# Whatcha Readin' November 2011 Edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 31, 2011, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422 "2011-10-31T20:11:05Z")\ **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:** [October 31, 2011, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/1 "2011-10-31T20:11:05Z")
Happy Halloween all! I wasn’t sure when I’d be able to start November’s thread. We’ve been without power since 3PM Saturday. And I was hearing Tuesday or Wednesday for it to come back. But I got a nice surprise coming home - it is on. Finished: _Heat Rises (Nikki Heat 3)_ the third from Richard Castle. I liked this one the best. Although it still seems to read like an episode of Castle, I thought the writing had improved. If you are a fan, you will likely read this anyway - but it gets my recommendation. Finished: _A Monster Calls: Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd._ I thought it was a beautifully written book, and even though I have entered a phase in my life when I want to come away from a book feeling good, and even though this book made me weep, I will still recommend it. A well-written book should make you _feel_ and this book does, every step of the way. I could relate, in some way, to almost every page. Finished: _Darling Jim_ an odd little tale of murder and revenge. I’m not yet sure what I want to say about it. I didn’t hate it, I didn’t exactly \*enjoy \*it, but it was well-written and kept me hooked. Will I recommend it? I just don’t know yet. November is here - have a great Thanksgiving! ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2011, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/2 "2011-10-31T20:21:44Z")
Missed the edit window. [Link](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=626265)to October’s thread. ---
**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:** [October 31, 2011, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/3 "2011-10-31T20:22:23Z")
Hope your power stays on, **K**. I’m about halfway through _The Dead Path_, by Stephen M. Irwin. (I just read _A Monster Calls_, which makes this the second book in a row for me that references the Green Man mythology. Eerie!) I read a lot of horror, but I’m actually finding this spooky and very well-done. I think I’ll be adding this author’s name to my list of “writers to watch in future”. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2011, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/4 "2011-10-31T20:54:42Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > Hope your power stays on, **K**. > > I’m about halfway through _The Dead Path_, by Stephen M. Irwin. (I just read _A Monster Calls_, which makes this the second book in a row for me that references the Green Man mythology. Eerie!) I read a lot of horror, but I’m actually finding this spooky and very well-done. I think I’ll be adding this author’s name to my list of “writers to watch in future”. I read _Monster Calls_ because of your post. And so I’ll add this one to my queue too. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2011, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/5 "2011-10-31T22:10:02Z")
Forgot: Finished _The Last Werewolf_ by Glen Duncan. (Of course I’ve over-used the term but…) Again I’ll say a well-written novel, told from the point of view of the a werewolf who finds out all others of his kind have been hunted down and killed. It was quick and compelling and although sometimes the author’s attempt at wit fell short, I still mostly enjoyed it. ---
**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:** [November 1, 2011, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/6 "2011-11-01T02:53:08Z")
It’s November here already, going on 10am on the 1st. I’m about 3/5 through _Lord of the Flies_, by William Golding. ---
**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:** [November 1, 2011, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/7 "2011-11-01T13:44:15Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > I read _Monster Calls_ because of your post. And so I’ll add this one to my queue too. :o Whoa, now I _really_ hope it turns out good! ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/8 "2011-11-01T16:04:18Z")
I started _Reamde_ by Neal Stephenson. Good so far, although I didn’t realize it was 800+ pages when I started it (that’s the thing about ereaders, they can be very deceptive). With this author, I don’t know why I’m surprised, but I was. I have _Ready Player One_ coming up next, but at this rate, I’ll still be posting about Reamde in the December thread. ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/9 "2011-11-01T16:11:57Z")
_Brandwashed_ by Martin Lindstrom should probably be the next big book a la Freakonomics. It’s chock full of tidbits that are fascinating about marketing and ourselves. ---
