Category Archives: Reviews

Book reviews, as well as Reads to Reels

The Brass Verdict

Posted on March 6, 2025 by smellincoffee

Attorney Mickey Haller hasn’t been practicing law the last year or so, having been recuperating from being shot and a subsequent addiction to pain meds that could have destroyed his life. On the verge of getting back in the game, … Continue reading →

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Camino Ghosts

Posted on March 2, 2025 by smellincoffee

In The Guardians, readers were teased with a voodoo-cursed cabin that..ended up never being visiting again, causing me to wonder why on Earth it had been included to begin with. Camino Ghosts revisits not that cabin, but the general premise … Continue reading →

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

The Half-Blood Heir

Posted on February 28, 2025 by smellincoffee

Nathaniel Perry survived the Battle of Waterloo, despite the odds: two thirds of his unit have answered the last post and call, but he got through with just a bullet through the calf. Newly promoted to Major, he’s contemplating his … Continue reading →

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Short rounds: politics!

Posted on February 26, 2025 by smellincoffee

As mentioned yesterday I’m feeling burnt out between all the serious stuff I’ve been binging, global affairs, and ongoing drama with my computer (it was finally repaired and sent back from the manufacturer, but arrived in such a state that … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Politics and Civic Interest, Reviews, World Affairs | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Mature Flâneur

Posted on February 21, 2025 by smellincoffee

While rooting around for books for The Grand Tour, I spotted ‘flâneur’ and immediately went for the bait. I know this word from back in 2012 when I was an ardent Francophile and was reading books like French Women Don’t … Continue reading →

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Lisbon: War in the Shadows of the City of Light

Posted on February 20, 2025 by smellincoffee

Lisbon is a history of how Portugal’s president-dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar carefully navigated between his own Scylla and Charybdis, attempting to keep Portugal out of the Second World War despite its longstanding alliance with England, and the fact that … Continue reading →

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Red Dead’s History

Posted on February 19, 2025 by smellincoffee

As a student of history who also plays a lot of video games which touch on history, I wonder sometimes what skewed version  of history unread players take from it.  Tore Olsson takes that same question and applies it to … Continue reading →

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Savage Gods

Posted on February 18, 2025 by smellincoffee

Savage Gods is a challenging book to review because of its nature: it is a meditation, or perhaps a rumination, by the author on his continuing search for meaning and the role of writing and the word in that search. … Continue reading →

Posted in Religion and Philosophy, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Sidetracks

Posted on February 15, 2025 by smellincoffee

Gary Oberg grew up in Minnesota hunting and fishing, and has continued to do so for seventy years — mostly for fun, but sometimes for business as he was also a mechanical engineer who designed reels and other sporting equipment. … Continue reading →

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Ends of the Earth

Posted on February 13, 2025 by smellincoffee

When Neil Shubin was a young biologist, he got his start looking for fossils in the poles, where now frozen wastelands were once jungles teeming with life. Doing science at the poles is uniquely challenging and physically demanding, sometimes to … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments