A Let the Scheduling Commence Weekly Link Round-Up

 

 

Another quiet week has passed here at Casa Kittling with neither of us getting out to do anything other than keep appointments with various doctors. Speaking of doctors, the venous ablation was finally approved by my insurance company, and it has been scheduled as an out patient procedure next month, with all the accompanying follow-ups.

Temperatures are back up in the 90s, but after months of 100+, this still feels cool. I've been having fun watching a young Gila woodpecker learning to drink from the birdbath without hanging from the edge whenever a yellow-rumped warbler isn't splashing around, that is.

We might even start planning visits to our favorite outdoor places soon, so on that note, I'll leave you with another offering from my virtual closet.

Enjoy the weekend-- and the links!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• A new Richard Osman The Thursday Murder Club book has been announced.
• Kids aren't reading books anymore. That explains a lot about our university campuses. (Perhaps you should stop making it harder for those kids to get books to read?)
• The magic of making books.
• How The New York Post comes up with those in-your-face headlines.
• Scientists have unlocked the secret of Girl With a Pearl Earring.
• Sausage slices and love notes: the improvised bookmarks librarians find.
• America's biggest publisher just hired a lobbyist to fight book banning.
• Kate Summerscale on our obsession with true crime.
• Amazon reveals its first color Kindle eReader after years of development.
  

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• The incendiary power of literature in an era of censorship.
• A Florida native surveys the state's war on books.
• The Spring Branch (Texas) Independent School District has confirmed the imminent elimination of all school librarian positions.
• A Texas county has sidelined librarians and reclassified a book on the abuse of Native Americans as "fiction".
• "Nobody should tell us what to be reading." These Miami groups work to end book bans.
• South Carolina's book ban regulation is in effect. School librarians are caught in the crossfire.
• Banning books isn't just morally wrong. It's also unhealthy.
• Texas has been condemned for placing a book on colonization in the library's fiction section. (Good. The inmates need to be put back on their meds.)

 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• A 3,200-year-old Egyptian barracks contains a sword inscribed with "Ramesses II". 
• An 11-year-old boy rescued a mysterious artwork from the dump. It turned out to be a 500-year-old Renaissance print.
• Archaeologists say they've solved the mystery of a lead coffin discovered beneath Notre-Dame.
• Low water levels reveal sunken Nazi ships full of unexploded munitions in the Danube River.
• Cocaine found in mummified brains reveal that the New World drug came to Italy 200 years earlier than thought.
• See an ancient Egyptian temple's brilliant colors, newly revealed beneath layers of dust and soot.
• This lost Mozart composition hasn't been heard for centuries. Now, you can listen to it.
• Twenty amazingly valuable thrift store finds.

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• The sinking of the USS Indianapolis triggered the worst shark attack in history. 
• See ten striking images from the Bird Photographer of the Year Awards.
• Why the world's first pet cemetery was revolutionary.
• Watch octopuses team up with fish to hunt-- and punch those that don't contribute.
• "Rarer creatures": Elegant trogons and hummingbirds are altering flight paths as the drought persists here in Arizona.
• The night parrot, a rare and elusive Australian bird once thought to be extinct for 100 years, has been discovered by Indigenous rangers and scientists.
• See ten strange and mesmerizing creatures from the deep ocean, from sea toads to frilled sharks.
• Meet Pesto, the biggest baby penguin this Australian aquarium has ever seen.

►The Wanderer◄

• The Paternoster Lifts of Prague, hop-on "elevators of death" without doors that run continuously.
• This interactive map shows which Indigenous lands you live on.
• Crime & the City treks high into the Himalayas.
• Mysterious craters discovered on the bottom of Lake Michigan could hold lessons about early life on Earth.
• This park recreates Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night with a dazzling display of plants, trees, and winding pathways.
• You can now order a $200 South African safari through Uber.
• The top ten state parks in the U.S.
• The 20 most haunted highways on Earth.

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Diné (Navajo) leader Allie Young is using horses to bring "the greatest Native turnout ever" to the polls.
• Anthony Bourdain on the life and legacy of a truly infamous cook: Typhoid Mary.
• How Captain George Vancouver mapped and shaped the modern Pacific Northwest.
• Desi Arnaz is getting a much-deserved historical marker in Miami Beach.
• How Indigenous weaver DY Begay's mastery of color infuses her tapestries with a life force.
• Zelda Fitzgerald on F. Scott's writing.
• The unmasking of Madame Helena Blavatsky, 19th century occult imposter.
• Controversial rare-book dealer Glenn Horowitz tries to rewrite his own ending.

►I ♥ Lists◄ 

• 21 books for serious foodies.
• Mysteries set during Covid.
• Six excellent thriller and horror novels set in hotels.
• Elly Griffiths' ten favourite short stories.
• Seven great haunted house novels written by women.
• Eight haunting Appalachian and Southern Gothic novels.
• Curl up with the best cozy mysteries of Fall 2024.
• Be a literary globetrotter with these 14 books.

That's all for this week! Don't forget to stop by next Friday when I'll probably 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!