**Author:** ![Enterprise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/76d3ee/32.png) [@Enterprise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enterprise)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/10 "2011-11-01T17:11:05Z")
I did quite a bit of reading in the last couple of weeks without posting here, so I’ll quickly lump all of it into this thread: Finished: David Simon’s _Homicide_. Embedded reporting in the late 1980s Baltimore PD Homicide division. Must have been republished because of _The Wire,_ and fans of that show will find their favorite people in here as well. Utterly fascinating and disillusioning book about homicide detecting–and about the 50% of cases were homicide cops need no detecting at all, because some dumb-ass criminal makes it easy. “Richard Castle”'s _Heat Wave_. Reads like a _Castle_ episode, plus badly written sex. Nice enough, but not necessarily something I would recommend. Got it cheap, though. Charles Yu, _How to Live Safely in Science-Fictional Universe_. This I thought had a far more intriguing premise than it finally delivered. It wasn’t a bad read by any means, but it seemed to try far to hard to be clever and sophisticated. Jeffrey Toobin’s _The Nine_, on the last twenty-thirty years of the Supreme Court. Also an excellent read, and does away with a couple of the prejudices I clearly had about the current justices–even as it confirms other conceptions about them. It’s also a little bit scary, like most behind-the-scenes looks, by establishing just how stupid and human many of the protagonists in politics and the jurisdiction are. Nickolas Cook’s _Alice in Zombieland_. Of the various mashups I’ve read so far, the weakest. Not clear what it’s supposed to tell me about Alice, or anybody else. F. Paul Wilson’s _All the Rage_ and _The Keep_, and _Reborn_. _The Keep_ was excellent, even a bit scary; _Reborn_ was mostly just very sad, and _All the Rage_ opened an interesting perspective into the future of the series. Currently, I’m reading Holger Herwig’s _The Battle of the Marne_, which I like rather better than Barbara Tuchman’s _Guns of August_, and would recommend, much as I dislike saying something negative about Tuchman. But Herwig balances narrative and analysis much more nicely. Also up: Colson Whitehead’s zombie novel _Zone One_, which constructs an interesting post-apolyptical landscape. Three-person teams clear New York blocks from “skels,” sponsored by multinational corporations, while the provisional government in Buffalo tries to get a hold on things. Jennifer Egan’s _A Visit from the Goon Squad_. Can’t get into it…may dump it at some point… ---
**Author:** ![Cap\_n\_Obvious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e56c9b/32.png) [@Cap\_n\_Obvious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cap_n_Obvious)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/11 "2011-11-01T17:15:42Z")
Currently I’m in the middle of the Hollows series. Unfortunately, it’s going slow as I only have most of the books in ebook format, my kindle is dead, and I have no way to replace it until next year at the earliest. With 5 people in the house and one computer, my read time on it is limited. When I’m not reading that, I’m rereading The Gathering Storm. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/12 "2011-11-01T17:37:18Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > I started _Reamde_ by Neal Stephenson. Good so far, although I didn’t realize it was 800+ pages when I started it (that’s the thing about ereaders, they can be very deceptive). With this author, I don’t know why I’m surprised, but I was. > > I have _Ready Player One_ coming up next, but at this rate, I’ll still be posting about Reamde in the December thread. Me, too - I am about “30%” done with it, but since I never checked if there are sections included after the book, I don’t know if I am really ~1/3 done or maybe more. It is a fine read, moving a long, but not much is really happening and I am getting a stockpile of books I really want to get started on, so if I get to 50% and don’t find myself digging in deeper, I may \ walk away. I want to read the new book The Swerve about the rediscovery of the ancient Roman poem De Rarem Natura by an early-Renaissance book dealer. There is also a new book about Translations and what they tell us about meaning and words that was just reviewed in the NYTimes that sounds great…oh, and I just stumbled across this collection of stories which “best illustrate the Zen mind” called Zen Flesh Zen Bones which i want to check out, and, and, and… Too many books. ---
**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 1, 2011, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/13 "2011-11-01T18:17:09Z")
> [@Enterprise](#): > > …David Simon’s _Homicide_. Embedded reporting in the late 1980s Baltimore PD Homicide division. Must have been republished because of _The Wire_… You knew about this show too, right?: [Homicide: Life on the Street - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homicide:_life_on_the_street) > [@Enterprise](#): > > …Jeffrey Toobin’s _The Nine_, on the last twenty-thirty years of the Supreme Court. Also an excellent read, and does away with a couple of the prejudices I clearly had about the current justices–even as it confirms other conceptions about them… I’ve pushed _The Nine_ into the hands of many friends. A near-perfect blend of law, history, politics and gossip - very, very good stuff. > [@Enterprise](#): > > …F. Paul Wilson’s …_The Keep_ …was excellent, even a bit scary… I read _The Keep_ in high school and really liked it. I should re-read it sometime. My favorite scene was where the old Jewish scholar and the vampire are talking, and the vampire muses about going to Berlin to overthrow “Lord Hitler”… wow! ---
