Category Archives: Reviews

Book reviews, as well as Reads to Reels

ST TNG: The Forgotten War

Posted on August 18, 2026 by smellincoffee

Centuries ago, in the days of legends like Captain Pike and Captain Murat, the Federation fought an undeclared war against an aggressive reptilian warrior-race called the Tarn. The war ended in an armistice that established a small no-fly zone between … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

ST DS9: Vengeance

Posted on August 17, 2026 by smellincoffee

Recommended mood music: “Klingon Imperial Theme“, Jerry Goldsmith When I did a full DVD watch-through of DS9 back in the mid-late 2000s, I was confused. Where was  the episode where the Klingons took over the station, and Bashir and O’Brien … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Mailman: Neither Sleet nor Snow nor Bootlegging Mountain Folk…

Posted on August 11, 2026 by smellincoffee

March 2020 was a bad time for most people, but for Steve Grant it was worse. He’d just been laid off from his lucrative marketing job. A man who once lectured at the nearby university and dominated corporate boardrooms was … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

After Christendom

Posted on August 8, 2026 by smellincoffee

I no longer remember when I first encountered Michael Warren Davis, but his critique of modernity and his countercultural vision of Christianity appealed to me in much the same way that The Plain Reader and Rod Dreher’s Crunchy Conservatives did … Continue reading →

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

Republic or Empire? The True Flag

Posted on August 7, 2026 by smellincoffee

I’ve been wanting to read this title for years now after having found Stephen Kinzer’s various books on DC’s overseas adventures, while at the same time stumbling upon Mark Twain’s anti-war writings collected in Weapons of Satire. Coming of age … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Politics and Civic Interest, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Stephen Fry’s Troy

Posted on August 6, 2026 by smellincoffee

While I enjoyed Stephen Fry’s Mythos tolerably well a few years ago, it didn’t fire up my engines so much that I went after the next ones immediately; recently a Greek wind has hit my imagination, though, and after listening … Continue reading →

Posted in Classics and Literary, General | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Age of Eisenhower

Posted on August 4, 2026 by smellincoffee

Apologies if you are on the list and received a blank email earlier: WordPress ate my words. Fortunately I always draft off-platform. Many presidents have a defining moment – a call to arms in a speech, a decisive action,  a … Continue reading →

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

Stephen Fry’s Odyssey

Posted on August 1, 2026 by smellincoffee

A couple of years ago I read Stephen Fry’s Mythos, his attempt to bring together some of the primordial Greek mythological characters into one narrative; he followed it with Heroes, Troy, and finally Odyssey. The recent release of an Odyssey … Continue reading →

Posted in Classics and Literary, General, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | 5 Comments

The Lincoln Obsession

Posted on July 22, 2026 by smellincoffee

James L. Swanson is something of a Lincoln obsessive. How obsessive? Well, he’s considered an authority for evaluating Lincoln-related artifacts and relics, and he has quite a collection himself — including a lock of Lincoln’s hair. (He can also name-drop … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Thirty-First of March

Posted on July 21, 2026 by smellincoffee

I begin the first of presumably several books on LBJ by peering into his office as he made the decision to not run for office again in 1968. The door is opened by Horace Busby, a newspaperman-turned-speechwriter and confidant for … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Politics and Civic Interest, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment