Category Archives: Reviews

Book reviews, as well as Reads to Reels

The Calculating Stars

Posted on September 5, 2024 by smellincoffee

The night is young and you’re so beautiful, can’t we get into the swing of – what was THAT?! The Calculating Stars opens with a rocket scientist and a math genius/former WASP pilot having a romantic night in the mountains, … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science fiction | Tagged , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Disaster!

Posted on September 3, 2024 by smellincoffee

I stumbled upon this title nearly twenty years ago while touring my community college’s library and checking out what it had to offer. I found a couple of titles (Disaster! and Good Life in Hard Times: San Francisco’s Twenties and … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

First into Nagasaki

Posted on August 28, 2024 by smellincoffee

George Weller, a reporter for the Chicago Daily News, arrived in Japan only to be told that its southern islands were off-limits to reporters, dashing his hopes of being able to see what this new super-bomb had done to Nagasaki. … Continue reading →

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Miss Benson’s Beetle

Posted on August 26, 2024 by smellincoffee

Margery Benson has had it. A heartbreak ruined her great passion in life, studying beetles, and for the last decade she’s wasted away teaching a subject she’s not interested in to children who are even less interested in it. After … Continue reading →

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Time to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Posted on August 24, 2024 by smellincoffee

Nearly eighty years ago, a single B-29 bomber flew over the Japanese city of Hiroshima and dropped a single bomb, baptizing humanity into a dark new era once the blinding white glow had ended. In the fifties and sixties, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and Civic Interest, World Affairs | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Sunlight at Midnight: St Petersburg and the Rise of Modern Russia

Posted on August 22, 2024 by smellincoffee

I must confess to not knowing much at all about Russian cities: say Moscow, and I think of the Kremlin and the subway art; say St. Petersburg, and I have some hazy idea that it was built in the model … Continue reading →

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California Diaries finale: bittersweet goodbye

Posted on August 20, 2024 by smellincoffee

Round One | Round Two And….here we are, at the end of one of my absolute favorite series. The third round is a bit like Return of the Jedi, in that we have really strong books plus some stuff that, … Continue reading →

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Historic Pensacola

Posted on August 19, 2024 by smellincoffee

I don’t know that I’d ever given much thought to Pensacola before immersing myself in Florida’s colonial history prepping for my St. Augustine weekend a few years back, but reading those made me aware of how chaotic and interesting Florida’s … Continue reading →

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California Diaries, round two: double the drama, double the ….fun?

Posted on August 15, 2024 by smellincoffee

California Diaries consists of diaries from five characters in three rounds: round one’s review is here. We open round two with Sunny, who is…still not doing well. Her last diary ended with her trying to run away from home with … Continue reading →

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Fun times at Wayside school

Posted on August 15, 2024 by smellincoffee

Wayside School Wayside School was, I believe, my introduction to absurdist writing, and Sachar was a master at it in the realm of kiddie-fic. Imagine a school built sideways: instead of being 30 classrooms in a single-story campus, it’s a … Continue reading →

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