# Whatcha Readin' Nov 09 Edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 31, 2009, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882 "2009-10-31T21:00:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/61 "2009-11-09T16:50:34Z")
I knew. I must have been feeling playful this morning. (So unlike me…) ---
**Author:** ![Enterprise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/76d3ee/32.png) [@Enterprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enterprise)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/62 "2009-11-11T16:17:52Z")
> [@TheMerchandise](#): > > Recently, I’ve finished: > > _Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse_, edited by John Joseph Adams. A collection of short stories about life after the end of the world. This is a good anthology with carefully selected stores… a lot of famous names (Stephen King, Orson Scott Card, Jonathan Lethem) but a good smattering of new and up-and-comers. Seconded, really good. Depressing, though – who’d have thought it! I read a couple of interesting books over the last few days: Edwidge Danticat’s _Breath, Eyes, Memory_, _The Farming of Bones_, and _Krik? Krak!_. Of those, I liked the last best – since I was reading them for certain aspects and by and large didn’t find them, I went through them rather quickly. Interesting novels all three, I have to say – I wasn’t enthusiastic about them, but I’d recommend them to people interested in the Caribbean or any kind of diasporic literature. Julia Alvarez’s _How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents_. I liked that one better than the Danticat novels, which may have to do with the story being on the whole more light-hearted. Danticat’s a bit dark sometimes. Lev Grossman’s _The Magicians_. I am very ambivalent about this. It was an easy and fun read, but thinking about it, it really didn’t hold together well. I’ll give details if people are interested, but it lacked a certain sense of organic coming together, plus the characters by and large were unlikable. Gets you through a train ride or two, but you can easily find something better. Soren Narnia’s _Song of the Living Dead_. Recommended by _Zombie CSU_. A self-published book, and surprisingly good. Tells the story of a rising of undead through interviews/comments from five to eight people, and builds a very convincing and unique zombie rising. I won’t give away too much, but I’ve not seen that particular kind anywhere, and it struck me as very realistic; the ending was a bit weak, I thought – but opinions will vary on that. This is a 2003 publication, I think if he tried to find a publisher for this now, he’d have no problem at all, considering the crap zombie novels that are out there. Otherwise, I’m still at _American Fantastic Tales_ (which I still recommend) and reading Foucault…I need something more interesting! ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/63 "2009-11-11T16:54:57Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > On a whim: _The Ambassadors_, by Henry James. I’m pretty sure I’ve never read anything by him before. I’m used to having to slow down my reading speed and adjust my frame of mind to read 19th-century novels, but my god, it’s like trying to read a foreign language. … > > Not sure I’m going to stick with it, but I’m intrigued by the sheer baroqueness of his prose. > [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > My book club is a pretty smart, literate bunch of cutthroats, and just read James’s novella _The Beast in the Jungle_. We all hated it, to one degree or another. The man was clearly paid by the word! I’d read _The Turn of the Screw_ in college and was underwhelmed by it, too. You were prescient, sir: I have, indeed, given up on Henry James, though I stuck it out for about 75 pages (approx. a quarter of the book). I realized I was understanding half, or less, or what was going on. (I did check Wiki the next day for a summary of the plot, though.) Went to the library yesterday and took out a bunch of stuff from my Amazon wishlist, rather than just checking the new releases shelves (which have been pretty thin of late) – ironically, one of the books I took out was a novel about Henry James, _The Master_ – not at all sure how that ended up on the Amazon list, but couldn’t resist the synchronicity. This wasn’t the first book I started, though – that honor goes to _The World Without Us_, which three chapters in is pretty interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Kingspades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecae2f/32.png) [@Kingspades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kingspades)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/64 "2009-11-11T17:05:36Z")
I finished _[Ender’s Game](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender's_Game)_ a couple of weeks ago and enjoyed it. Saw parts of the end coming but not the whole picture. Not sure whether or not I want to get involved with the rest of the Ender-verse, though. Depending on my mood I’m reading both _[The Heartless Stone](http://www.amazon.com/Heartless-Stone-Journey-Through-Diamonds/dp/0312339690)_ and Terry Pratchett’s _[Nation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation_(novel))_. I picked the latter up when I couldn’t find a copy of _[A Hat Full of Sky](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Hat_Full_of_Sky)_, which I’m quite looking forward to after having read _[The Wee Free Men](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wee_Free_Men)_ in September. **Enright3** ’s post reminded me: I’ve never read any Sherlock Holmes. Perhaps this is a good time to remedy that. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/65 "2009-11-11T17:22:05Z")
