Category Archives: Reviews

Book reviews, as well as Reads to Reels

Strong Towns: the Book

Posted on January 22, 2025 by smellincoffee

Years ago I heard an engineer being interviewed on a podcast about urbanism, castigating his fellow planners and engineers for supporting an approach to urbanism that was dishonest and financially ruinous. This engineer, Chuck Marohn, had recently started a blog … Continue reading →

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Trump: The Art of the Comeback

Posted on January 20, 2025 by smellincoffee

This business history / memoir is not something I’d ordinarily read, given that when my reading brushes business it’s usually in connection with something like food, energy, or IT. Howeverrrrrrr, since Trump went out of office and now he’s going … Continue reading →

Posted in General, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 14 Comments

If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home By Now

Posted on January 15, 2025 by smellincoffee

It was just another day at the office when Chris Ingraham wrote a piece about the prettiest and ugliest places to live in the United States and declared Red Lake Falls, Minnesota, as the worst. He received lots of angry … Continue reading →

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Before we Forget Kindness

Posted on January 11, 2025 by smellincoffee

One of the more charming reads from last year was Before the Coffee Gets Cold, a short novel that falls into a mysterious genre called ‘magical realism’, as I’ve since learned. The setting and premise were simple yet inexplicable: in … Continue reading →

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Primate Made

Posted on January 10, 2025 by smellincoffee

Longtime readers to this blog know that the mismatch between human biology and the world we have made for ourselves is a pet topic of mine,  given its implications for human flourishing.  Primate Made focuses on modernity’s effects on the … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science | Tagged , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Sword Brethren

Posted on January 7, 2025 by smellincoffee

Richard Fitz Simmons is a young lad who has just lost everything. After he narrowly defends himself against some highwaymen he arrives home to find that his father has accidentally died in a hunting accident and his uncle is taking … Continue reading →

Posted in historical fiction, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Biking and Brotherhood

Posted on January 4, 2025 by smellincoffee

Although my dad had stopped biking long before I came on the scene, there were enough photos of him and my uncles sitting on their engines to make me a sucker for shows like Sons of Anarchy and books like … Continue reading →

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Strange Weather in Tokyo

Posted on January 3, 2025 by smellincoffee

There’s no resisting that cover! Tsukiko is a young woman on the cusp of middle age, not far from sailing into her forties. One night at her local sake bar, she puts in a order for snacks and hears an … Continue reading →

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My Holiday in North Korea

Posted on January 2, 2025 by smellincoffee

The “hermit kingdom” of North Korea, which is essentially a cult masquerading as a country, is one of the creepiest and most inhumane places on Earth. Wendy Simmons chose to go there, though, and shares her frustrating, confusing, and soul-troubling … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, World Affairs | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Science Survey ’24….finally….

Posted on December 30, 2024 by smellincoffee

As readers may know, every year since 2017 I have challenged myself to read across a spectrum of science topics to maintain a broad, general knowledge. Last year, I finished the survey early, in May, but this year science was … Continue reading →

Posted in science | Tagged , | 8 Comments