Category Archives: Reviews

Pearl Harbor

Posted on December 7, 2015 by smellincoffee

Pearl Harbor: The Day of of Infamy — an Illustrated History© 2001 Dan van der Vat,  illustrations by Tom Freeman176 pages Seventy-four years ago,  the Pacific Ocean became awash in the blood of war. Six carriers, operating for days under … Continue reading →

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Yamamoto

Posted on December 3, 2015 by smellincoffee

Yamamoto: The Man Who Planned Pearl Harbor© 1990 Edwin Hoyt271 pages Isoroku Yamamoto was the indispensable man of the Japanese navy,  the author of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and an object of such interest to the United States … Continue reading →

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December 6

Posted on December 3, 2015 by smellincoffee

December 6© 2002 Martin Cruz Smith400 pages Between his girlfriend and a samurai intent on revenge, Harry Niles isn’t sure who will try to kill him first.  Raised in Japan to American parents, Harry is a misfit who trouble would … Continue reading →

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This week: yep, still at war

Posted on November 28, 2015 by smellincoffee

I don’t know how most people spend Thanksgiving, but after a day with family eating sweet potatoes and admiring chickens and a late-fall collard garden, I’ve been reading nonstop about World War 2.  I’m moving closer to the end of … Continue reading →

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The Devils’ Alliance

Posted on November 28, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Devils’ Alliance: Hitler’s Pact with Stalin, 1939 – 1941© 2014 Roger Moorhouse432 pages On August 23rd, 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union shocked the world by entering into a nonaggression pact.  They were not merely neighbors and rival … Continue reading →

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The Rape of Nanking

Posted on November 27, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Rape of Nanking© 1997 Iris Chang290 pages Long before bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese were at war in China.  ‘War’ is not quite the word to describe  the aftermath of their invasion of Nanking, however.  There the … Continue reading →

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Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol

Posted on November 23, 2015 by smellincoffee

Another week gone, another entry from the 2015 reading challenge: earlier I received “Jacob Marley’s Christmas Carol” and couldn’t help reading it waaaay too early. It didn’t take long, being a fifty-page play that’s essentially a retelling of “A Christmas … Continue reading →

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The Horse in the City

Posted on November 21, 2015 by smellincoffee

The Horse in the City© 2007 Clay McShane, Joel A. Tarr242 pages To the American imagination, horses are the stuff of country dreams, of farms and cowboys. This is a recent conceit, however, as for most of American history humans … Continue reading →

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Blitzkrieg

Posted on November 21, 2015 by smellincoffee

Blitzkrieg© 1979 Robert Warnick200 pages As much as I’d hoped to read Len Deighton’s Blitzkrieg, it’s weeks overdue at the library and I’m ready to close out the first stage of this WW2 reading set.  This volume of the Time-Life … Continue reading →

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