Category Archives: Reviews

Book reviews, as well as Reads to Reels

How To Stay Married

Posted on February 28, 2024 by smellincoffee

On an ordinary day, a book called How to Stay Married would have never broached my radar, given the dismal marriage prospects of eccentric librarians, but as it happened one of my favorite authors mentioned Harrison Scott Key last week … Continue reading →

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

Live, from New York — It’s SATURDAY NIGHT!

Posted on February 27, 2024 by smellincoffee

At the end of 2022, a friend of mine discovered that his former roommate had left a boxed set of SNL’s first five seasons — or at least, season two of the same. He was a teenager when SNL first … Continue reading →

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Lovers and Other Strangers

Posted on February 24, 2024 by smellincoffee

Perhaps twenty years ago now, while looking for modded content for The Sims*, a painting to place in game caught my eye. It was of a man and woman at a train station, the man in a somber grey suit … Continue reading →

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The World’s Largest Man

Posted on February 24, 2024 by smellincoffee

When Harrison Scott Key was young, his father opted to uproot the family from Memphis and moved to an old farmstead out in the country – -the reason being, a boy needed to grow up outdoors doing things. Harrison did … Continue reading →

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Neo Cab

Posted on February 23, 2024 by smellincoffee

This is going to be an unusual review, because Neo Cab isn’t a book. It’s a visual novel that people experience as a video game, a novel set in a dystopia that touches on so many topics — corporatocracy, the … Continue reading →

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The Royal Society

Posted on February 22, 2024 by smellincoffee

Over ten years ago I devoured a history of science series by Ray Spangenburg and Diane Kit Moser that played a large part establishing my basic adult understanding of science. While reading it, I was particularly fascinated by the role … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews, science | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

In the Company of Trees

Posted on February 21, 2024 by smellincoffee

In the Company of Trees is a little volume of photos and reflections on trees, a pleasant mixture of science and cultural writing peppered with arboreal quotes — though not, curiously, the classic “I think that I shall never see … Continue reading →

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The Littlest Library

Posted on February 21, 2024 by smellincoffee

Such is my mood for cozy village novels featuring libraries and bookstores that I read this even knowing it was a romance. And I liked it. Granted, it’s set in a cozy rural village in Devon and features a librarian, … Continue reading →

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The Downloaded

Posted on February 20, 2024 by smellincoffee

In the 26th century, two groups of humans are awakening. The first are a group of scientists who think they’re on a spaceship headed toward Proxima Centauri, there to begin Earth’s first colony. The second are criminals who were part … Continue reading →

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

The Hidden Life of Deer

Posted on February 17, 2024 by smellincoffee

There’s a buck mounted in my living room, but it’s not a head: it’s a large photograph of one standing at a stream in the woods, dawn light softly illuminating the morning mist. I find deer, second to horses, utterly … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science | Tagged , | 2 Comments