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Author Archives: smellincoffee
The Best of 2025 — Annual Year in Review!
Here we are at the end of another year. After the distressing takeover of fiction in 2024, I was determined to not let that happen again. Then entered CJ Box, whose 26-strong Joe Pickett series lassoed my intentions off their … Continue reading
WWW Wednesday – 2025’s Last One!
WHAT have you finish reading recently? Marce Catlett: The Force of Story, Wendell Berry. WHAT are you currently reading? President without a Party, Christopher Leahy. An ….incredibly…..detailed….policy history of the Tyler presidency. Also, Jon Meacham’s biography of Andrew Jackson. I … Continue reading
Posted in General
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Marce Catlett and the Force of Story
Marce Catlett The Force of a Story takes a life we’ve visited with previously and then visits with it for a while, learning how the story of Andy Catlett was really a continuation of a story in which his grandfather … Continue reading
End Year Short Rounds: Frankenstein, Merlin, and Stephen Douglas
Although I ostensibly took a break from the blog on Christmas eve to focus on real life and all that, part of my brain is resolutely blog-oriented and insisted I keep reading so that I did not fail the Science … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews, science
Tagged 1850s, Astronomy, chemistry, history, Jefferson Davis, Mark Miodownik, Mary Roach, medicine, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Stephen Douglas, the impending crisis
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Harry Potter and the Quest to Get Expelled: Full Cast Audio!
Recently I took a chance on the full-cast audio version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone that’s just come out. I say “took a chance” because the preview on Audible does not communicate the nature of the book especially … Continue reading
Science Survey, 2025!
Yes, despite entering the month with three items pending, and despite my history obsession and the sloth that comes with the holidays, I knocked out Chemistry/Physics, Biology, and Local Astronomy this past week. Hurrah for the Christmas holidays! ….reviews will … Continue reading
And this is why we do not discuss politics at Christmas lunch
(Yes, yes, I know I’m taking a break, but I read this today and it was too funny and too appropriate to leave alone.) “On December 25, 1847, one day after Cass wrote to Nicholson, [Jefferson] Davis confronted colleague Henry … Continue reading
WWW Wednesday
WHAT have you finished reading recently? Bosom Friends, a book examining the alliance between James Buchanan and William Rufus King, and Zachary Taylor, a biography of President Zachary Taylor. Also, Millard Fillmore by the aptly named Finkleman. I will not … Continue reading
Posted in General, history, Reviews
Tagged biography, Hail to the Chief, memes and surveys, Millard Fillmore, the impending crisis, WWW Wednesday
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Old Rough and Ready Taylor
When I think of Zachary Taylor, I can see a craggy face right out of a western– and for some reason, I think of cherries. (My adult brain has somehow managed to remember some 25+ years after reading a book … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews
Tagged 1830s, 1840s, Hail to the Chief, history, the impending crisis, US-Mexican War, Zachary Taylor
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