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.

A Morbid Taste for Bones

Posted on April 12, 2024 by smellincoffee

A brother at the monastery lies abed ranting and raving: the man who volunteered to watch him through the night falls asleep and wakes with a vision, one of a blessed saint who promising healing to the afflicted brother if … Continue reading →

Posted in historical fiction, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Top Ten Screenshots that Leave Ya Wonderin’

Posted on April 9, 2024 by smellincoffee

Today’s TTT is a freebie, so I’m going to go completely off topic with game screenshots that….well, leave a player asking questions. These are all my personal screenshots, from 2004 to now. (…I’m a data hoarder…) But first, a tease! … Continue reading →

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Sunspotting

Posted on April 8, 2024 by smellincoffee

I’ve never experienced a solar eclipse before (the one from a few years back was barley noticable in my neck of the woods), but I naively thought that 85% coverage would translate to something approaching dusk. Turns out the noonday … Continue reading →

Posted in General | 4 Comments

No King, No Country

Posted on April 8, 2024 by smellincoffee

Will Inness fought for Parliament and Cromwell, but now he’s a wanted man. His crime was speaking up for his men, who were owed back pay, and pleading that they be given some land in the country for which they … Continue reading →

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

Sons of the Waves

Posted on April 5, 2024 by smellincoffee

Heave your ship to, boys, deep soundings to take! Sons of the Waves is a celebration not of the gilded brass, not of a handsome oak-forest-falling ships, but of the ordinary — and able — British seaman in the Age … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

If Books Threw a Party

Posted on April 4, 2024 by smellincoffee
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The Club

Posted on April 4, 2024 by smellincoffee

I have an interest in men’s clubs dating back to reading Around the World in 80 Days and The Time Traveler as a kid, and I have no idea why. Boys like clubs and clubhouses as a rule, I think, … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Aged Veterans of the virtual TBR

Posted on April 3, 2024 by smellincoffee

Today’s prompt from Long and Short Reviews is “Books that have been on our TBR the Longest”. I dealt with my physical TBR last year, so I’m going to take a look at my Kindle library, sort by “Oldest”, and … Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged | 5 Comments

Elizabeth’s London

Posted on April 3, 2024 by smellincoffee

Let us travel to a city which, in great part, no longer exists: Tudor London, much of which has been erased by time, fire, and ‘progress’, which holds burying swimming pools under concrete as a capital idea. I first read … Continue reading →

Posted in history | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Tudor teasing

Posted on April 2, 2024 by smellincoffee

To us, many of the flowers in an Elizabethan garden would look more like wild flowers than our carefully hybridised varieties, since modern varieties have been bred to maximise flower size and length of season, often at the expense of … Continue reading →

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