**Author:** ![delphica](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e9a140/32.png) [@delphica](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/delphica)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/14 "2011-11-01T18:57:52Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > I want to read the new book The Swerve about the rediscovery of the ancient Roman poem De Rarem Natura by an early-Renaissance book dealer. Now _ **I** _ want to read this book. It’s never-ending! ---
**Author:** ![Eve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Eve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eve)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/15 "2011-11-01T18:58:52Z")
I am just now finishing Mary McCarthy’s very enjoyable **The Group** (they remind me so much of some of my school-girl friends!). Am about to begin Michael Arlen’s scandalous **The Green Hat**. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2011, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/16 "2011-11-01T18:59:52Z")
> [@delphica](#): > > Now _ **I** _ want to read this book. It’s never-ending! I know, right? > **[The Swerve: How the World Became Modern: Greenblatt, Stephen: 9780393064476:...](https://www.amazon.com/Swerve-How-World-Became-Modern/dp/0393064476)** > > The Swerve: How the World Became Modern \[Greenblatt, Stephen\] on Amazon.com. \*FREE\* shipping on qualifying offers. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern > [@](#): > > A riveting tale of the great cultural “swerve” known as the Renaissance. > > One of the world’s most celebrated scholars, Stephen Greenblatt has crafted both an innovative work of history and a thrilling story of discovery, in which one manuscript, plucked from a thousand years of neglect, changed the course of human thought and made possible the world as we know it. > > Nearly six hundred years ago, a short, genial, cannily alert man in his late thirties took a very old manuscript off a library shelf, saw with excitement what he had discovered, and ordered that it be copied. That book was the last surviving manuscript of an ancient Roman philosophical epic, On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius—a beautiful poem of the most dangerous ideas: that the universe functioned without the aid of gods, that religious fear was damaging to human life, and that matter was made up of very small particles in eternal motion, colliding and swerving in new directions. > > The copying and translation of this ancient book-the greatest discovery of the greatest book-hunter of his age-fueled the Renaissance, inspiring artists such as Botticelli and thinkers such as Giordano Bruno; shaped the thought of Galileo and Freud, Darwin and Einstein; and had a revolutionary influence on writers such as Montaigne and Shakespeare and even Thomas Jefferson. 16 pages full-color illustrations ---
**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 2, 2011, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/17 "2011-11-02T13:51:44Z")
I finished Sharon Kay Penman’s _Lionheart_ over the weekend. It’s 600 pages of small print, so it’s quite a long book - and it’s only half of Richard’s story. It breaks with the ending of the Third Crusade, and will pick up in her next novel: _The King’s Ransom_. The book was very well written and I enjoyed it, even though I’m not sure it’s successful as a novel, exactly. The flow and structure is not quite right. For instance, Penman would occasionally pull out of the story to relate a contemporary chronicler’s account of certain events. It was an entertaining way to learn a little history, though. ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2011, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/18 "2011-11-02T14:03:04Z")
I’m re-reading _Jane Eyre_ for the first time in years, this time not allowing myself to skip the ~133 pages (not that I counted or anything :p) before Mr. Rochester shows up. I had forgotten what an emotionally turbulent little girl Jane was. She only became master of her feelings by modelling her demeanor after the lovely Miss Temple at Lowood Institution. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2011, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/19 "2011-11-02T15:00:25Z")
Picked up 40 books at a library sale a couple weeks ago and have been tearing through them. When you only pay a quarter for a book, there’s no pressure to (1) like it or (2) finish it or (3) make it last. The books are in plastic bags on the porch and I’m just grabbing and reading. What fun! One was _Italian Fever_ by Valerie Martin. I really liked _Property_ by her, but this one wasn’t that good. An American woman travels to Italy when her boss (a writer) dies in an accident. She has an affair with a married Italian man, goes to museums and eats good Italian food. The “plot” revolved around her suspicions about her boss’s death, but mostly I think she wrote the book because she’d been to Italy and wanted to write about it. Another was _Down by the River where the Dead Men Go_ by George Pelecanos. This is in the Nick Stefanos series. Nick is a PI, alcoholic, all around substance abuser, quite the loose cannon. I like him. Dumped _The Accidental_ by Ali Smith after just two pages. Went to Amazon to read the one-star reviews so I wouldn’t feel guilty about not trying harder. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2011, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422/20 "2011-11-02T15:02:20Z")
I just finished _The Lonely Polygamist_ by Brady Udall. It certainly has its flaws, but on the whole I’d recommend it enthusiastically as one of the best novels of the last few years. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-readin-november-2011-edition/601422.md?page=2)