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.

Teaser Tuesday (3-8)

Posted on August 3, 2010 by smellincoffee

Teasing? On a Tuesday?  But of course. From ShouldBeReading. Together with the carrier-pigeon, the rat was to become the most fabled animal of the siege of Paris, and from December on a good rat-hunt was one of the principle activities … Continue reading →

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Captive Queen

Posted on July 31, 2010 by smellincoffee

Captive Queen: A Novel of Eleanor of Aquitaine © 2010 Alison Weir 478 pages My life, when it is written, will read better than it lived. Henry Fitz-Empress, first Plantagenet, a king at twenty-one, the ablest soldier of an able … Continue reading →

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This Week at the Library (28/7)

Posted on July 28, 2010 by smellincoffee

This week… Dynasty of Evil, Drew Karpyshyn concludes the Darth Bane trilogy on a short but fitting note, as both Bane and his apprentice prepare for a confrontation that will decide the future course of the Sith while the Dark … Continue reading →

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Citizens

Posted on July 28, 2010 by smellincoffee

Citizens: a Chronicle of the French Revolution© 1989 Simon Schama948 pages Aux armes, citoyens, Formez vos bataillons, Marchons, marchons! Qu’un sang impur Abreuve nos sillons! Mon dieu, this was a read. My first mentor and first college-level history professor recommended … Continue reading →

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The Buried Age

Posted on July 27, 2010 by smellincoffee

The Buried Age© 2007 Christopher L. Bennett439 pages Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s life changed when, in approaching an uncharted star system,  an aggressive alien vessel attacked him in mid-warp, crippling his ship, the USS Stargazer, and dooming it after twenty years … Continue reading →

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Teaser Tuesday (27-7)

Posted on July 27, 2010 by smellincoffee

Teaser Tuesdays aren’t quite as bloody as French history, but they are as much fun. From ShouldBeReading. Poor France: it was roughly a hundred years since the country had been torn apart by the Wars of Religion; two centuries back … Continue reading →

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Dynasty of Evil

Posted on July 25, 2010 by smellincoffee

Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil© 2009 Drew Karpyshyn296 pages Twenty years ago, a disgruntled miner-turned-revolutionary-turned Sith Lord destroyed the whole of the Brotherhood of Darkness and became the sole Dark Lord of the Sith. Taking the name Darth Bane, he … Continue reading →

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In search of Asimov

Posted on July 24, 2010 by smellincoffee

I have been aggressively raiding used-book stores recently and wanted to show off some of my victories. Click the image for a preview of some of this year’s reading… 😉 Of the books shown, I’ve only owned three for some … Continue reading →

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This Week at the Library (21/7)

Posted on July 21, 2010 by smellincoffee

Recent reading: A Walk Across America, Peter Jenkins. A disillusioned college student in the early 1970s decides to walk across North America to see if there’s anything in his home country worth staying for. The memoir covers the first leg … Continue reading →

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Hornblower and the Crisis

Posted on July 20, 2010 by smellincoffee

Hornblower and the Crisis© 1967 CS Forester174 pages Hornblower and the Crisis is the last of CS Forester’s Hornblower books, as Forester died in the midst of writing it. This book collects the first 130 pages of the intended novel, … Continue reading →

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