Tag Archives: memoir

Wild Swans

Posted on September 28, 2017 by smellincoffee

Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China© 1991 Chang Jung525 pages (My edition uses Chang’s family name first, following the Chinese custom.) Read the records of the 20th century totalitarian states, and the number of lives destroyed numbs the brain. Eleven … Continue reading →

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Eye of the Storm

Posted on September 10, 2017 by smellincoffee

Eye of the Storm: Inside City Hall During Katrina© 2007 Sally Forman260 pages Although Hurricane Katrina was not the biggest disaster to ever hit an American city, it was New Orleans’ greatest crisis — posing a near-existential threat to the … Continue reading →

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Mean Streets

Posted on January 15, 2017 by smellincoffee

Mean Streets: Confessions of a Nightime Taxi Driver© 2002 Peter McSherry256 pages Mean Streets takes readers into the dark side of Canada, or at least the dark side of Toronto. Ever since the 1970s, Peter McSherry has been driving the night … Continue reading →

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Danger Heavy Goods

Posted on December 4, 2016 by smellincoffee

Danger Heavy Goods: Driving the Toughest, Most Dangerous Roads in the WorldAlso known as: Juggernaut: Trucking to Saudi Arabia© 1988 Robert Hutchinson288 pages “Makes Smokey and the Bandit Look Like Smokey and the Boy Scouts” When is a lorry not … Continue reading →

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Deke!

Posted on September 23, 2016 by smellincoffee

Deke! U.S. Manned Space Flight from Mercury to the Shuttle© 1994 Deke Slayton and Michael Cassutt352 pages Don Slayton knew he wanted to fly as a kid, but he never imagined going as high as the moon  His story is … Continue reading →

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The Ordinary Spaceman

Posted on August 12, 2016 by smellincoffee

The Ordinary Spaceman: From Boyhood Dreams to Astronaut© 2015 Clayton Anderson330 pages Clay Anderson knew when he was nine years old that he wanted to grow up to be an astronaut.. He knew it when he witnessed the crew of … Continue reading →

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Playing to the Edge

Posted on August 11, 2016 by smellincoffee

Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror© Michael Hayden 2016464 pages As someone who became a civil libertarian in response to the increasingly sweeping powers of the surveillance state during the Bush administration, I began reading … Continue reading →

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Men from Earth

Posted on July 23, 2016 by smellincoffee

Men from Earth© 1989 Buzz Aldrin and Malcom McConnell314 pages Forty-seven years ago, men from Earth first stepped foot on the moon. There, they left medals commemorating the men of Apollo and Soyuz who perished in this quest for fire … Continue reading →

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Off the Grid

Posted on May 15, 2016 by smellincoffee

Off the Grid:  Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America© 2010 Nick Rosen292 pages When Nick Rosen put up a website to help his fellow Britons find resources and land reduce their carbon … Continue reading →

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Funny in Farsi

Posted on April 24, 2016 by smellincoffee

Funny in Farsi: Growing up Iranian in America© 2003 Firoozeh “Julie” Dumas240 pages Imagine a time when most Americans had never heard of Iran, when a little girl from a village thereof might as well be from Podunk, Eurasia.   … Continue reading →

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