# Whatcha reading Jan. (09) edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 31, 2008, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409 "2008-12-31T21:57:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![YoudNeverGuess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a587f6/32.png) [@YoudNeverGuess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YoudNeverGuess)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/81 "2009-01-09T10:17:39Z")
Nearly finished _David Copperfield_ (Dickens). I’d forgotten how great a writer he is. There’s a pithy, funny quotable quote on every second page. Still, it’s long though. Think I’ll make my next read a ‘short and snappy’. Also started reading _Tchaikovsky: A Self-Portrait_ (Orlova). I think it might be out of print now but managed to source a copy on the internet after reading the SD column on his death last week. Interesting so far. And dipping into _Opened Ground: Selected Poems 1966-1996_ (Séamus Heaney). What a brilliant poet he is. You can really smell and feel the scenes he portrays. Beautiful. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/82 "2009-01-09T13:34:55Z")
Just finished _New Tricks by John Levitt_. This is the second in an urban fantasy series. Mason is both a jazz musician and a “practitioner.” He is a former/part-timer enforcer. Someone is trying to change bodies with practitioners, leaving them brain-dead. The writing is functional and the characters are likable enough, but the plotting was clumsy. I guessed the culprit almost immediately and in the end the author is nearly punching you in the face with it. How anyone in the story didn’t see it, especially the protagonist, defies reality more than the magic. I can’t say that I won’t read his future books, but I also can’t recommend that you do. ---
**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:** [January 9, 2009, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/83 "2009-01-09T14:34:13Z")
I just finished _Dark Fire_ by CJ Sansom, the followup to _Dissolution_. The topic wasn’t as compelling as _Dissolution_, but the story and characters are really top-notch. I don’t remember which Martha Grimes book I was reading when I last commented, but I’m up to _I am the Only Running Footman_, now. The last book kinda irritated me, so we’ll see. I just started _All the President’s Men_ by Woodward and Bernstein. I really don’t know much about Watergate, so this will be a revelation to me. Still reading _The Far Pavilions_. ---
**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:** [January 9, 2009, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/84 "2009-01-09T14:36:22Z")
> [@Kythereia](#): > > And then there was Lindsey Davies’s _The Accusers_, and anybody who isn’t reading the Marcus Didius Falco series needs to stop reading this post, go out to the store, and buy all the books _right now_. I have the first of those on my list - is the series consistently that good? I really enjoyed the first few of Steven Saylor’s Roma Sub Rosa books, but the later ones seem poorly written. I’m a couple hundred pages into _A Fire Upon the Deep_. So far it’s okay. Not sure I’m buying the “zones of thought” thing. ---
**Author:** ![TheMerchandise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b487fb/32.png) [@TheMerchandise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheMerchandise)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/85 "2009-01-09T15:33:51Z")
I just finished _Botany of Desire_. The first chapter, on apples and the legacy of John Chapman, didn’t really appeal to me, but Polan’s chapters on marijuana and potatoes were insightful and interesting. I definitely saw the seeds of ideas that came to full fruition in _Omnivore’s Dilemma_. I’m reading Jim Butcher’s _Acedem’s Fury_ right now. Mostly because I know I’ll read it quickly and I haven’t picked out any other book that I REALLY want to read. I like this series so far, but not nearly as much as the Dresden Files. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/86 "2009-01-09T15:39:42Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > I just finished _Dark Fire_ by CJ Sansom, the followup to _Dissolution_. The topic wasn’t as compelling as _Dissolution_, but the story and characters are really top-notch. I like these books too. I was thinking about getting his new book, _Revelation_, but some Amazon readers are saying it’s bloated. Maybe I’ll wait for a cheap used copy. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/87 "2009-01-09T16:01:45Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > Over the weekend, I read The Inimitable Jeeves, by P. G. Wodehouse. It was really adorable and humorous and I liked it, but I don’t feel any urge to go round up the rest of the series. > > Now I’ve started on Two for The Road: our love affair with American food, by Jane and Michael Stern. It’s about the journey of these two food writers through all fifty states, and they’re eating at downscale mom and pop type places. It’s pretty amusing, and at first the food descriptions were appetizing, but I felt nauseated as I read the part where they describe a typical day in which they eat twelve meals! (I flipped the book around looking for the authors’ picture after that, but none was to be found.) Dung Beetle, they don’t eat the whole meals. Don’t want to spoil things, but there is a very funny part later where Jane describes how she tries to dispose of some food without detection. (She fails.) And Michael is a runner, so he works off some of the calories that way. Jane has been very heavy, and last time I saw her was using a cane, but I think has lost some weight. They really don’t eat all the food, they just order and taste. I’m going to start \*American Eve: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White: The Birth of the “It” Girl and the Crime of the Century \*by Paula Uruburu. ---
