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.

Before we Forget Kindness

Posted on January 11, 2025 by smellincoffee

One of the more charming reads from last year was Before the Coffee Gets Cold, a short novel that falls into a mysterious genre called ‘magical realism’, as I’ve since learned. The setting and premise were simple yet inexplicable: in … Continue reading →

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Primate Made

Posted on January 10, 2025 by smellincoffee

Longtime readers to this blog know that the mismatch between human biology and the world we have made for ourselves is a pet topic of mine,  given its implications for human flourishing.  Primate Made focuses on modernity’s effects on the … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

WWW Wednesday

Posted on January 8, 2025 by smellincoffee

WHAT have you finished reading recently? Sword Brethren, the start of a new historical fiction series about a man whose childhood home and title were stolen from him at age fourteen, forcing him to create a new life as a … Continue reading →

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Sword Brethren

Posted on January 7, 2025 by smellincoffee

Richard Fitz Simmons is a young lad who has just lost everything. After he narrowly defends himself against some highwaymen he arrives home to find that his father has accidentally died in a hunting accident and his uncle is taking … Continue reading →

Posted in historical fiction, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Top Ten 2025 Releases

Posted on January 6, 2025 by smellincoffee

2025’s inaugural Top Ten Tuesday from the Artsy Book Girl is book releases we’re looking forward to in 2025. I don’t follow book releases unless a particular author I like has announced one (hence my knowing about Anxious Generation and … Continue reading →

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The Best of 2024 – Year in Review!

Posted on January 4, 2025 by smellincoffee

Without a doubt, 2024 will be remembered on this blog as The Year of Fiction. I am a nonfiction reader. Nonfiction has always dominated my public reading, from 2006 forward, and it’s never been close: usually nonfiction leads by margins … Continue reading →

Posted in General | 6 Comments

Biking and Brotherhood

Posted on January 4, 2025 by smellincoffee

Although my dad had stopped biking long before I came on the scene, there were enough photos of him and my uncles sitting on their engines to make me a sucker for shows like Sons of Anarchy and books like … Continue reading →

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Strange Weather in Tokyo

Posted on January 3, 2025 by smellincoffee

There’s no resisting that cover! Tsukiko is a young woman on the cusp of middle age, not far from sailing into her forties. One night at her local sake bar, she puts in a order for snacks and hears an … Continue reading →

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My Holiday in North Korea

Posted on January 2, 2025 by smellincoffee

The “hermit kingdom” of North Korea, which is essentially a cult masquerading as a country, is one of the creepiest and most inhumane places on Earth. Wendy Simmons chose to go there, though, and shares her frustrating, confusing, and soul-troubling … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, World Affairs | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

What I Read in 2024

Posted on January 1, 2025 by smellincoffee

January(1) Curbing Traffic: The Human Case for Fewer Cars in our Lives, Chris and Melissa Bruntlett(2) My Selma, Willie Mae Brown(3) In Search of Zarathrustra, Paul Kriwaczek(4) The Exchange, John Grisham(5) Distracted by Alabama, John Seay Brown Jr(6) Days at the Morisaki … Continue reading →

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