Category Archives: Reviews

The Wild Weird World of Biology

Posted on February 22, 2016 by smellincoffee

So, it turns out The Lives of a Cell has little to do with cells.  I checked it out figuring to learn something about how cells work, since I’m a ways removed from fifth-grade life science, or even freshman bio.  I … Continue reading →

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The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Posted on February 21, 2016 by smellincoffee

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress © 1966 Robert Heinlein 382 pages So you say you want a revolution? Bozhemoi! The Moon is a Harsh Mistress combines politics and science fiction to follow a colonial rebellion…in space. In the year … Continue reading →

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An Economist Gets Lunch

Posted on February 17, 2016 by smellincoffee

An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies© 2012 Tyler Cowen293 pages Imagine going out to eat with someone who really likes to talk about food, and imagine that this person is also an economist. That’s An Economist Gets Lunch, … Continue reading →

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SCIENCE! ..and other stuff

Posted on February 17, 2016 by smellincoffee

Dear readers:  I am still scratching an itch for science and science fiction, both in books and on the screen.  Over the weekend I read A Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age,  on inculcating scientific habits of mind.  It’s rather … Continue reading →

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Reads to Reels: The Time Machine

Posted on February 17, 2016 by smellincoffee

Showing up late for a dinner is bad enough, but when a man is the host? Still worse, he stumbles in looking like he’s been run down by a carriage, and with a wild tale of having traveled through time … Continue reading →

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Reads to Reels: 2001 A Space Odyssey

Posted on February 16, 2016 by smellincoffee

 “You can tell who read the book (2001) before they watched the movie”, said a friend of mine, because they’re the only ones in the theater who aren’t asking, ‘What was THAT?’” at its end.   2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the … Continue reading →

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The Cult of the Presidency

Posted on February 14, 2016 by smellincoffee

The Cult of the Presidency: America’s Dangerous Devotion to Executive Power © 2008 Gene Healy 264 pages Every four years, men and women with permanently-fixed smiles assure us that they will end corruption in D.C, get the economy moving, and … Continue reading →

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Lost to the West

Posted on February 14, 2016 by smellincoffee

Lost to the West: The Forgotten Byzantine Empire that Rescued Western Civilization © 2009 Lars Brownsworth 329 pages The Roman empire not not fade quietly into history in 474, when a Gothic warlord decided to run the city of Rome directly instead … Continue reading →

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2001: A Space Odyssey

Posted on February 12, 2016 by smellincoffee

2001: A Space Odyssey© 1986 Arthur C. Clark, Stanley Kubrick316 pgs At the dawn of the twenty-first century, mankind makes an extraordinary discovery: unmistakable evidence of life outside the environs of Earth. An object on the moon makes plain the … Continue reading →

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Genome

Posted on February 12, 2016 by smellincoffee

 Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters© 1999 Matt Ridley317 pages   The human genome is a recipe book, divided into 23 chapters, but considerably larger than Matt Ridley’s Genome. Were it to scale, he writes, a genuine … Continue reading →

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