Category Archives: Reviews

Book reviews, as well as Reads to Reels

Shtetl Days

Posted on January 29, 2024 by smellincoffee

“We will do, and we will hear”. Such was the people’s reply when Moses descended from Mt. Sinai and presented the Ten Commandments to the Hebrews. There’s an inversion in that statement, alien to our modern age: imagine doing a thing before understanding … Continue reading →

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Texas at the Coronation

Posted on January 28, 2024 by smellincoffee

The year is 1937, and on the eve of His Majesty King George VI’s coronation, a naval review is to be held in the United Kingdom — and the president of The Republic of Texas shall be in attendance, the first … Continue reading →

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Short rounds: human scale and bad religion

Posted on January 27, 2024 by smellincoffee

This week I’ve been finishing two works of nonfiction: Kirkpatrick Sale’s Human Scale Revisited and Ross Douhat’s Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics.  Human Scale Revisited is, as its title implies, an update to Sale’s original Human … Continue reading →

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The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

Posted on January 20, 2024 by smellincoffee

A.J. Fikry is a widower with a bookstore and an increasingly serious drinking problem. (He’s not an alcoholic, he says, he just drinks to the point of passing out at least once a week.) The one bright spot: he has Tamerlane, … Continue reading →

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The Door to Door Bookstore

Posted on January 19, 2024 by smellincoffee

In the city of Munster, after the bookshop closes for the night, an aging fellow named Carl begins his rounds. Walking the city’s cobblestone paths, he visits a village within the metropolis that only he is aware of: a little community … Continue reading →

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Before the Coffee Gets Cold

Posted on January 18, 2024 by smellincoffee

There is a little underground cafe in Tokyo where, if you sit at a certain chair under the right conditions, you can find yourself in that chair in that cafe at some other time, where you can meet someone who … Continue reading →

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What You Are Looking for is in the Library

Posted on January 17, 2024 by smellincoffee

I realize it’s a bit early in the year for this, but What You are Looking For is in the Library will most likely be my favorite novel of the year. Of course, it’s not quite a novel, more of … Continue reading →

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Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

Posted on January 15, 2024 by smellincoffee

Takako’s boyfriend has just unceremoniously dumped her after announcing he’s engaged to his other girlfriend, the real one — the one she’d never heard about, but one whose existence now seems obvious in retrospect. Why was it they never had … Continue reading →

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Distracted by Alabama

Posted on January 10, 2024 by smellincoffee

Jim Brown moved to Alabama in the 1970s to teach history at Samford University, and became fascinated by Alabama, both by its wild biodiversity and its people and their folk traditions, from shape-note singing to basket-weaving and herbalism. Distracted by Alabama … Continue reading →

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The Exchange

Posted on January 9, 2024 by smellincoffee

Over twenty years ago I saw a fat paperback with an interesting cover depicting a businessman caught in strings above his head. That book, The Firm, was an absorbing thriller about a young lawyer who begins working at a boutique tax … Continue reading →

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