Category Archives: Reviews

Book reviews, as well as Reads to Reels

Elizabeth’s London

Posted on April 3, 2024 by smellincoffee

Let us travel to a city which, in great part, no longer exists: Tudor London, much of which has been erased by time, fire, and ‘progress’, which holds burying swimming pools under concrete as a capital idea. I first read … Continue reading →

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Life Below Stairs

Posted on April 1, 2024 by smellincoffee

If, like me, you became interested in the goings-on of English servants via Downton Abbey, Alison Maloney opens with a word of caution. Many servants didn’t work in small armies at places like Highclere Castle. Instead, they were thoroughly leavened … Continue reading →

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Summer of ’49

Posted on March 29, 2024 by smellincoffee

In the summer of 1949, young David Halberstam was fifteen years old, facing a father in declining health and thankful for the distraction that was baseball. The Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees would provide it in spades, … Continue reading →

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Hunting a Detroit Tiger

Posted on March 28, 2024 by smellincoffee

Utility infielder Mickey Rawlings is in a fix. A man trying to organize baseball players into a union has been shot dead, and everyone is saying Mickey did it. In self defense, sure, so the police don’t care: indeed, the … Continue reading →

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Tales from the Diamond

Posted on March 27, 2024 by smellincoffee

The Greatest Baseball Stories Ever Told is a mixed collection of fiction, nonfiction, and in-between pieces inspired by America’s game. The subtitle, “Tales from the Diamond”, makes it sound as though these are stories about amazing plays, games, etc, which … Continue reading →

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Literature: What Every Catholic Should Know

Posted on March 26, 2024 by smellincoffee

Years ago I stumbled upon a podcast called “Great Works in Western Literature” by a man named Joseph Pearce, and immediately a became fan of it. Pearce’s love of literature was infectious, especially seeing I was just beginning to read … Continue reading →

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Ballpark

Posted on March 26, 2024 by smellincoffee

Regardless of one’s personal beliefs about the origins of baseball, there’s no getting around the fact that the game as we know it is a product of the cities, particularly New York: the cities were where the people were, and … Continue reading →

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A Right to Read: Segregation and Civil Rights

Posted on March 25, 2024 by smellincoffee

Alabama public libraries were early stages for Civil Rights projects, given their high public profile and higher deals: libraries were created for the common good, for the benefit of society, meant to serve everyone. How could they bar someone from … Continue reading →

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Plum, in his own Words

Posted on March 22, 2024 by smellincoffee

I’d intended to save this for Read of England, but — rum thing, when you begin reading Wodehouse it’s as hard to resist finishing him as it is to rescue Bertie Wooster’s Aunt Agatha when she topples down the stairs. … Continue reading →

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Anxious People

Posted on March 19, 2024 by smellincoffee

The scene: an apartment showing, the day before New Year’s. The apartment is filled with people, and then enters one more: a masked individual wielding a gun, panicked. They’ve just tried to rob a bank, only the bank is a … Continue reading →

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