Tag Archives: women

Confederate Women

Posted on December 11, 2025 by smellincoffee

Continuing in my march through Bell Irwin Wiley’s social histories of the Civil War,   I bought Confederate Women immediately after reading Billy Yank.    Confederate Women looks at the diaries and letters of three socially prominent southern belles and … Continue reading →

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The Plain People of the Confederacy

Posted on November 28, 2025 by smellincoffee

The Plain People of the Confederacy takes a look at three often overlooked demographics of the South: poor whites, whom everyone forgets exist; women; and blacks. As it happens, Wiley has written volumes on each of these categories (poor whites … Continue reading →

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Bittersweet

Posted on July 30, 2025 by smellincoffee

Recently I was looking for the author Nevada Barr, who has a series about a female park ranger who works across the United States. The library didn’t have the early ones in stock, so I grabbed this one without really … Continue reading →

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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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The Calculating Stars

Posted on September 5, 2024 by smellincoffee

The night is young and you’re so beautiful, can’t we get into the swing of – what was THAT?! The Calculating Stars opens with a rocket scientist and a math genius/former WASP pilot having a romantic night in the mountains, … 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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While We Were Watching Downton Abbey

Posted on July 19, 2024 by smellincoffee

While prowling the shelves in search of more Ruth Ware, I spotted the phrase Downton Abbey on a book spine and pounced immediately. In the modern age which is flooded with new shows by the day, Downton is one of … Continue reading →

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Saving Cinderella

Posted on July 12, 2024 by smellincoffee

Disney’s adaptations of classic fairy tale and folk stories like Cinderella have charmed girls across generations, but as the decades pass they’ve been subject to increasing criticism that the early princesses were passive sillyhearts lying around waiting to be rescued. … Continue reading →

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Recoding History

Posted on June 29, 2024 by smellincoffee

A few years ago I read Broad Band, a history of women in early computing, which blew my mind. I’d taken for granted that computers and the early internet were wholly the domain of socially awkward dudes with glasses wearing … Continue reading →

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Miss Morgan’s Book Brigade

Posted on June 26, 2024 by smellincoffee

France, 1918: the Great War is almost over, but it doesn’t feel like it for civilians close to the lines, where the threat of a German resurgence hangs as close to the battered ground as the dust from the constant … Continue reading →

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