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.

El Narco

Posted on May 17, 2017 by smellincoffee

El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency© 2012 Ioan Grillo336 pages El Paso, Texas, can boast one of the lowest metropolitan crime rates in the United States. Immediately opposite it on the Rio Grande, however,  Ciudad Juarez, has until recently been … Continue reading →

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The Adventure of English

Posted on May 17, 2017 by smellincoffee

The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language© 2011 Melvyn Bragg336 pages In The Adventure of English, Melvin Bragg delivers a mythic history of the language that treats our lingua franca as a living personality — battered and now … Continue reading →

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Confront and Conceal

Posted on May 13, 2017 by smellincoffee

Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of Power 496 pages © 2012 David E. Sanger Barack Obama may have been the only Nobel Peace Prize winner in history to order lethal force used on a regular basis, … Continue reading →

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On the Shoulders of Hobbits

Posted on May 11, 2017 by smellincoffee

On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis© 2012 Louis Markos235 pages Fairy tales don’t teach children that dragons exist; they know dragons exist. Fairy tales teach children that dragons can be defeated.  GKC declared … Continue reading →

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Astrophysics for People in a Hurry

Posted on May 7, 2017 by smellincoffee

Astrophysics for People in a Hurry© 2017 Neil deGrasse Tyson200 pages Astrophysics for People in a Hurry is exactly what it says on the tin, a brief cosmological primer that presents the basics of cosmology, explains the ways we are … Continue reading →

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The Elephant and the Dragon

Posted on May 6, 2017 by smellincoffee

The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us© 2007  Robyn Meredith272 pages For most of the 20th century, Europe and the United States enjoyed an outsided influence on global … Continue reading →

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Spain in the Southwest

Posted on May 5, 2017 by smellincoffee

Spain in the Southwest: A Narrative History© 2013 John Kessell480 In the early 1500s, the Spanish triumphed over the Aztecs and established a new Spain — an empire forged out of the new world.  The equatorial tropics were only the … Continue reading →

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Captain to Captain

Posted on May 2, 2017 by smellincoffee

Captain to Captain© 2016 Greg Cox368 pages Captain Kirk is surprised to be hailed by the formidable former first officer of the Enterprise, a woman so accomplished she still retains the nickname “Number One”, enroute to a little shore leave. … Continue reading →

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Departing England

Posted on May 1, 2017 by smellincoffee

From the cover of Commodore Hornblower Yesterday we bid goodbye to April, and thus for me, to Read of England 2017.  I believe I found a good balance between literature and history, though next year I may mix in a … Continue reading →

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The Canterbury Tales

Posted on April 30, 2017 by smellincoffee

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! *ahem* If you’ve ever glanced at my Classics Club list, you’ll see Canterbury Tales sitting there, and I’ve regarded it as one of the tougher ones on my list — in the same tier as the Russians,  April is the … Continue reading →

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