Category Archives: Reviews

Book reviews, as well as Reads to Reels

Dreamland

Posted on August 19, 2016 by smellincoffee

Dreamland: Travels Inside the Secret World of Roswell and Area 51© 1998 Phil Patton336 pages “What would happen if the U.S. government opened its doors to us and let us see all that was going on? Depending on what is … Continue reading →

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Stalingrad

Posted on August 17, 2016 by smellincoffee

Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege, 1942-1943© 1998 Anthony Beevor494 pages In June 1941, Hitler demonstrated the truism that evil will oft evil mar by launching an invasion of the Soviet Union. Though initiated later in the year than planned, the Wehrmacht’s … Continue reading →

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The Ordinary Spaceman

Posted on August 12, 2016 by smellincoffee

The Ordinary Spaceman: From Boyhood Dreams to Astronaut© 2015 Clayton Anderson330 pages Clay Anderson knew when he was nine years old that he wanted to grow up to be an astronaut.. He knew it when he witnessed the crew of … Continue reading →

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Playing to the Edge

Posted on August 11, 2016 by smellincoffee

Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror© Michael Hayden 2016464 pages As someone who became a civil libertarian in response to the increasingly sweeping powers of the surveillance state during the Bush administration, I began reading … Continue reading →

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Rising Sun

Posted on August 9, 2016 by smellincoffee

Rising Sun385 pages© 1992 Michael Crichton In downtown Los Angeles, in a gleaming tower of Japanese commercial success, a woman lies dead on a boardroom table.  The  grand opening of the Nakamoto Corporation’s downtown skyscraper attracted celebrities and politicians alike, … Continue reading →

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Airframe

Posted on August 7, 2016 by smellincoffee

Airframe© 1995 Michael Crichton352 pages What could happen on a plane to leave three people dead, fifty others seriously wounded, and the passenger cabin in ruins?   Why did its pilot only break radio silence shortly before he was due … Continue reading →

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The Director

Posted on August 5, 2016 by smellincoffee

The Director© 2014 David Ignatius384 pages The first week at a new job is rough for anyone, but what if you’re the new director of the CIA and a German kid off the street just informed you that every agent … Continue reading →

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Devil in the Sky

Posted on August 3, 2016 by smellincoffee

ST DS9: Devil in the Sky© 1995 Greg Cox and John Gregory Betancourt280 pages In the classic TOS episode, “Devil in the Dark”,  Kirk and the Enterprise were dispatched to a mining colony to discover and put an end to … Continue reading →

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Glass Houses

Posted on August 2, 2016 by smellincoffee

Glass Houses: Privacy, Secrecy, and Cyber Insecurity in a Transparent World© 2011, 2013 Joel Brenner320 pages Glass Houses, originally titled  America the Vulnerable, outlines some of the major ways that private citizens, corporations, and the government itself are exposed to … Continue reading →

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The Spanish Frontier in North America

Posted on July 30, 2016 by smellincoffee

The Spanish Frontier in North America© 1992 David J. Weber602 pages Although American history books will generally mention the early exploration of North America by figures like de Soto,  little attention on the whole is given to the Spanish colonial … Continue reading →

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