Tag Archives: 1930s

Breaking the Chains of Gravity

Posted on July 18, 2023 by smellincoffee

Breaking the Chains of Gravity: The Story of Spaceflight before NASA© 2016 Amy Shira Teitel304 pages You know the story. The scene: 1950s America. Everyone is drinking on the back patio in suburbia, dressed in cardigans or pearls and pastel … Continue reading →

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Go Tell it on the Mountain

Posted on February 13, 2023 by smellincoffee

Go Tell it on the Mountain© 1953 James Baldwin272 pages A young man faces an enormous choice at a presumed-to-be-uneventful prayer meeting, and at this crossroads of his life,  the reader  experiences the choices of his kin whose lives brought … Continue reading →

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Life and Death in the Third Reich

Posted on October 20, 2022 by smellincoffee

Life and Death in the Third Reich© 2009 Peter Fritzsche384 pages A few years ago I read Peter Fritzsche’s An Iron Wind: Europe Under Hitler, which examined how the Nazi conquest of most of Europe permeated into its culture in … Continue reading →

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Fighting for Space

Posted on August 11, 2022 by smellincoffee

Fighting for Space: Two Pilots and their Historic Battle for Female Spaceflight© 2020 Amy Shira Teitel448 pages When the age of flight arrived,   women were as eager to take to the skies as men.  Fighting for Space is a … Continue reading →

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The Betrayal of the American Right

Posted on January 27, 2022 by smellincoffee

The Betrayal of the American Right© 2007 Murry Rothbard231 pages When I began exploring politics and forging my own ideas, I steered leftward out of hatred for the war on terror and Bush’s burgeoning police state. I soon discovered, however, … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and Civic Interest, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Razor’s Edge

Posted on November 22, 2021 by smellincoffee

The Razor’s Edge© 1944 W. Somerset Maugham314 pages Larry Darrell was an unremarkable young man with a pre-determined future: possessing independent wealth from his family background, he needed only marry his childhood friend and fiancé Isabel, take his place in … Continue reading →

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Germans: terror and tedium

Posted on November 9, 2021 by smellincoffee

In the past week I’ve read or mostly-read, in the case of The Vampire Economy, two books with a German connection. The first, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, was by far the most interesting of the two. I read this … Continue reading →

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

Mephisto

Posted on October 2, 2021 by smellincoffee

Mephisto© 1936 Klaus Mann272 pages I was fortunate, in my time at the University, to have a class with my favorite professor every semester that I was there; he had an enormous command of late 19th century and early 20th … Continue reading →

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The Moon is Down | The Pearl | The Red Pony

Posted on September 2, 2021 by smellincoffee

Yesterday I made the mistake of having a sinus headache, and in our Brave New World of Perpetual Hypochondria, I was ordered to the doctor’s office to have my nose jabbed in search of the dreaded Beer Bug. To no … Continue reading →

Posted in Classics and Literary, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 8 Comments

Davita’s Harp

Posted on March 21, 2021 by smellincoffee

Davita’s Harp© 1985 Chaim Potok384 pages Are you a Jew?  Ilana Davita Chandel  gets that question a lot. It’s lobbed at her from Irish and Italian street toughs, and from inquisitive neighbors who see  her swimming on the Sabbath.  Is … Continue reading →

Posted in Classics and Literary, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments