Category Archives: Reviews

Book reviews, as well as Reads to Reels

The Road Taken

Posted on November 16, 2016 by smellincoffee

The Road Taken: The History and Future of America’s Infrastructure336 pages© 2016 Henry Petroski What, exactly, is The Road Taken?   Its title declares it a history, which is mostly true. It does have a bounty of historic sketches on the … Continue reading →

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Ad Astra Per Aspera

Posted on November 13, 2016 by smellincoffee

A reading from Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, set to utterly perfect music. We were hunters and foragers — the frontier was everywhere. We were bounded only by the earth, and the ocean, and the sky. The open road still … Continue reading →

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I’m a Stranger Here Myself

Posted on November 12, 2016 by smellincoffee

I’m a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America after Twenty Years Away© 1999 Bill Bryson288 pages “It’s been a funny  old night, when you think of it. I mean to say, wife drowns, ship sinks, and there was … Continue reading →

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Armistice Day

Posted on November 11, 2016 by smellincoffee

The sun’s shining down on these green fields of FranceThe warm wind blows gently and the red poppies danceThe trenches have vanished long under the plowNo gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing nowBut still in this graveyard that’s still … Continue reading →

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Don’t Get Above Your Raisin’

Posted on November 11, 2016 by smellincoffee

Don’t Get Above Your Raisin’: Country Music and the Southern Working Class© 2002 Bill C. Malone432 pages Friend of mine named Steve Goodman wrote that song, and he told me that it was the perfect country-and-western song. I wrote him … Continue reading →

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Divided Highways

Posted on November 7, 2016 by smellincoffee

Divided Highways: Building the Interstate Highways, Transforming American Life©  Tom Lewis 2007, 2013416 pages No engineering project in the United States is more impressive than the interstate system; dense with the connections of a street grid, it serves not blocks … Continue reading →

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Hidden Order

Posted on November 5, 2016 by smellincoffee

Hidden Order© 2013 Brad Thor383 pages The five people on the short list to succeed to the chair of the Federal Reserve have just disappeared, and Scott Harvath — former Navy SEAL,  now private security action hero — is hired … Continue reading →

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Heretics and Heroes

Posted on November 3, 2016 by smellincoffee

Heretics and Heroes: How Renaissance Artists and Reformation Priests Created Our World© 2013 Thomas Cahill368 pages It seems the more I read of Cahill, the less I enjoy his cavalier histories, which at this point border on gossipy. Part of … Continue reading →

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The Greeks

Posted on November 2, 2016 by smellincoffee

The Greeks© 1950 HDF Kitto256 pages HDF Kitto’s history of the Greeks came highly recommended to me by another author, and I found it utterly delightful.  Here we have history written not by an archaeologist, but by a classicist whose … Continue reading →

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Dubh-Linn

Posted on October 31, 2016 by smellincoffee

Dubh-Linn: A Novel of Viking-Age Ireland© 2014 James Nelson326 pages All Thorgrim Nightwolf wanted was to go home.But the gods and Irish women have a way of…complicating things.  Thorgrim has more sense than to tangle with this benighted island and … Continue reading →

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