A Where'd You Learn to Drive Weekly Link Round-Up

 

Only one "interesting" occurrence this past week at Casa Kittling. I went out to empty the trash one morning to discover that some idiot had hit a gatepost on our fence and wrecked the gate. When I went over for a closer inspection, I noticed a bright yellow piece of paper rolled up and stuck in the leaning gate. 

I pulled it out, straightened it, and read, "Need a Handyman?"

Maybe I've read too many mysteries and have learned to be suspicious of motives, but I had to wonder if someone was trying to drum up business by creating situations where things would need to be repaired. It was just too much of a coincidence (another biggie in the crime fiction world) to have a damaged gate and profferred solution at the same time. Since the post is set in concrete, this is not going to be a simple repair. Happy, happy, joy, joy.

On a brighter note, look at the t-shirt I stumbled across on the internet!

 

 

Now is that perfect for us or what?!? Before anyone asks-- and I know someone will-- I don't know the name of the company that sells this, but I would imagine googling "Death by TBR t-shirt" should do the trick.

Stay healthy, stay cool, and enjoy the links!

 

 

 

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• The Internet Archive was forced to remove 500,000 books after publishers' court win.
• The disturbing story behind Peacock's TikTok Star Murders documentary.
• Why writers are forced to become brands (and why that's bad).
• How Britain's libraries provide much more than books.
• Forget the YA novel that's "The Road" meets "Deliverance": Publishing Twitter is the true dystopia.
• Hollywood's newest money-making scheme is... books.
• Which Emily Henry books are becoming movies Happy Place, Book Lovers, and others.
• New York City libraries will get their budget funding back-- and reopen on Sundays.

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• The real targets of Project 2025's war on porn.
• Why would a private university be leased public library space? Retaliation.
• The Katy Independent School District (Texas) bans five more books and updates its controversial library policy.
• A professor details Florida's state-directed changes in science textbooks. ("Climate change" is verboten.)
• There's nothing "advanced" about the Harford (Maryland) School Board's AP decision. (African-American studies were dropped.)
• It may not have passed in 2024, but sponsors have put a bill to arrest librarians back on file for the 2025 session in Alabama.
• The Franklin County (Virginia) public school board has approved a library book policy survey.
• Right-wing pundits and out-of-state advocates will help create Oklahoma social studies standards.
• The King William (Virginia) board voted to withdraw from the Pamunkey library system.
• A new rule restricts what's allowed on shelves in South Carolina public libraries.
• How libraries across Idaho are implementing the new materials law.

 

 

 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Archaeologists have recovered 900 artifacts from Ming Dynasty shipwrecks in the South China Sea.
• A newly deciphered papyrus describes a "miracle" performed by five-year-old Jesus.
• A scientist is claiming that a long-lost Assyrian military camp devastated by "the angel of the Lord" has finally been found.
• These badges shed new light on the enslaved workers who built Charleston.
• An ancient beach destroyed by the Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD has reopened after restoration.
• The oldest wine ever discovered contains a horrifying secret ingredient.
• The world's oldest deep-sea shipwreck has been discovered a mile beneath the Mediterranean Sea.
• This Rubens masterpiece was significantly altered by another artist.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• A behavioral shift: Sharks in the Gulf of Mexico have learned how to steal food from fishing nets.
• Tasmania is looking to hire a wombat walker and other odd jobs.
• Frog saunas may be the key to saving amphibians from a deadly fungal infection.
• A super smart corgi has learned sign language so well that she reacts to her humans' conversations.
• How the new Ravenmaster at the Tower of London gets the birds ready for the day.
• Charlotte the "pregnant virgin" stingray has died after a diagnosis of reproductive disease.
• Don't call wombats heroes, but their burrows do provide food, water, and shelter for other animals.
• Ants perform life saving operations-- the only animal other than humans known to do so.

 

►The Wanderer◄

• The Miami murder mystery that transfixed America.
• The growing evidence that Americans are less divided than you may think.
• The first tango in Paris made a stir worth remembering.
• From powwows to smartphones, see the past and present of Indigenous plains life in narrative art.
• How Colombia's biggest murder investigation was swayed by a dream.
• What happens when an American family moves to a tiny French village?
• What you need to earn to live comfortably in each U.S. state.
• Relics of the USS Arizona.

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• The forgotten Black explorers who transformed Americans' understanding of the wilderness.
• This woman is killing it: Vicki Delany and the Constable Molly Smith series.
• The Smithsonian has acquired the earliest known photograph of an American First Lady.
• Remembering Mary Katharine Goddard, the only woman whose name appeared on the Declaration of Independence.
• Arthur Barry, the gentleman thief who charmed Jazz Age New York.
• Excluded from national leadership, Black women were the backbone of the Civil Rights Movement.
• Dolly Parton's Imagination Library program is expanding to every area in Kentucky. (The more I learn about this woman, the more I love her.)
• Mary McLeod Bethune was at the vanguard of more than fifty years of Black progress.

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Seven discontinued canned foods that we'll probably never see again.
• These iconic characters are about to enter the public domain.
• Fifteen dark and darkly comic thrillers.
• NPR recommends these ten non-fiction books.
• A guide to Stephen Booth's Cooper and Fry police procedural series.
• The wild western world of the Silver Rush mysteries by Ann Parker.
• Goods to make your reading nook the coziest ever.
• What the New York Times missed: 71 more of the Best Books of the 21st Century.

That's all for this week! Don't forget to stop by next Friday when I'll be sharing a freshly selected batch of links for your surfing pleasure.

No matter how busy you may be, don't forget that quality Me Time curled up with a good book!