Category Archives: Reviews

Book reviews, as well as Reads to Reels

Taft 2012

Posted on October 3, 2013 by smellincoffee

Taft 2012© 2012 Jason Heller246 pages In another world, William Howard Taft vanished from history after his presidential term. Rather than going on to become a Supreme Court Justice, he simply — disappeared. He became the world’s most famous missing … Continue reading →

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Crabgrass Frontier

Posted on October 3, 2013 by smellincoffee

Crabgrass Frontier:  The Suburbanization of the United States© 1985 Kenneth Jackson432 pages For thousands of years, people lived in either the country or the city, but with the coming of the industrial revolution that changed, and especially in America.   … Continue reading →

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Uncommon Carriers

Posted on October 2, 2013 by smellincoffee

Uncommon Carriers© 2006 John McPhee256 pages Uncommon Carriers invites readers to spend a day in the life of a truck drivers, ocean-going cargo ship and riverbound freight tugboat pilots, train engineers, UPS aviators, and — just for good measure — … Continue reading →

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This week at the library: bikes, Greeks, stuff, and eeeeeevil

Posted on September 30, 2013 by smellincoffee

Dear readers: September’s winding-down for me has been busy for me, and especially today. All three meals were taken with friends while out and about; it was a day filled with a country drive and a long walk through beautiful … Continue reading →

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Field Grey

Posted on September 29, 2013 by smellincoffee

Field Grey© 2011 Phillip Kerr384 pages Bernie Gunther survived Hitler’s Germany and a Soviet prison camp, so when he’s forcefully detained by the American  Navy on the open seas and interrogated, he’s not too much impressed by their attempt at … Continue reading →

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Home Economics

Posted on September 28, 2013 by smellincoffee

Home Economics© 1987 Wendell Berry192 pages The term economics originally referred to household management, and to Wendell Berry, that’s what it should remain still. Home Economics collects essays on the meaning and relation of economy to human life. In it, … Continue reading →

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The Working Poor

Posted on September 28, 2013 by smellincoffee

The Working Poor: Invisible in America© 2004 David Shipler352 pages “Like my daddy used to say — ‘Son, life’s hell to pay for when you’re poor — cause  always just outside the door’s another Hard Time.’”    (Jerry Reed) The … Continue reading →

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Free to Choose, Born to Buy (and Left to Die)

Posted on September 24, 2013 by smellincoffee

In the past two weeks I’ve been reading a series of books which connected together despite being on disparate subjects. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose, published in the 1970s, argues for a completely free market — that is, one with … Continue reading →

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The Sky is Not the Limit

Posted on September 21, 2013 by smellincoffee

The Sky is not the Limit: Adventures of an Urban Astrophysicist © 2004 Neil deGrasse Tyson203 pages           How does a young black kid from the Bronx become a world-famous astrophysicist, Director of the Hayden Planetarium and the … Continue reading →

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The Disappearance of Childhood

Posted on September 20, 2013 by smellincoffee

The Disappearance of Childhood©1982 Neil Postman177 pages Television is killing your children — conceptually. In 1985, Neil Postman penned Amusing Ourselves to Death, in which he, building off of the lesson in Technopoly that technology changes our culture without our knowledge, … Continue reading →

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