# Whatcha readin' May (08) edition
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [April 30, 2008, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452 "2008-04-30T11:50:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2008, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/1 "2008-04-30T11:50:38Z")
Hi gang. Here is the May thread. ([Link to April’s](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=461940))
Finished _Those Who Walk In Darkness_ by John Ridley.
An X-Men rip-off with a heavy-handed message about prejudice. Our protagonist is a cop who hunts mutants - a black female cop who hunts mutants. The irony it burns!
The story was predictable, with few or no surprises. The big “twist” at the end was:
The big love of her life turns out to be a mutant. He left it open for a sequel, but even if he writes one I won’t be bothered to read it.
Next up, one of the following:
Mr. Twilight
Destiny (Rogue Angel)
Magic Bites
Dog Days
They should arrive today and I will decide then which to read.
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### Author:  [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2008, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/2 "2008-04-30T12:27:33Z")
[QUOTE=Dung Beetle]
Started Test, by William Sleator. He’s one of my favorite YA authors, but very uneven, and though I’ve looked forward to this book I don’t really expect great things.
[/QUOTE]
Finished last night. And oh. So not good. He’s written other books that required or provoked thought, but this was written at the level of the story problems in my son’s fifth grade math book. I still love ya, Bill, but have a little faith in the kids you’re writing for, please.
Started What I Was, by Meg Rosoff. In looking over the reviews, I notice this was issued as a YA book in Britain, but released here as an adult book. Hmmm. I’m not sure yet, but I think there’s some male homosexuality in it. I wonder if that’s the reason, or is it that Americans are more stoopider, or what?
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### Author:  [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2008, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/3 "2008-04-30T12:56:58Z")
Just started the third book in Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen’s Civil War alternate history series, \*Never Call Retreat \* . The first two were excellent so I have high hopes.
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### Author:  [@middleman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/middleman)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2008, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/4 "2008-04-30T15:26:05Z")
I’m currently reading \*The Tipping Point \* by Malcolm Gladwell on my Amazon Kindle e-reader (love it!).
It is slow going, as I still have another month to go in my first year of an MBA program. Most of my reading of late have consisited of Harvard Business School case studies and _The Goal_ by Eli Goldratt (brilliant as a teaching tool, crap as a workplace novel!)
From June to August, I have a little summer break, so I will be picking up the following:
\*A Thousand Splendid Suns \* by Khaled Hosseini.
_Freakonomics_ by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt.
\*Then We Came to an End \* by Joshua Ferris.
_Lord of the Flies_ by William Golding. (I have never read this!)
_Legacy of Ashes_ by Tim Weiner
_Hollywood Station_ by Joseph Wambaugh
_Slaughterhouse Five_ by Kurt Vonnegut
\*Audition \* by Barbara Walters (her new autobiography)
I’m going for a book a week. Even without classes, this will still be a challenge given my hectic schedule (work, wife, kids, reading the NYT every day, porn addiction…).
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### Author:  [@Syntropy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syntropy)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2008, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/5 "2008-04-30T17:15:11Z")
I finally broke down and ordered _Descartes’ Error_, since **Larry Borgia** is about the third person in the past month who’s suggested it, and I’m easy that way.
Still haven’t finished the M. de Sade’s _Letters from Prison_, but am enjoying it tremendously. Last night, I started David Sedaris’ [Naked](http://www.amazon.com/Naked-David-Sedaris/dp/0316777730), which is hilarious.
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### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2008, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/6 "2008-04-30T18:05:44Z")
Just finished reading _Gone With the Wind_. You’d think more people would know about this one. 😉
My wife suggested [The Cult of the Amateur: How Blogs, Wiki, Social Networking and the Digital World are Assaulting our Economy, our Culture, and our Values](http://andrewkeen.typepad.com/the_great_seduction/2006/10/my_book_now_not.html). Reads so far like the screed it is. To give you an idea as to whether or not this guy is serious, the link takes you to his blog. :rolleyes: But honestly, he is serious and while he makes some decent points (it’s hard to type 200+ pages and not make at least one good point), he comes across like a monk ranting about the printing press allowing losers like Luther to mock the church.
