Fantasy Tome requirement is filled. ---
**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 26, 2008, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/150 "2008-03-26T13:57:26Z")
Huh, I just saw your PM from last week, **AuntiePam**. I never notice that I have messages in there! I’m not much into the gory books either, but I recall thinking that the author had good credentials. I’m going to try it out, at least. ---
**Author:** ![Atrael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Atrael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atrael)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2008, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/151 "2008-03-26T15:20:59Z")
Finished up _The Outlaw Demon Wails_ the other day. Not bad. I like this book better than the last one. A bit too much drama there. I hate authors that take their strong female characters and wussify then. Lilith Saintcrow did that for the middle couple of books in her Dante Valentine series. And I haven’t picked up the new book in the [Rogue Angel](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url?%5Fencoding=UTF8&search-type=ss&index=books&field-author=Alex%20Archer) series by Alex Archer just because he’s made his main female character so simpering. Currently reading [The Unnatural Inquirer](http://www.amazon.com/Unnatural-Inquirer-Nightside-Book/dp/0441015581/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206544670&sr=1-1). The latest in the Nightside series by Simon Green. Good non thinking fluff. I was worried after he reached the climax of the series that he’d keep it going in subsiquent books and they’d suck. So far they’re at about the same level as before…which isn’t saying much, but at least they’re still readable. I don’t really have anything up next…I need to re-read _The Pillars of the Earth_ again so that I can go ahead and get the sequal. Although I’ve heard the two stories aren’t really that related. ---
**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 26, 2008, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/152 "2008-03-26T15:27:58Z")
Several friends of mine have read _Pillars of the Earth_ and praised it. The only Ken Follett I’ve ever read was _Eye of the Needle_, which was a great WW2 spy thriller. ---
**Author:** ![Atrael](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Atrael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atrael)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2008, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/153 "2008-03-27T16:45:39Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] Because there were some in my in-laws house, and so they migrated to me. I never read them as a kid - I did Hardy Boys. The problem with owning a collection is that sometimes you have to read all the stuff in it. I’m working on the hardcovers I haven’t read, starting with A. I have about 8 of the original series which my father-in-law (who is 91 now) got when he was a kid. Did you know that they were written by the author of Uncle Wiggly? I somehow got a boxed set of Tom Swift III. I read one to my daughter, pointing out the physical impossibilities. The original series is better than the Jr. series, besides the racism, of course. And that was more stereotype rather than the nasty racism in the original Nancy Drew series. I found the growth of the business interesting - the first books were about motorcycles and speedboats, which developed into Tom subcontracting the construction of cannons to protect the just being built Panama Canal. The last one I have has Tom stirring up an insurrection in a South American country in order to get raw materials for this floating platform - great fun. In the Jr. series the inventions are just silly, and there is not nearly the logic as in the Howard Garis books. [/QUOTE] Sorry for the delay in responding to this. I did want to take a few minutes and think about my reply. I agree that the original _Tom Swift_ series had inventions that were more plausible, there were a couple in the _Tom Swift Jr._ books that have some basis in fact. More importantly I think it shows a difference in public awareness and imagination between the time periods in which they were written. The Jr. books were (mostly) during the 50’s and 60’s. An overlap of the **Golden Age of Science Fiction** the stories were about the impossible today that might mearly be the difficult tomorrow. Back then, [all sorts of things](http://blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/03/24/what-will-life-be-like-in-the-year-2008/?Qwd=./MechanixIllustrated/11-1968/forty_years_future&Qif=forty_years_future_0.jpg&Qiv=thumbs&Qis=XL#qdig) were envisioned for the future. To me personally, the spark of what **might be** possible was more of an attraction than something that strictly wrote about what **was** truth at that day and time. It’s a trap that I think we (as a collective society) fall into much too often. I see statements all the time about how X " just isn’t possible" where the statement should really be “X isn’t possible given the understanding that we have now”. A slight, but definite difference. Anyway…I digress. I have about a dozen of the original books, and almost all of the Jr. series. I hope my children get as much enjoyment out of daydreaming about what **could** be as I did. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2008, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/154 "2008-03-27T18:39:41Z")
I’m waiting for an Ellen Glasgow title from an Amazon seller. It’s been 14 days. I think my book is lost. ☹ I started reading _More Tales of the City_ but it’s just too light and fluffy – I don’t do fluffy. So I picked up _Weary Men_ by Arne Garborg. It’s this guy’s diary and he’s a jerk. Not as much of a jerk as Bartjur from the Laxness book – he’s more articulate – but he’s still a jerk. People at SFF World are raving about _The Orphan’s Tale_ by Catherynne Valente – it’s tempting. Any Dopers read it? ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2008, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/155 "2008-03-27T20:25:10Z")
Loved \*The Air We Breathe \* by Andrea Barrett. Top o’ the stack is _Touchstone_ by Laurie R. King. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2008, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/156 "2008-03-28T00:31:52Z")
Just finished _The Face of Death_ A very strong second showing. Better than the first. Very powerful writing. It evoked strong emotions - both good and bad - from me. If you like the Psychological thriller genre, try Shadow Man, then read this. I will move on to something lighter now. I need a little respite. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2008, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/157 "2008-03-30T11:05:07Z")
Just finished \*Iron Kissed \*from Patricia Briggs. As **Eleanor of Aquitaine** mentioned it falls in the same genre as many of the other books I have recently read. I enjoyed it. It was a light, fast paced fantasy adventure. Not too heavy. I spent far too much time reading it yesterday, when I should have been working it. Up next: I just picked up the _The Somnambulist_ by Jonathan Barnes. I have a rule about buying new books while there are so many in my queue at home. But I ignore the rule so often that we can really just call it a suggestion. Although the plot summary in the jacket was enough to get me to read it, the first chapter hooked me (from the first paragraph): _Be warned. This book has no literary merit whatsoever. It is a lurid piece of nonsense, convoluted, implausible, peopled by unconvincing characters, written in drearily pedestrian prose, frequently ridiculous and willfully bizarre. Needless to say, I doubt you’ll believe a word of it._ It just seems like the author had fun with it. We’ll see. ---
**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 31, 2008, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/158 "2008-03-31T12:28:32Z")
This weekend I finished Garnethill by Denise Mina (sending it to you today, **twickster** )! It was pretty good. I think I cared for the characters more than the plot. Apparently it’s a trilogy, and although Garnethill can stand alone, something happened at the end that does make me want to read the next book. I’ll be getting it soon from the library. After that, I re-read The Ruins by Scott Smith. I nearly want to see the movie now, just to see what they’ve done with it. It’s amusing to see the trailers for this because they are careful not to show the antagonist. SPOILER WARNING It’s a plant! I guess that doesn’t seem scary enough. There’s also one scene in the trailer that makes me go WTF? ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2008, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/159 "2008-03-31T15:30:42Z")
I’m reading _Quicksilver_ by Neal Stephenson, but I might put it aside when [The Blood-Dimmed Tide](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670899968) by Rennie Airth arrives. It’s a sequel to _River of Darkness_. It’s a mystery set in England in 1932. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2008, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631/160 "2008-03-31T21:51:17Z")
[Link to April thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=9636527#post9636527) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-08-edition/439631.md?page=9)