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.

California Diaries, round two: double the drama, double the ….fun?

Posted on August 15, 2024 by smellincoffee

California Diaries consists of diaries from five characters in three rounds: round one’s review is here. We open round two with Sunny, who is…still not doing well. Her last diary ended with her trying to run away from home with … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Fun times at Wayside school

Posted on August 15, 2024 by smellincoffee

Wayside School Wayside School was, I believe, my introduction to absurdist writing, and Sachar was a master at it in the realm of kiddie-fic. Imagine a school built sideways: instead of being 30 classrooms in a single-story campus, it’s a … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Marvin Redpost

Posted on August 14, 2024 by smellincoffee

I was going to do a big Sachar post, but realized it would get…erm, unwieldly. Going to seperate Marvin and the Wayside kids up! Marvin Redpost When straining the ol’ cranium for books I was reading in the nineties, an … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , | 9 Comments

WWW Wednesday

Posted on August 14, 2024 by smellincoffee

WHAT have you finished reading recently? For “real” reading, I just finished Star Trek: The Higher Frontier, a TOS-MOVIE era novel. I also read three books in the Marvin Redpost series for Blast from the Past. WHAT are you reading … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | 6 Comments

The Higher Frontier

Posted on August 13, 2024 by smellincoffee

Sorry, this isn’t Blast from the Past related, but Lower Decks is still two weeks away from airing and Strange New Worlds won’t return until 2025. Had to scratch my Trek itch. Got some Louis Sachar coming! On Andor, the … Continue reading →

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

Top Ten Tuesday: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles!

Posted on August 13, 2024 by smellincoffee

Today’s TTT is “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles”, which — no pun intended — is definitely in my wheelhouse. As longtime readers here know, transportation is a frequent nonfiction visit of mine, possibly because I come from a family of truckers … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , , | 34 Comments

California Diaries, round one

Posted on August 11, 2024 by smellincoffee

Warning: big post. Comments, videos, quotes. Years ago when the world was new and dinosaurs walked upon the face of the Earth, I saw a novel with an interesting cover and took a look. It proved to be a fictional … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Little House in the Big Woods

Posted on August 9, 2024 by smellincoffee

I have a persistent fantasy of living in a little off-grid cabin on the edge of the woods, a fantasy I suspect owes entirely to reading this as a child. It’s a memoir-in-novel form of the author, Laura Ingalls Wilder, … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Blast from the Past II: The Quack Attack is Back!

Posted on August 9, 2024 by smellincoffee

Last year I closed out July with a special week of themed reading called “Blast from the Past”, in which I visited 1990s kidlit — or, in the case of the Henry & Beezus books, books I happened to read … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | 7 Comments

WWW Wednesday

Posted on August 7, 2024 by smellincoffee

WHAT have you recently finished reading? Yesterday I finished Damned Un-English, a novel about a fellow who joined the submarine service in the early 1910s and…er, just spends the novel talking to people about the big European war that’s looming. … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , | 9 Comments