Author Archives: smellincoffee

Unknown's avatar

About smellincoffee

Citizen, librarian, reader with a boundless wonder for the world and a curiosity about all the beings inside it.

Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade

France, 1918: the Great War is almost over, but it doesn’t feel like it for civilians close to the lines, where the threat of a German resurgence hangs as close to the battered ground as the dust from the constant … Continue reading

Posted in historical fiction, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Minimalist awkwardness

….I wouldn’t notice and neither would my friends. I adopted a minimalist dress code years ago in which my t-shirts, underwear, and socks are all almost entirely black except in the case of some pre-code shirts/shorts that haven’t aged out … Continue reading

Posted in General | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Top Ten Anticipated releases

Today’s TTT is upcoming releases We’re So Excited about. I don’t know if I can manage ten, but I’ll give it the ol’ college try. But first ,teases! Baghdad is generally considered a good place for solo journalists to get … Continue reading

Posted in General | Tagged , | 12 Comments

A Thousand Ships

Sing, muse, of the confusion of Croseus, and of the anguish of Penthesilea! A Thousand Ships collects stories about the women of the Illiad — mostly of Troy, but of Achaea, too, across the wine-dark sea — and framed by … Continue reading

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Fan Fiction

First up: do not read this. Do not read this. Listen to it. Reading this is the equivalent of getting your knowledge of War and Peace from a Wishbone classics edition. Fan Fiction is an audiobook that’s transcended to the … Continue reading

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Dune

For as long as I’ve been online, I’ve heard of Dune, have heard expressions like “The spice must flow” and seen the “I must not fear / fear is the mind-killer / fear is the little death (etc)” recitation embedded … Continue reading

Posted in Reviews, science fiction | Tagged , , | 13 Comments

Mythos

This book will hold a record for the title it took me the longest to complete, as I’ve been listening to it off and on since fall 2021, attracted by both the premise and (chiefly) the narrator, Stephen Fry — … Continue reading

Posted in Classics and Literary, Reviews | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Zero Days

Jack and her husband, Gabe, are professional security analysts — pen-testers, red-teamers. Their job is to test the security measures of companies, both digital and physical, to find weaknesses. After one case goes a little sideways and Jack is briefly … Continue reading

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Top Ten Tuesday: Summer readin’, have me a blast

Summer readin’, happening so fast….today’s TTT is top ten books on our summer TBR list! If that title got a song stuck in your head, I’m sorry/not sorry. But first, the tease! “Once, men turned their thinking over to machines … Continue reading

Posted in General | Tagged , | 32 Comments

Happy father’s day ft. one of my favorite videos on YouTube

Today is Father’s Day in the United States, and to celebrate I’d like to share a father and son duet from Johnny and Nick Clegg. Johnny Clegg was a groundbreaking musician who, in apartheid South Africa, creating several illegal mixed-race … Continue reading

Posted in General | Tagged , | Leave a comment