Category Archives: Reviews

The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer

Posted on October 3, 2014 by smellincoffee

The Sheer Ecstasy of Being a Lunatic Farmer© 2010 Joel Salatin300 pages Joel Salatin is crazy and glad to be so;  in print and in media like Food, Inc and Fresh, he gleefully rejects what the late 20th century produced as conventional … Continue reading →

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The Age of Voltaire

Posted on September 30, 2014 by smellincoffee

The Age of Voltaire: A History of Civilization in Western Europe from 1715 to 1756898 pages© 1965 Will and Ariel Durant             The ninth work in Will Durant’s sweeping Story of Civilization, The Age of Voltaire picks up … Continue reading →

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The Crucified Rabbi

Posted on September 27, 2014 by smellincoffee

The Crucified Rabbi: Judaism and the Origins of Catholic Christianity© 2009 Taylor Marshall236 pages Take for granted Christianity’s inseparable connection to Judaism, but what does it mean, beyond knowing that Jesus was Jewish and died during Passover?  The Crucified Rabbi … Continue reading →

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One Second After

Posted on September 26, 2014 by smellincoffee

One Second After  © 2011 William R. Forstchen 528 pages When the power blinked, Colonel John Matherson wasn’t alarmed. These things happen. But they don’t happen at the same exact time as failing phones, stalling cars, and falling planes.  As … Continue reading →

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An Honourable Defeat

Posted on September 23, 2014 by smellincoffee

An Honorable Defeat: A Hiastory of German Resistance to Hitler© 1994 Anton Gill293 pages          No civilized nation on Earth is as haunted as its history as Germany. For twelve years, one of the worst governments conceivable … Continue reading →

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Collision of Empires

Posted on September 20, 2014 by smellincoffee

Collision of Empires488 pages© 2014 Prit Buttar                   A quirk of the Great War is that its initial contestants usually cease to be subjects of interest to the historical imagination once Europe’s titans … Continue reading →

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Tobacco

Posted on September 13, 2014 by smellincoffee

Tobacco: A Cultural History of How an Exotic Plant Seduced Civilization416 pages© 2003 Iain Gateley The age of discovery opened an era of global domination by European culture and power, but in at least one instance, the new world had its … Continue reading →

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Living Downtown

Posted on September 11, 2014 by smellincoffee

Living Downtown: The History of Residential Hotels in the United States © 1994 Paul Groth 399 pages Although today hotels are thought of as places for travelers, at its most basic level a hotel is simply a rented room; an … Continue reading →

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This week: hot rocks, war in the east, and Holly Golightly

Posted on September 8, 2014 by smellincoffee

This week the to-be-read list shrank, as I finished Richard Fortey’s Earth — an introduction to the processes that shape the Earth, while at the same time a travelogue to the planet’s most beautiful hotspots.  Fortey is both tourist and … Continue reading →

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Progress of the War (Reading)

Posted on September 2, 2014 by smellincoffee

The ninth month of the year means ‘tis time to review how my Great War reading is shaping up. The summer has seen not only a terrific book on the Italian-Austrian front (The White War), but at least two books on … Continue reading →

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