When I’m done with that, I’m going to read William Bernsteins [A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World](http://www.amazon.com/Splendid-Exchange-Trade-Shaped-World/dp/0871139790).
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### Author:  [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2008, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/7 "2008-05-01T03:23:55Z")
Chiming in so I can be subscribed to the thread. As I mentioned in the April thread, I finished Tony Hillerman’s _The Shape Shifter_ yesterday (Wednesday) and will start James Ellroy’s _Destination: Morgue!_ tomorrow.
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### Author:  [@Future\_Londonite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Future_Londonite)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2008, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/8 "2008-05-01T10:50:40Z")
Just started “The Son of Witch” after finishing “The Princes Bride”. Next in line is “The Year of Living Biblically”.
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### Author:  [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2008, 10:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/9 "2008-05-01T10:59:57Z")
Gormeghast arrived a couple days ago and i am thriugh titus groas and partway into book 2. i thought the bbc miniseries i got from netflix was interesting enough to check out the book. also reading bujolds memory, moons change of command and a russian hagiography.
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### Author:  [@Atrael](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atrael)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2008, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/10 "2008-05-01T14:52:33Z")
[QUOTE=Khadaji]
Next up, one of the following:
Mr. Twilight
Destiny (Rogue Angel)
Magic Bites
Dog Days
They should arrive today and I will decide then which to read.
[/QUOTE]
Truth in reading, I never actually read the first book in the Rogue Angel series. I picked it up on book two. So I can’t say how that one is. Have you read any of the [Cassandra Palmer](http://www.amazon.com/Touch-Dark-Cassandra-Palmer-Book/dp/0451460936/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209653447&sr=1-2) books? They’re not bad, and the third one seems to wrap most of the plot points up, so it has a good stopping point.
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### Author:  [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2008, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/11 "2008-05-01T15:33:10Z")
[QUOTE=Future Londonite]
Next in line is “The Year of Living Biblically”.
[/QUOTE]
Liked it a lot – he talks about some of the actual spiritual impact of the experience of what was originally kind of a smart-ass project.
Currently reading an excellent novel, [\*The Commoner](http://www.amazon.com/Commoner-Novel-John-Burnham-Schwartz/dp/0385515715/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209655488&sr=8-1)\* by John Burnham Schwartz. It’s a fictionalized first-person account of woman who became the first commoner to marry into the Japanese imperial family. Wonderfully written and a fascinating story.
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### Author:  [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2008, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/12 "2008-05-01T18:50:18Z")
I’m plodding along through _The Heptameron_. It’s not as much fun as _The Decameron_, but there’s a lot more sex.
Really enjoying _American Gods_ and _The Stone of Farewell_. I love me some travelin’ fantasy.
Unfortunately _Chronicles of Pern: First Fall_ has just made me realize a huge plot hole in the Pern series (_waits for the chorus of “just **one**?” to die down_). Even though Avril Bitra doesn’t show up in this book, the second story, “The Ford of Red Hanrahan” makes me wonder just why in the heck someone named a hold after one of the greatest traitors in Pernese history. What bugs me even more is that McCaffrey herself brought this up in one of the later books (_All the Weyrs of Pern_, if I recall) and never answered it! Avril never had children, so it’s not a family name. Argh. This is why I don’t like being adult sometimes; it’s harder to overlook plot holes in beloved long-running series.
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### Author:  [@Ghanima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ghanima)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2008, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/13 "2008-05-01T20:31:26Z")
I’m currently reading Iain M. Banks’ latest Culture novel, _Matter_. It is very entertaining so far.
I’d like to plug the website [www.goodreads.com](http://www.goodreads.com) - we have an [SDMB group](http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/822.SDMB_Straight_Dope)! I really like the site because it lets me lists “to reads” and helps me keep track of what I have read already, which helps when I get a recommendation that sounds vaguely familiar. Also I love to read short story collections and have been known to pick up the same collection more than once.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2008, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/14 "2008-05-01T22:20:37Z")
_[War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History: 1500 to Today](http://www.amazon.com/War-Made-New-Technology-Warfare/dp/B000R46P2Q/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1209680005&sr=1-1)_ by Max Boot. I liked the early chapters but I found myself diagreeing with him more and more in the later chapters.
_[The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind’s Greatest Invention](http://www.amazon.com/Unfolding-Language-Evolutionary-Mankinds-Invention/dp/B000GQLCXC/ref=pd_sim_b_title_3)_ by Guy Deutscher. I’m a couple of hundred pages into it and it’s interesting. I’ll admit I don’t know enough about the subject to judge if he really knows what he’s talking about.
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### Author:  [@myskepticsight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myskepticsight)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2008, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/15 "2008-05-01T22:26:01Z")
My boyfriend recently bought me _Tweak_ by Nic Sheff. I like drug books and it was featured at Barnes and Noble so he picked it up for me. I’ve only read the first few pages (boo finals) but will probably read a big chunk of it tonight while I’m stuck at work.
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### Author:  [@Gordon\_Urquhart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_Urquhart)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2008, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/16 "2008-05-01T22:47:35Z")
Just finished _Jane Eyre_ – always nice to read a classic that’s actually a good book – and _Spook_ by Mary Roach, which is about science’s perspectives on an afterlife. I really, really like her writing style – conversational and funny – and wanted to read more from her. I had a choice between _Stiff_, which is about dead bodies, and _Bonk_, which is about sex research.
She’ll be at the Tattered Cover (Colfax location) here in Denver tomorrow evening to read and sign _Bonk_, FWIW.
(That’s the one I chose to read.)
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### Author:  [@melodyharmonius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/melodyharmonius)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2008, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/17 "2008-05-01T22:59:03Z")
Today I finished _Goodbye, Jimmy Choos_ by Annie Sanders. It’s a Brit book, and I enjoyed it tremendously. I totally admit I picked it up because of my shoe fetish. But it’s about 2 London women who are moved to the country by their husbands for whatever reason, stumble in to a friendship with each other - and just have one heck of a year.
My book club book for this month is _The Pact_ by Jody Picoult. They always pick such depressing book - I think this one is about their teenager committing suicide. Last month it was about a funeral, the month before it was about a columbine-type killer.
[Note to self: stop letting them pick such sad stuff.]
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### Author:  [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)
#### Post date: [May 1, 2008, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/18 "2008-05-01T23:37:48Z")
I’ve got about twenty pages to go on Robert Silverburg’s _A Time of Changes_ which I found to have some interesting parts but on the whole too dated to really resonate with me. And since the themes don’t work for me I’m left looking at the culture he built for the metaphor and I’m finding it severely lacking.
Next up on my list are Samuel R. Delany’s _The Motion of Light in Water_ followed by Pohl’s _Man Plus_. I’ve had mixed responses to Delany’s other work but I’ve mainly read the stuff he wrote when he was in his early twenties. I’m hoping that a few more decades of experience have given him a more polished style…
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### Author:  [@anu-la1979](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anu-la1979)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2008, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/19 "2008-05-02T02:23:34Z")
I am finishing up _The Brothers Karamazov_ in a leisurely way. I find Dostoevsky very accessible (language is quite modern, actually). It’s just a matter of finding the time to finish a 1000+ page book.
Got to say-for years and years the Brits were my fave writers but the Russkies are rounding the bend on that _fast_.
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### Author:  [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)
#### Post date: [May 2, 2008, 10:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-may-08-edition/447452/20 "2008-05-02T10:43:02Z")
Started _Dog Days_. I would compare it to Butcher’s Dresden universe. The protagonist is a musician who is also a wizard. It is an OK read so far, but nothing special.
**Atrael** , thanks for the recommendation I’ll look at them when next my queue is empty.
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