Tag Archives: Germany

Hitler’s Armada

Posted on April 2, 2023 by smellincoffee

Hitler’s Armada: The Royal Navy & the Defence of Great Britain© Geoff Hewitt246 pages Summer 1940. Britain stands alone, its ally France having lain down her sword and surrendered to the German blitzkrieg, which has already consumed Norway, the Low … Continue reading →

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Invasion! Sie kommen!

Posted on March 21, 2023 by smellincoffee

Invasion! Sie kommen! | Invasion! They’re Coming!© 1960, 1963 Paul Carell288 pages Invasion! is a German account of the D-Day landings and the battles that followed as the Allies worked to unite their separate beachheads and secure a foothold in … 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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Hunting the Eagles

Posted on February 18, 2022 by smellincoffee

Hunting the Eagles© 2016 Ben Kane402 pages Six years ago, Rome was humiliated and a tenth of her army destroyed when a faithless auxiliary lured three legions into a boggy ambush in the Teutoburg forest. Centurion Tullus, one of the … Continue reading →

Posted in historical fiction, Reviews | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

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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Project Hail Mary | #agora

Posted on June 7, 2021 by smellincoffee

Ryland Grace just woke up strapped to a medical bed with two dead roommates. That’s not the least of his problem, though: he’s in space, and he doesn’t know why. Eventually, he’ll figure that out; his memory will return. But … Continue reading →

Posted in Reviews, science fiction | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

1913: A Year of Gossip

Posted on December 21, 2020 by smellincoffee

I reviewed this title on goodreads, I described it as “People magazine for prewar Germany & Austria, with Louis Armstrong and a stray Frenchman thrown in for good measure.” There’s no traditional narrative, more a long series of vignettes that … Continue reading →

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COVID Reviews #6 Cleaning Up with gangsters, Navajo, politicians, and so many Germans

Posted on October 20, 2020 by smellincoffee

Back in September and early October when I was under quarantine, I didn’t have computer access, so I couldn’t take many notes or write reviews when things were fresh on my mind. I tried to post comments intermittently, but some … Continue reading →

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In the Garden of Beasts

Posted on July 30, 2020 by smellincoffee

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin © 2011 Erik Larson 432 pages In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt needed a man for a post no one wanted to fill: US Ambassador to Germany.  … Continue reading →

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