Tag Archives: memoir

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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Hack

Posted on December 14, 2015 by smellincoffee

Hack: How I Stopped Worrying About What to do with my Life and Started Driving a Yellow Cab© 2008 Melissa Plaut256 pages At the age of twenty-nine, Melissa Plaut was let go from her job at an ad agency. She … Continue reading →

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This week: yep, still at war

Posted on November 28, 2015 by smellincoffee

I don’t know how most people spend Thanksgiving, but after a day with family eating sweet potatoes and admiring chickens and a late-fall collard garden, I’ve been reading nonstop about World War 2.  I’m moving closer to the end of … Continue reading →

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I Saw it Happen in Norway

Posted on October 31, 2015 by smellincoffee

I Saw It Happen in Norway© 1940 C.J. Hambro292 pages I Saw it Happen in Norway is a rare account of Hitler’s early expansion,  the story of a nation’s downfall told first-hand from a surviving member of its government and … Continue reading →

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The South since the War

Posted on May 16, 2015 by smellincoffee

The South Since the War: As Shown by Fourteen Weeks of Travel and Observation in Georgia and the Carolinas© 1866 Sidney Andrews400 pages In the autumn of 1865, as the dust and ashes were still settling over the graves of … Continue reading →

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No Hill Too High for a Stepper

Posted on November 17, 2014 by smellincoffee

No Hill Too High for a Stepper: Memories of Montevallo, Alabama© 2014 Mike Mahan384 pages No Hill Too High for a Stepper is a work of reminiscence, a country dentist’s recollections of growing up in a small Alabama town during … Continue reading →

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