Finished _ **The Elegant Universe** _, and while I liked it, I have some questions that I don’t even know if they make sense (or if the questions are in the ‘that’s not even wrong’ category). Nevertheless, I really liked it, and I’m pretty comfortable with relativity, I follow quantum physics on an abstract-but-not-gut level, and I get what string theory is at least supposed to explain. Now I’m reading _ **Arctic Dream** _ and it’s so relaxing. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/66 "2009-11-11T17:27:45Z")
> [@Kingspades](#): > > I finished _[Ender’s Game](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender's_Game)_ a couple of weeks ago and enjoyed it. Saw parts of the end coming but not the whole picture. Not sure whether or not I want to get involved with the rest of the Ender-verse, though. _Speaker for the Dead_ is pretty amazing. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/67 "2009-11-11T17:36:33Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > I went back and got \*\*In the Woods \*\*so I can read it before \*\*The Likeness \*\*(Tara French). It’s good so far but leaves me a little creeped out as I read in bed and then try to go to sleep. :eek: Finished \*\*In the Woods \*\*so am now continuing with **The Likeness**. Noticed last night it’s Tana French, not Tara. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![StoutHearted](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@StoutHearted](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StoutHearted)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/68 "2009-11-11T17:43:47Z")
I just finished Cormac McCarthy’s **The Road** last night. It was bleak and harrowing and wonderfully written. I started Jennifer Weiner’s **Good in Bed** this morning for some brain candy, but right now it’s like eating pork rinds after having filet mignon. Normally I love “rinsing” my brain after a deep novel with some fluffy chick lit, but I don’t think my mind is ready to leave McCarthy’s post-Apocalyptic world just yet. I may need an adjustment period to get back into the world where every sassy 30-something female is a magazine editor with guy trouble. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/69 "2009-11-11T17:48:05Z")
> [@bup](#): > > It’s possible to pretty clearly draw a 3-d image in 2 dimensions, so I was sitting there wondering if it would be possible to create a 3-d hologram that would give people a sense of a 4th dimension. Can anyone actually envision a 4th physical dimension? If I could, that’d help a lot. What you’re looking for is called a tesseract. [Here’s one version.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Schlegel_wireframe_8-cell.png) I picked up the Agassi book Monday afternoon and finished it Tuesday afternoon. The writing itself probably won’t go down in history. It’s as-told-to J.R. Moehringer, who won a Pulitzer for Feature Writing in 2000, and it’s also completely in the present tense. But for a biography by a famous person, it’s unusually revealing, and you very much get a sense of how far this guy has come. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/70 "2009-11-11T18:14:22Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > What you’re looking for is called a tesseract. [Here’s one version.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Schlegel_wireframe_8-cell.png) I’m familiar with tesseracts. What you linked to is not a hypercube - that picture is a 3-d object. It shows that a hypercube has 4 more vertices than a cube, with one new edge extended out from each existing vertex in the cube, but it’s not really a tesseract. I think I’ve read that that thing can be the shadow a true hollow tesseract would project into 3-space if the lighting were right, but I’m not positive about that. Anyway, enough of a hijack. [I started a thread about it in GQ](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=538948) a few days ago. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/71 "2009-11-11T18:52:37Z")
Finished _The Masterpiece_. It’ll be in my Zola Top Five. I don’t have an artistic or obsessive bone in my body, but Zola still made me feel for tortured geniuses everywhere. And he gave me a little bit of insight into Impressionism and a nice tour of Paris. Started _Nana_. Couldn’t keep the characters straight but kept reading anyway. Then _No Dominion_ arrived (one of the Already Dead novels praised by **Eleanor of Aquitaine** ) so I started that. I loved _Already Dead_ and _Shotgun Rule_. **Eleanor** speaks truth – the guy writes the best dialogue of anyone, except maybe Elmore Leonard. So I skipped to the end of _Nana_ so I could watch her die. God, I hated that woman. Her “friends” were assholes too. ---
**Author:** ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/72 "2009-11-11T19:10:16Z")
Finished [The Pillars of the Earth](http://www.amazon.com/Pillars-Earth-Deluxe-Oprahs-Book/dp/0451225244/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1257966171&sr=8-1), by Ken Follett. It was enjoyable enough, but not something I’d reread. And the criticism is right on - the relationships of the characters are entirely too 20th century. Good enough for a light reading pile. Now I’m reading Diana Gabaldon’s latest Claire and Jamie epic, [An Echo in the Bone](http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=diana+gabaldon&x=0&y=0). It’s pure candy, and I’ll fly through it, then start looking around slaveringly, wanting more. I just can’t get enough of these books (tho’ some are definitely better than others, it must be said). ---
**Author:** ![yellowval](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/919ad9/32.png) [@yellowval](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowval)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/73 "2009-11-11T19:46:16Z")
I finally finished The Godfather on audiobook. It was really, really good. I started Lady Susan by Jane Austen which I got from [librivox.org](http://librivox.org). It’s short and fun. Up next will be The Girl With No Shadow, the sequel to Chocolat. I have about 150 pages left to go in It Can’t Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis. After that I need to read Mrs. Lincoln: A Life, so I can return it to my mom, even though what I want to read is World War Z, which I just got last week. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/74 "2009-11-11T20:10:59Z")
I picked up some spare money from teaching a course, so I bought “Unseen Academicals” in hardcover, which I rarely do. About a quarter of the way through. I also got “Nudge” by Richard Thaler, which is on the subject I taught, and so is useful to read before I teach it again, maybe in February. ---
**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:** [November 11, 2009, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/75 "2009-11-11T20:38:22Z")
Finished the first three Amelia Peabody mysteries, and they were fun. Murder and Egyptian archaeology at the end of the 19th century. I’ll have to borrow more of these from my mom when I see her at Thanksgiving. I’m reading Honor Harrington #10 now, _War of Honor_. It’s starting off just as slowly as I expected, but I think the writing is less repetitive than in the previous book. The only phrasing that is popping out at me now is too many people “smiling unpleasantly”. I deliberately waited several months between books to cleanse my palate of his overused expressions. ---
**Author:** ![StoutHearted](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@StoutHearted](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StoutHearted)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/76 "2009-11-11T21:33:08Z")
> [@yellowval](#): > > I finally finished The Godfather on audiobook. It was really, really good. I started Lady Susan by Jane Austen which I got from [librivox.org](http://librivox.org). It’s short and fun. Up next will be The Girl With No Shadow, the sequel to Chocolat. I read and loved **Lady Susan** - it’s light and fluffy by Austen standards, but still shows promise of the author’s wit and skewering of the upper classes. Also, I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for **The Girl with No Shadow** in my local cheapo bookstore, since I really liked Chocolat. The movie was cute (drool, Johnny Depp), but the book had more depth. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/77 "2009-11-11T21:34:53Z")
> [@yellowval](#): > > I started Lady Susan by Jane Austen which I got from [librivox.org](http://librivox.org). Coincidentally, my audio book right now is Jane Austen’s _ **Persuasion** _ from librivox - the Karen Savage version. I swear, if the reader is Andy Minter, Karen Savage, or Elizabeth Klett, librivox versions are just as good as professional. ---
**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:** [November 11, 2009, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/78 "2009-11-11T22:55:21Z")
**twickster** , glad we see eye to eye on Henry James, too, as on so many other things bibliophilic. 😃 I read _The World Without Us_ about a year ago and really, really enjoyed it. A fascinating discussion of humanity’s impact upon nature, how nature pushes back, and what would happen if we all disappeared at once, everywhere. Hope you like it as much as I did. A then-colleague of mine wrote a screenplay for _Lady Susan_ a few years ago, and it was quite good. I could never persuade her to submit it to a Hollywood agent, though. ---
**Author:** ![ClydeFontaine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@ClydeFontaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ClydeFontaine)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2009, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/79 "2009-11-12T07:26:01Z")
Just finished “The Piano Teacher” by Elfriede Jelinek. Satisfied the morbidity that I expected. Getting ready to read “The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz. Heard good things. Last two before that were: “Angle of Repose” by Wallace Stegner and “The Magus” by John Fowles. Thought Fowles bordered on brilliance in parts but the whole was slightly less so. Could have saved the time from reading Stegner for something better, imo. ---
**Author:** ![yellowval](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/919ad9/32.png) [@yellowval](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowval)\ **Post date:** [November 12, 2009, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882/80 "2009-11-12T15:03:37Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Coincidentally, my audio book right now is Jane Austen’s _ **Persuasion** _ from librivox - the Karen Savage version. > > I swear, if the reader is Andy Minter, Karen Savage, or Elizabeth Klett, librivox versions are just as good as professional. Thanks for the tip … I wrote down those names and will search for them the next time I’m looking for an audio book. I’ve found the librivox recordings to be hit and miss so far, though I’ve only tried a few. On some, the sound quality is terrible and/or the readers are difficult to understand. Lady Susan is pretty good, though. There are different readers for each character’s letters (consistent readers for each character throughout), and the sound quality is decent. > [@StoutHearted](#): > > I read and loved Lady Susan - it’s light and fluffy by Austen standards, but still shows promise of the author’s wit and skewering of the upper classes. Also, I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for The Girl with No Shadow in my local cheapo bookstore, since I really liked Chocolat. The movie was cute (drool, Johnny Depp), but the book had more depth. I didn’t even know there was a sequel until I came across The Girl with No Shadow among the audio books at my local library. I didn’t read Chocolat but have seen the movie. I hope I’m okay trying to read the sequel when I didn’t read the first. Maybe I should try to read it quick. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-nov-09-edition/515882.md?page=5)