Author Archives: smellincoffee

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About smellincoffee

Citizen, librarian, reader with a boundless wonder for the world and a curiosity about all the beings inside it.

A Hole in the Wind

Posted on February 17, 2022 by smellincoffee

A Hole in the Wind: A Climate Scientist’s Bicycle Journey Across the United States© 2017 David Goodrich304 pages A Hole in the Wind features a retired climate scientist touring from Delaware to to Oregon, speaking with people along the way … Continue reading →

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The Harrows of Spring

Posted on February 13, 2022 by smellincoffee

The Harrows of Spring© 2016 Jim Kunstler384 pages The long winter is ending, and the earth is growing green again, but it is still a time of hardship and sorrow. Food stores are limited, and predators — human and animal … Continue reading →

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Songs of America

Posted on February 11, 2022 by smellincoffee

Song of America: Patriotism, Protest, and the Music that Made a Nation© 2019 Jon Meacham and Tim McGraw289 pages Songs of America is a partial history of America, illustrated by its music, one celebrating the progress of Americans toward greater … Continue reading →

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A History of the Future

Posted on February 10, 2022 by smellincoffee

A History of the Future© 2014 Jim Kunstler336 pages Christmas has arrived in Union Grove,  and unlike their ancestors in days past – for whom the season was an exhausting, expensive enterprise involving frantic consumerism —  the people  of the … Continue reading →

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Selections from Rothbard’s “Betrayal of the American Right”

Posted on February 4, 2022 by smellincoffee

The history of America as a country is quite different from that of America as a State. In one case it is the drama of the pioneering conquest of the land, of the growth of wealth and the ways in … Continue reading →

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Brave New Home

Posted on February 3, 2022 by smellincoffee

Brave New Home: Our Future in Smarter, Simpler, Happier Housing© 2020 Diane Lind272 pages Prior to the 20th century, Americans enjoyed the same rich diversity of housing options as anyone else: detached houses of varying sizes, granny flats, boarding houses, … Continue reading →

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January 2022 Review

Posted on February 2, 2022 by smellincoffee

At 17 titles read, January has the year off to a running start, and there’s more in-bound, with some fun titles in the works — on fighting, creating better streets and places, and radical libertarian women. Science and the TBR … Continue reading →

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Living in the Long Emergency

Posted on February 2, 2022 by smellincoffee

Living in the Long Emergency: Global Crisis, the Failure of the Futurists, and the Early Adapters Who Are Showing the Way Forward © 2020 Jim Kunstler288 pages In 2005, James Howard Kunstler penned The Long Emergency, building on his earlier … Continue reading →

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The Secret Life of Groceries

Posted on January 31, 2022 by smellincoffee

The Secret Life of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket © 2020 Benjamin Lorr336 pages The Secret Life of Groceries opens at a fish counter and invites the reader to consider how much labor, creativity, money, pain, and … Continue reading →

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RIP David

Posted on January 28, 2022 by smellincoffee

A friend of mine died this morning. He’d lived in Selma for twenty years and devoted that time to not only restoring the Harmony Club– a Jewish social club from the turn of the last century that had been dormant … Continue reading →

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