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.

Catching Fire

Posted on January 6, 2013 by smellincoffee

Catching Fire© Suzanne Collins 2009391 pages  When Katniss Everdeen stepped foot into the arena of the 74th Hunger Games, she didn’t expect to leave alive,  let alone a victorious symbol of rebellion and hope against tyranny. She defied the odds … Continue reading →

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Reeds to Reals: The Hunger Games (No Spoilers)

Posted on January 6, 2013 by smellincoffee

In the not-too-distant future, civilization as we know it is long-vanished, replaced by a sprawling empire centered on North America that murders children for sport. To punish its twelve constituent districts for past rebellion, the government  of Capitol forces them … Continue reading →

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Calico Joe

Posted on January 3, 2013 by smellincoffee

Calico Joe© 2012 John Grisham208 pages It’s not every day that dear old dad tries to murder your childhood hero, but such a thing happened to Paul Tracy. His dad was Warren Tracy, an abusive drunk playing for the Mets … Continue reading →

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2012 Cumulative Reading List

Posted on January 1, 2013 by smellincoffee

Below is the past year’s reading, updated for the last time yesterday morning..expect the annual end of the year wrap up today or tomorrow. Books in bold print are superior favorites. — January —  1. Bowling Alone: the Collapse and Revival … Continue reading →

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Sparkly Hayek

Posted on December 31, 2012 by smellincoffee

Yesterday I finished my last read for 2012, which was…Twilight. Yes, the sparkly-vampires-playing-baseball book. I read it as a joke. It turned out to be a rather mean joke on myself, because it consisted of 400 pages of two lovesick … Continue reading →

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The Great Railroad Revolution

Posted on December 31, 2012 by smellincoffee

The Great Railroad Revolution: A History of Trains in America© 2012 Christian Wolmar448 pages The United States’ history is one written with novelty: born in the dawn of the industrial age,  America was a blank slate for technologies with the … Continue reading →

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The Hunger Games

Posted on December 31, 2012 by smellincoffee

The Hunger Games © 2008 Suzanne Collins 378 pages             Once every year,  two teenagers are chosen at random to represent their region in a nation-wide game….the Hunger Games. But they’re not competing in track and field … Continue reading →

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Hamlet’s Blackberry

Posted on December 28, 2012 by smellincoffee

Hamlet’s Blackberry: Building a Good Life in the Digital Age© 2011 William Powers288 pages Getting online used to require sitting in front of a computer terminal and waiting for it to dial in, oh so slowly. It was a choice … Continue reading →

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The Racketeer

Posted on December 26, 2012 by smellincoffee

The Racketeer© 2012 John Grisham340 pages Malcolm Bannister is a largely unsuccessful lawyer who was imprisoned by an overly aggressive government prosecutor when he accidentally turned  his law firm into a shell company for a shady crook who needed to … Continue reading →

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Riding Rockets

Posted on December 22, 2012 by smellincoffee

Riding Rockets: the Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut© 2007 Mike Mullane400 pages Mike Mullane is a shuttle astronaut with a penis fixation. Although Riding Rockets is ostensibly about the opening decades of the space shuttle era in NASA, … Continue reading →

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