**Author:** ![Gulo\_gulo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bcef8e/32.png) [@Gulo\_gulo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gulo_gulo)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/88 "2009-01-09T18:14:12Z")
Just started: _American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon_ by Steven Rinella ~ liking it so far. _Papillon_ by Henri Charriere ~ one of my ‘comfort food’ books. Looks like I’ll need to replace my copy too. > [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I would urge you to read at least the next one, too, to get into the swing of it. I loved the entire series. Consider my arm twisted. I’ll give it a shot. ---
**Author:** ![wonderlust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonderlust/32/7237_2.png) [@wonderlust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderlust)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/89 "2009-01-09T20:02:11Z")
Reading Michael Pollan’s _In Defense of Food_ propelled me into reading _The South Beach Diet Super Charged_, an eating and exercise lifestyle plan based upon the Mediterranean Diet, which seems most able to accommodate the primarily vegetarian, whole food approach Pollan describes. ---
**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:** [January 9, 2009, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/90 "2009-01-09T20:13:21Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > …I just started _All the President’s Men_ by Woodward and Bernstein. I really don’t know much about Watergate, so this will be a revelation to me… The Redford/Hoffman movie is worth a look once you’re done, although obviously a lot gets left out. Then you might want to see _Frost/Nixon_, now playing in a theater near you. It’s a funny, witty look at Nixon’s yearning for rehabilitation and Frost’s yearning for a TV career boost. Great acting all around (Frank Langella should get an Oscar for his Nixon). ---
**Author:** ![Elyanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b5ac83/32.png) [@Elyanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elyanna)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/91 "2009-01-09T21:46:35Z")
Just finished _Mort_, by Pratchett, which I enjoyed, and _Heart, You Bully, You Punk,_ by Cohen, which I didn’t. Also recently reread _Under the Banner of Heaven,_ by Krakauer, and read _Quiet, Please: Dispatches from a Public Librarian,_ by Scott Douglas, and \*Napoleon’s Buttons: How 17 Molecules Changed History \*, Le Couteur, all of which I loved. Currently in the middle of _Making Money_ (Pratchett again), and slowly going through _Songs of the Gorilla Nation_ (Dawn Prince-Hughes), because I keep putting it down for other books. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/92 "2009-01-09T23:15:18Z")
> [@Shirley\_Ujest](#): > > [The Man Who Was Thursday](http://www.amazon.com/Man-Who-Was-Thursday-Nightmare/dp/0375757910/ref=wl_it_dp?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3UPT97JJJMJSD&colid=327JHLGM8SLFZ) by CK Chesterton. Recommended by a Doper when I was looking for Conspiracy Book Reading. One of my favourites. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Unix\_Geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unix_geek/32/19368_2.png) [@Unix\_Geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unix_Geek)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2009, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/93 "2009-01-10T04:40:50Z")
Just finished, in the middle of, or about to start: _Coyote Frontier_ by Allen Steele The third in the “Coyote” series. Sci-Fi Frontier novels _Ender in Exile_ by Orson Scott Card New book situated between _Ender’s Game_ and _Speaker for the Dead_ _The Years of Rice and Salt_ by Kim Stanley Robinson The world if the 14th century Black Death killed 99% of Europe instead of 1/3 _The Scourge of God_ by S.M. Stirling 5th book of the “Dies the Fire” universe. Guilty pleasure. Love the references to Tolkien’s elves _Deciding the Next Decider, The 2008 Presidential Race in Rhyme_ by Calvin Trillin Ya got to read it out loud. Find an audience and make them laugh ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2009, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/94 "2009-01-10T14:12:44Z")
Just started _The Testament of Gideon Mack_. It is slow starting, but came highly recommended from a friend. It has the feel of something that I may like, but may take a while to finish. But it does me good to read more “meatier” reads, I should do it more often. ---
