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Author Archives: smellincoffee
The Renaissance
The Renaissance: A History of Civilization in Italy from 1304-1576 A.D.© 1953 Will Durant776 pages I assumed the Renaissance would be a high point of this series for me, second only to The Age of Reason. After a thousand years … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews
Tagged Austria, history, Italy, Story of Civilization, survey, Will Durant
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The Illiad
The Illiad© 1960 Barbara Leonie Picard208 pagesIllustrated by Joan Kiddell-Monroe The Illiad is one of the oldest and most celebrated works of literature of western civilization: a classic among classics, no world literature class would be complete without it. It is … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews
Tagged "classic", classical world, Classics and Literary, Greece, humanities, world-turner
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The Big Rock Candy Mountain
The Big Rock Candy Mountain© 1943 Wallace Stegner563 pages “The frontier is closed”, declared the US census board in 1890. The boundless west has been fenced in and taken, but Bo Mason isn’t satisfied to believe it. There must be opportunities … Continue reading
Posted in General
Tagged America, American Frontier, American Literature, American West, bildungsroman, Wallace Stegner
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The Feather Merchants
The Feather Merchants© 1944 Max Shulman145 pagesFrom Max Shulman’s Large Economy Size, Sergeant Dan Miller, supply clerk extraordinaire, is home on furlough — and leave to him to get into more trouble in one night than he’s found in months … Continue reading
Booking through Thursday: Queue
Booking through Thursday asks:What are you reading now?Would you recommend it?And what’s next? I’m nibbling at several books at the moment: Will Durant’s The Renaissance, which is thus far just about Italian city-state politics; The Illiad, interpreted into prose by … Continue reading
This Week at the Library (7 September)
This week at the library I’ve put entirely too much on my plate. For starters, I’m knee deep in Will Durant’s The Renaissance, which is surprisingly..not all that interesting. So far it’s been three hundred pages of petty Italian city-state politics … Continue reading
Sharpe’s Havoc
Sharpe’s Havoc: Portugal, 1809© 2003 Bernard Cornwell396 pages “So what do you believe in?” Vicente wanted to know.“The trinity, sir,” said Harper sententiously.“The trinity?” Vicente was surprised.“The Baker rifle,” Sharpe said, “the sword bayonet, and me.” (p. 266) Napoleon’s armies … Continue reading
Posted in historical fiction, Reviews
Tagged Bernard Cornwell, historical fiction, military, Sharpe's Series, The Napoleonic Wars
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The Gods Themselves
The Gods Themselves© 1972 Isaac Asimov288 pages “Against human stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.” – Friedrich Schiller In a small university office, something wondrous has been discovered: an isotope of Plutonium which cannot possibly remain stable according to the … Continue reading
The Age of Faith
The Age of Faith© 1980 Will Durant1200 pages After centuries of economic decay, political corruption, and relentless outside attack, the glory of Rome finally surrendered to the tides of history some four centuries into the common era. The western empire gave … Continue reading
Posted in Reviews
Tagged Arabia, Austria, Catholicism, Islam, Medieval, Story of Civilization, Will Durant
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