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.

Bringing up Bébé

Posted on July 14, 2012 by smellincoffee

Bringing up Bébé: One Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting© 2012 Pamela Druckerman304 pages When Pamela Druckerman moved to Paris to start a life with her new husband, she noticed something rather odd about French children: they behaved. Long … Continue reading →

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French Lessons

Posted on July 11, 2012 by smellincoffee

French Lessons: Adventures with the Knife, Fork, and Corkscrew© 2001 Peter Mayle227 pages Peter Mayle is to be envied. Some people’s work involves overseeing hundreds of people and managing the affairs of a business that skirts bankruptcy other day. Some … Continue reading →

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French Women Don’t Get Fat

Posted on July 11, 2012 by smellincoffee

French Women Don’t Get Fat: the Secret of Eating for Pleasure© 2005 Mireille Guiliano263 pages You may have heard of the French Paradox. In an age of innumerable health crises (obesity, diabetes, cancer) tied to diet, where every item in … Continue reading →

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Mardi Teaser (10 Juillet)

Posted on July 10, 2012 by smellincoffee

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly event in which participants share excerpts from their current reads: the host is Should Be Reading. Only a handful of the French population — one recent estimate puts it at 10 percent — goes to … Continue reading →

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This Week at the Library (9 July)

Posted on July 9, 2012 by smellincoffee

I spent this weekend finishing A People’s History of the Civil War by David Brooks, which has the distinction of being the gloomiest book in the series I’ve yet read. Howard Zinn’s original work covering the United States forced the … Continue reading →

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Independence Wrap-up

Posted on July 8, 2012 by smellincoffee

This year I continued in my tradition of reading some appropriate books around the Fourth of July, starting with the excellent Founding Brothers by Joseph Ellis and moving on to two collections. The first, Our Sacred Honor by William J. … Continue reading →

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Liebster Survey

Posted on July 5, 2012 by smellincoffee

A little award-survey game has been going around the biblio-blogging community, one in which participants are tasked with answering eleven questions and then charged with fashioning eleven questions of their own and firing them at another batch of people. Well, … Continue reading →

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Booking through Thursday: 5 July

Posted on July 5, 2012 by smellincoffee

This week’s Booking through Thursday question: So other than books … what periodicals do you read? Magazines? Newspapers? Newsletters? Journals?  Do you subscribe? Or do you buy them on the newsstand when they look interesting? Funny BTT should ask! I’ve been … Continue reading →

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Teaser Tuesday (2 July)

Posted on July 3, 2012 by smellincoffee

It’s the first Tuesday of July, and that means…time for a teaser. Tuesday Teaser is an event hosted by Should be Reading in which participants share excerpts from their current reads. [Simon] describes reading the newspaper in a café as … Continue reading →

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This Week at the Library (2 July)

Posted on July 2, 2012 by smellincoffee

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy…. Well, not quite. At the moment we’re experiencing a heat wave, and in 110-degree heat, the livin’ is anything but easy. After nine o’clock the  soaring temperature makes it impossible to do anything outside, … Continue reading →

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