**Author:** ![schnuckiputzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecb155/32.png) [@schnuckiputzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/schnuckiputzi)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/95 "2009-01-11T19:05:36Z")
> [@rocking\_chair](#): > > throw us some titles, there maybe a gem or two in there. Okay, don’t blame me. And several of these are definitely candidates for that parody site. “When The Duke Returns” by Eloisa James “The Pride of Hannah Wade” Janet Dailey “Blackthorne’s Bride” Shana Galen “Dangerous to Know” Barbara Taylor Bradford (who I’ve at least heard of) and several by a Lisa Scottoline. I’ve already tossed a few that were so Fabio-enhanced that I couldn’t even take them seriously enough to skim them. ack. ---
**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:** [January 11, 2009, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/96 "2009-01-11T19:31:55Z")
Just read Dave Gibbons’s big, beautiful, very informative, lavishly-illustrated _Watching the Watchmen_ (Titan 2008), which I highly recommend for any fans of the graphic novel. Lots of cool details on its creation, alternate history, draft layout pages, dropped concepts, costume evolution, etc. Very cool. ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2009, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/97 "2009-01-11T20:44:48Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > Happy New Years all! May your year be filled with good food, good fortune and good reads! First some old business from december > [@Whatcha reading Dec. (08) edition](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-dec-08-edition/475075/156): > > As a counterpoint while I found _Ender’s Game_ to be a decent SF novel, _Speaker for the Dead_ was absolutely horrible. > > (I’m 90% sure we’ve gone back and forth on that before so I won’t rehash it; I’m just providing a counterpoint.) I totally missed this post , so my apologies. Card in my opinion is a fast food writer better suited to young adult or teen audiences, I thought speaker was a better novel , only because of the concept of someone doing a eulogy that actually represented the disesased and telling it like it was. Such and such died , in life he was a drunk , he abused his wife and kids and stuff like that. He makes up a nice tile in the mosaic of the sf world, but thats about it. Now , on to 09 Finished Storm of Shadows by David Weber Heavy on politics and is setting the stage for Harringtons retirement to the background, as well as a forewarning by the author that some of the material will be seen in future books as seen from other eyes. Quite frankly I am hoping he (Weber) is training a new author to take over writing the series , as this one could quite frankly go another ten years before the saga is complete. With Jordan passing before he could complete his series , I am thinking this should be on Baen books future topics to bring up with DW. declan ---
**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:** [January 11, 2009, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/98 "2009-01-11T22:16:48Z")
> [@Declan](#): > > First some old business from december > > I totally missed this post , so my apologies. > > Card in my opinion is a fast food writer better suited to young adult or teen audiences, I thought speaker was a better novel , only because of the concept of someone doing a eulogy that actually represented the disesased and telling it like it was. > > Such and such died , in life he was a drunk , he abused his wife and kids and stuff like that. He makes up a nice tile in the mosaic of the sf world, but thats about it. It’s one thing to a eulogy to just be the truth; it’s another to claim that spouting the truth somehow heals all wounds even when he’s announcing the dirty secrets of those still living. [This thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=499612) was created to deal with that fork in the conversation if you want more details from all sides. ---
**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:** [January 12, 2009, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/99 "2009-01-12T13:26:21Z")
Just read a children’s book, The Sign of the Sinister Sorcerer, by Brad Strickland, who is carrying on with John Bellair’s characters. It adhered faithfully to the old formula, but somehow didn’t seem up to par. Next up was Summer Morning, Summer Night, a collection of Ray Bradbury short stories (and scraps, some were only three or four sentences long). There wasn’t anything special here, and some of them I’d read before, but it all had that Ray flavor I was looking for. If he wants to go on publishing, I’ll go on reading. Currently reading The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard. Really wonderful pulp horror (and western, and adventure) tales. The illustrations by Greg Staples are just marvelous. ---
**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:** [January 13, 2009, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409/100 "2009-01-13T04:20:24Z")
Finished _The Good Soldier_, by Ford Madox Ford. Very good. Sexual intrigue among an American and a British couple, set largely in Germany in the Edwardian era. Next up: _The Bonfire of the Vanities_, by Tom Wolfe. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whatcha-reading-jan-09-edition/479409.md?page=6)