Tag Archives: Britain

Cancelled: The Shape of Things to Come

Posted on August 12, 2025 by smellincoffee

Sienna Clay has a secret: she’s an Auditor.  Her job is to investigate her fellow Britons who are accused of thoughtcrime, or whose ancestors may have committed horrors like eating meat.  New Britanna’s  status as an island of tolerance set … Continue reading →

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Short rounds: people and their places

Posted on April 29, 2025 by smellincoffee

In One No, Many Yeses, journalist and green activist Paul Kingsnorth detailed his journeys across the world, spending time with people who were actively resisting globalization — or rather, the disruptions that globalization caused in their local communities. Real England: … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics and Civic Interest, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Vigilante Rewilding

Posted on April 4, 2025 by smellincoffee

While scouting for science books that could also fit into Read of England a few weeks back, I saw Brining Back the Beaver and was instantly on board. I like beavers, though I’m not entirely sure why: perhaps it was … Continue reading →

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Beauteous Truth

Posted on November 5, 2024 by smellincoffee

I encountered Joseph Pearce over a decade ago via a podcast on literature: he is a man whose life was transformed through literature and the grace he experienced through it. His passion seeking the ‘good, the true, and the beautiful’ … Continue reading →

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Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist

Posted on October 28, 2024 by smellincoffee

Two years ago I read a Wendell Berry collection of essays edited not by Brother Berry himself, but by someone named Paul Kingsnorth. Being the nosy sort that I am, I inquired of Google who Kingsnorth might be, I knew … Continue reading →

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Our hearts are in the trim!!

Posted on October 25, 2024 by smellincoffee

Today is the feast of St. Crispian, which means it’s time to share some Kenneth Branagh w’ ye all.

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Precipice

Posted on October 8, 2024 by smellincoffee

Summer 1914: there’s a man dead in Sarajevo, and ominous rumors of war are drifting from eastern Europe. Across the Continent, war machines are slowly cranking up. At 10 Downing Street, though, the long-serving Prime Minister has more pressing issues: … Continue reading →

Posted in historical fiction, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

And God Came In

Posted on September 25, 2024 by smellincoffee

A friend lent this to me, knowing of my love of all things C.S. Lewis. It’s a biography of Joy Davidman, a Jewish-American convert to Christianity who befriended Lewis over letters, then later moved to England and became his great … Continue reading →

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Miss Benson’s Beetle

Posted on August 26, 2024 by smellincoffee

Margery Benson has had it. A heartbreak ruined her great passion in life, studying beetles, and for the last decade she’s wasted away teaching a subject she’s not interested in to children who are even less interested in it. After … Continue reading →

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Historic Pensacola

Posted on August 19, 2024 by smellincoffee

I don’t know that I’d ever given much thought to Pensacola before immersing myself in Florida’s colonial history prepping for my St. Augustine weekend a few years back, but reading those made me aware of how chaotic and interesting Florida’s … Continue reading →

Posted in history, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment