Category Archives: Classics and Literary

The Reading Life

Posted on November 23, 2021 by smellincoffee

The Reading Life: The Joy of Seeing New Worlds through Others’ Eyes © 2019 C.S. Lewis 192 pages One of the reasons I’ve grown so fond of Jack Lewis over the years is that he and I share some of … Continue reading →

Posted in Classics and Literary, Reviews | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

Watership Down

Posted on November 19, 2021 by smellincoffee

Watership Down© 1972 Richard Adams413 pages A small community sits on the precipice of destruction, but the few who realize it are unable to fully warn their comrades. A small band leave everything they’ve ever known behind, to face the … Continue reading →

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The Great Gatsby

Posted on November 18, 2021 by smellincoffee

The Great Gatsby© F. Scott Fitzgerald It is interesting how the passage of years can suddenly alter a reader’s take on a given book. Take The Great Gatesby, for instance, which I read in early college and was so underwhelmed by that … Continue reading →

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Germans: terror and tedium

Posted on November 9, 2021 by smellincoffee

In the past week I’ve read or mostly-read, in the case of The Vampire Economy, two books with a German connection. The first, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, was by far the most interesting of the two. I read this … Continue reading →

Posted in Classics and Literary, General, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Of anthropology, Solzhenitsyn, and a return to the gulag archipelago

Posted on September 12, 2021 by smellincoffee

If I’ve been quiet as of late, I’ve been bedridden with a severe sinus infection, one that came with headaches so severe that I couldn’t even use my four days off of work to read. Yesterday was the first day … Continue reading →

Posted in Classics and Literary, Reviews, science | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

The Moon is Down | The Pearl | The Red Pony

Posted on September 2, 2021 by smellincoffee

Yesterday I made the mistake of having a sinus headache, and in our Brave New World of Perpetual Hypochondria, I was ordered to the doctor’s office to have my nose jabbed in search of the dreaded Beer Bug. To no … Continue reading →

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It’s not so lonely out in space: three to celebrate Apollo 11

Posted on July 20, 2021 by smellincoffee

Fifty-two years ago, men from Earth touched down on the moon and inaugurated a new era in human exploration. I usually re-watch From the Earth to the Moon (a Tom Hanks docu-drama that is in my “Everything is burning but … Continue reading →

Posted in Classics and Literary, Reviews, science fiction | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

A clump o’ reviews, because I’m house/dog/pool-sitting sans PC

Posted on June 20, 2021 by smellincoffee

I am in town for Father’s Day and thus taking a moment to scribble on my computer, having spent the past few days happily bobbing in a pool. Taking care of friends’ houses in their absence is such a chore, … Continue reading →

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A Gathering of Old Men

Posted on May 7, 2021 by smellincoffee

A Gathering of Old Men© 1983 Ernest Gaines213 pages There’s a white man dead in the quarter, and by sundown there may be another body swinging from the trees. Most of the people in the quarter don’t know why Beau … Continue reading →

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Of Captains Courageous, dog-training, and walking amid mountain laurel

Posted on April 20, 2021 by smellincoffee

Late last week I finished Captains Courageous, a coming-of-age adventure story in which a spoiled brat named Harvey Cheyne falls overboard at sea and is rescued by a fishing boat, whereupon he must work for his living and matures rather … Continue reading →

Posted in Classics and Literary, Reviews | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments