# Whatcha readin' (March 09) Edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 28, 2009, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783 "2009-02-28T12:36:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/1 "2009-02-28T12:36:51Z")
Tomorrow is March and we are supposed to have ice pellets here. Bleah. At least it will be a perfect day to catch up on your reading! Here is a link to [last month’s thread!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=504502) I am in the middle of _Beat the Reaper_ which I am _mostly_ enjoying so far. ---
**Author:** ![Lavender\_Falcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b782af/32.png) [@Lavender\_Falcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lavender_Falcon)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/2 "2009-02-28T12:42:07Z")
Just started _The Dust of 100 Dogs_ by AS King and am thoroughly enjoying it so far. I also picked up _Oryx and Crake_ by Margaret Atwood at the library yesterday. Been a while since I read Atwood, so I’m looking forward to it. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/3 "2009-02-28T14:16:00Z")
I just wrapped up Christopher Priest’s _The Prestige_ and enjoyed it quite a bit. I appreciated how he used the point-of-views of two very flawed feuding men to color everything. Unfortunately his magician trick in the novel was spoiled for me so going into it I thought that it might lesson my enjoyment of the book but it turned in ways I didn’t expect. Next up for me is James Morrow’s _Towing Jehovah_ and on that note may I say that used book sellers online who charge the full shipping price allowed from the aggregate site and then ship media mail need to be beaten; they can go in the same pile with used book sellers who copy and paste their business description into the field for the book’s condition. That should have been the last book I read but it only arrived yesterday. Anyhow I enjoyed _Only Begotten Daughter_ despite its flaws so I think I’m going to like this one too. That’ll be followed by _Godmother Night_ and _The Physiognomy_. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/4 "2009-02-28T14:41:51Z")
I’m on a nonfiction kick lately. I’m choosing psych books since I’m starting grad school this fall (!!!) and will specialize in and research the treatment of psychological disorders. I’m just getting myself psyched up. Heh. I just finished Seligman’s \*Learned Optimism \* (for which I’m thinking about starting a discussion thread) and am just now diving into _Descartes’ Error.__Descartes’ Error_ is pretty promising so far as Damasio’s perception of emotion seems similar to my own – emotion as a response to the body’s physiology (at least that’s my guess as to his argument… he hasn’t completely laid it out yet.) I think next will be _Trauma and Recovery_, which I read several years ago. I’m in a different place now, though, so it will be a different experience. I am soliciting any and all recommendations for nonfiction in the fields of psychology and mental health treatment. ---
**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:** [February 28, 2009, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/5 "2009-02-28T16:22:56Z")
_Beloved_, by Toni Morrison. A little bit of :eek:, but mostly :(. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/6 "2009-02-28T16:48:59Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > I’m on a nonfiction kick lately. I’m choosing psych books since I’m starting grad school this fall (!!!) and will specialize in and research the treatment of psychological disorders. I’m just getting myself psyched up. Heh. > > I just finished Seligman’s \*Learned Optimism \* (for which I’m thinking about starting a discussion thread) \ I have thought about reading this and would enjoy hearing more of your input (and the input of others) on it. ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/7 "2009-02-28T17:44:21Z")
I failed miserably at keeping track of what I was reading in February, so I am turning over a new leaf for March! Just checked out of the library: _Out Stealing Horses_ by Per Petterson. Has anyone read this? It’s for my book club and I don’t know very much about it. _The Inheritance of Loss_ by Kiran Desai _Chasing Vermeer_ by Blue Balliet. Mystery for kids with art history theme. A really good recent read was _Maps and Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands_ by Michael Chabon. It’s a collection of essays about his relationship with reading and literature. I like this author a lot, and loved reading this. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/8 "2009-02-28T17:52:40Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > _Out Stealing Horses_ by Per Petterson. Has anyone read this? It’s for my book club and I don’t know very much about it. I really liked it. It’s a relationship story that manages to be bittersweet without being smarmy or sentimental. I’m still reading _The Brothers K_, but not making much progress (still sick and don’t feel like reading). _Mudville_ is waiting, as is Joe Hill’s new novella, _Gunpowder_, which I haven’t even taken out of the wrapper. I don’t even know what it’s about. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/9 "2009-02-28T20:51:02Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > I have thought about reading this and would enjoy hearing more of your input (and the input of others) on it. [Done!](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=10888254#post10888254) 🙂 ---
**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:** [February 28, 2009, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/10 "2009-02-28T21:26:48Z")
Yesterday I finished up a few books that have been hanging around the reading pile for far too long. Now most of the reading pile is new! _Hans Andersen’s Fairy Tales: A Selection_. (One day I shall have all of his stories.) _Every Insomniac Has a Story to Tell: Poems_ by Patrick Bizarro (He used to teach at my university. Took one of his classes a couple of years ago. Nice guy.) _No Telephone to Heaven_ by Michelle Cliff (Library sale find–it’s in hardcover! :D) _Widdershins_ by Charles de Lint (Finally I have reached the last of the library’s de Lint collection.) _Chapterhouse Dune_ by Frank Herbert (After this comes the new additions to the main series.) _Master and Fool_ by J.V. Jones (Third in the “Book of Words” trilogy) _The Satanic Verses_ by Salman Rushdie (“Where to start with Rushdie?” I wondered. “How about the book that started a fatwa? That’s a good place.”) ---
