Category Archives: Reviews

Book reviews, as well as Reads to Reels

Faces Along the Bar

Posted on June 5, 2023 by smellincoffee

Faces along the Bar: Lore and Order in the Workingman’s Saloon, 1870-1920© 1998 Madelon Powers331 pages Men’s thinking on this issue seems to have involved an interesting mixture of solicitude and defiance. On the one hand, decent women should be … Continue reading →

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Sparring Partners

Posted on June 4, 2023 by smellincoffee

John Grisham is the author of scores of novels of varying quality and two collections of short stories, if memory serves. Sparring Partners is a ‘novelty’, in that it collects three novellas, ranging in time from the 1980s to the … Continue reading →

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Vein Pursuits

Posted on June 3, 2023 by smellincoffee

Vein Pursuits© 2023 Rhett C. Bruno & Jaime Castle322 pages | Audible version read by Roger Clark, 11 hours & change Cold as Hell introduced readers to James Crowley, an undead gunman who was killed trying to protect an innocent … Continue reading →

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America’s untouchables and baseball

Posted on June 2, 2023 by smellincoffee

Shortly after the financial implosion of the late 2000s and the beginning of the ‘great recession’, physicist & banker Chris Arnade began long walks around New York City to contemplate the ramifications of his and his ‘industry’s’ reckless speculation and … Continue reading →

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Adventures with the Enemies of Science

Posted on May 30, 2023 by smellincoffee

The Heretics / The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science© 2014 Will Storr368 pages Outside ideas of right-doing and wrong-doing, there is a field. Will Storr will meet you there, because at this point he’s not sure that there’s … Continue reading →

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In the air and across the Cosmos

Posted on May 25, 2023 by smellincoffee

This month’s science reading served up two surprises, both pleasant. When I arrived at university and joined the Astronomy Club, which met once a month to aim a giant telescope at the skies and gasp as we saw Saturn’s rings … Continue reading →

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Humans

Posted on May 23, 2023 by smellincoffee

Published after the success of Humans of New York, here Brandon Stanton expand his range and deepens his connectivity with the people whose lives he shares in a single photo. In Humans of New York, readers were presented with an … Continue reading →

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Tuesday things

Posted on May 23, 2023 by smellincoffee

Welcome to Tuesday! Today’s teaser comes from Air: The Restless Shaper of Our World, and the Top Ten Tuesday topic is “Things That Automatically Make Me Want to Buy a Book“. […]it was Darwin who taught us to think in … Continue reading →

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Humans of New York

Posted on May 19, 2023 by smellincoffee

Humans of New York© 2013 Brandon Stanton304 pages If you ever needed proof that a picture is worth a thousand words, consider one shot near the end of this volume. The scene is a New York city street. A young … Continue reading →

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Log Cabin Pioneers

Posted on May 18, 2023 by smellincoffee

Log Cabin Pioneers: Stories, Songs, and Sayings© 2001 Wayne Erbson184 pages Few things are more evocative of the American frontier than a log cabin. This isn’t a new thing, either: log cabins entered American iconography as early as the 1840s, … Continue reading →

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