**Author:** ![Elyanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5ac83/32.png) [@Elyanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elyanna)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/11 "2009-02-28T22:28:04Z")
I’m still making my way through _Crime and Punishment_, at a rate of a chapter a day. At this rate it’ll take me half-way through March to finish it. Occasionally it’ll pique my interest, but for the most part… meh. Currently: Pratchett’s _Jingo_. Coming up next: Stephenson’s _Snow Crash_. ---
**Author:** ![plankter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ba0ec/32.png) [@plankter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plankter)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/12 "2009-02-28T22:29:17Z")
I’m most of the way through **The Wayfarer Redemption** by Sara Douglass. I picked up the entire trilogy for cheap to have for places where I didn’t want to risk taking library materials. So far it’s pretty good, and I say that as someone who’s read too many fantasy series. From the library I have **Bright of the Sky** by Kay Kenyon. The book opened with a bang, then slowed down considerably while characters were introduced, but now the adventurous stuff has kicked in. The POV shifts abruptly among characters which is a minor annoyance, but I like the premise (‘hard’ scifi, alternate universe) enough to continue. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19b73/32.png) [@Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/13 "2009-02-28T22:39:33Z")
I made a book run to the discount and used bookstores downtown, and now have a hefty stack. Just finishing off Cormac McCarthy’s **The Road** , which was surprisingly breezy. Very grim, but compelling. After that I have **The Midwich Cuckoos** by John Wyndham, which I believe is his only book I haven’t read yet. ---
**Author:** ![Invisible\_Chimp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/f05b48/32.png) [@Invisible\_Chimp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Invisible_Chimp)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2009, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/14 "2009-02-28T23:16:33Z")
I started _Replay_ by Ken Grimwood today. ---
**Author:** ![JR\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JR\_Brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JR_Brown)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/15 "2009-03-01T01:21:07Z")
Just last night finished Nick Harkaway’s _The Gone-Away World_, which I picked up after seeing a couple of glowing recommendations here on the Dope. Overall it’s pretty good, and the science fiction elements are fairly novel and reasonably well worked out (I had several serious [Fridge Logic](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FridgeLogic) moments afterwards, but while reading nothing made me go “arggh”), but I didn’t like it as much as I might have had it been written by someone else. It’s heavily overwritten and self-conscious, particularly in the beginning, and, worse, it’s a very _male_ book; most of the important male characters are manly, manly men who blow things up and whose self-worth is measured in whom they can beat the crap out of, and most of the important female characters are hot sexy babes who blow things up and see to it that the important male characters get frequently and heroically laid. Since I can’t stand either of these character types, I enjoyed the last 100 pages or so, when the hypercompetent hypermasculine protagonist suffers horrible revelations, gets semifatally shot and becomes temporarily weak and dependent, a lot more that the preceding 400. But kudos for the cool mimes. Starting tomorrow will be Malcolm Gladwell’s _Outliers_ for bus reading and Christopher Moore’s _Fool_ for at-home reading (I have them both on interlibrary loan and will probably have to finish them quick since they will both probably be recalled). ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/16 "2009-03-01T01:22:31Z")
Having been reminded of it in another thread, I’m reading _Farham’s Freehold_ for the first time in over 20 years. ---
**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 1, 2009, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/17 "2009-03-01T01:33:08Z")
Still reading: _The Pillars of the Earth_, by Ken Follett _Supreme Courtship_, by Christopher Buckley _In a Sunburned Country_, by Bill Bryson _Seven Choices: Finding Daylight_, by Elizabeth Harper Neeld _The Vesuvius Club_, by Mark Gatiss _Ship of Magic_, by Robin Hobb ---
**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/18 "2009-03-01T04:26:36Z")
I am about two thirds through The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie, and I am enjoying the hell out of it. Laurie has a wicked sense of humor, and a very arch way of describing things. But I can’t visualize the protagonist as anyone but Dr House. ---
**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 1, 2009, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/19 "2009-03-01T04:40:06Z")
Still on _Flashman and the Angel of the Lord_, by George MacDonald Fraser, and enjoying it thoroughly, as I always do with Flashman. ---
**Author:** ![Mudshark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mudshark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mudshark)\ **Post date:** [March 1, 2009, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783/20 "2009-03-01T07:43:21Z")
Song of Solomon is on the table for me in the near future. Right now, I’m reading a biography of Nixon. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-march-09-edition/487783.md?page=2)