A Pinwheels and Smiles Weekly Link Round-Up

 

It's time to share a little secret with you: I love pinwheels. I've loved pinwheels since I was five years old. When I was five, I had the ring finger on my left hand shut and locked in a car door. (Don't ask me how. You wouldn't believe the things that happened to me when I was a kid.) Due to negligence on the local doctor's part, I had to go to the big city doctor for some rather unpleasant procedures. On one such trip, I was more reluctant than usual, so Mom promised me a present if I was good. I was, and the present I picked was a blue pinwheel. I stuck that thing out of the car window all the way home. It made me smile and forget about that doctor's visit.

I removed the headrest on my scooter and put a pinwheel in one of the holes. I love to hear that thing whirring behind my head when I'm out and about. What surprised me is other people's reactions to it. Talk about compliments and smiles! I guess pinwheels make many of us feel like children again, and those smiles certainly lift my own spirits.

I now seem to be collecting an assortment of them. Here's a photo of ones that I got while my nieces were here.

Do pinwheels make you smile, too? Virtual hugs to you all!

Enjoy the links!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• How to make a book into a bestseller.
• How a university's censorship conference got censured.
• How some crime writers are finding a new path to publishing.
• The more young people use AI, the more they hate it.
• Publishers report sales boosts from Netflix adaptations.
• A school's removal of more than 100 books reflects "the pressure on librarians" to censor stock.
• Centuries-old Christian Nubian murals inspire gorgeous fashion reconstructions.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• See the largest Viking Age hoard ever found in Norway. At nearly 3,000 coins and counting, the cache is a once-in-a-lifetime find.
• This souvenir bowl may have commemorated an ancient Roman soldier's service at Hadrian's Wall. It was discovered on a Spanish farm 1,900 years later.
• This man fled Pompeii as Mount Vesuvius erupted. Archaeologists found him 2,000 years later, holding a bowl to protect his head and a lamp to light his way.
• Dead bodies filled a mass grave when the first plague pandemic struck this early medieval city. New research explores the identity of the victims.
• In a graveyard of shipwrecks between Europe and Africa, archaeologists discovered vessels doomed over thousands of years.
• Tudor Heart: a Renaissance gold necklace featuring a French-English pun on the love between Henry VIII and his first wife, Katherine of Aragon.

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• City birds appear to like men more than women, but experts have no idea why.
• What did dogs mean to the ancient Maya? Scientists are unlocking new clues.
• Some polar bears are adapting to their melting habitat. Will it be enough to save the iconic species?
• The endangered proboscis monkey is easily identifiable by one physical trait: it's supersized schnoz.
• These rotund and "charmingly goofy" birds are delighting New Yorkers and dancing on social media. What is the American woodcock?
• Cinco the jaguar has expanded his territory across southern Arizona.

►The Wanderer◄

• Drone footage of the Solomon Islands' Kavachi volcano erupting underwater.
• Crime and the City: Riyadh and Saudi Arabia.
• This Greek volcano seemed quiet for 100,000 years. Then it erupted again. Should scientists take a second look at "extinct" volcanoes?
• These 15 photographs showcase the beauty of the Great Lakes.
• Experts are carefully restoring a 15th-century masterpiece by Giovani Bellini-- and you can watch them work.
• See the heart of Alaska on this 135-mile road trip along the Denali Highway.

►Fascinating Folk◄

• How a career in screenwriting prepared Tim Sullivan to write crime novels.
• The long, mysterious journey of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Brooks Brothers coat.
• Father and daughter Erwin and Karolina Bankowski forged more than 200 artworks by Warhol, Banksy, Picasso, and others-- and sold them for $2 million.
• Biruté Galdikas's life with orangutans-- and the iconic story that helped change their fate.
• Of the many types of Roman gladiator, some were definitely women.
• Mary Eliza Mahoney, the woman who defied the odds as the first Black nurse in the U.S.

►I ♥ Lists◄

• The 20 most addictive books of 2026 (so far) according to Kirkus.
• 7 high society mysteries.
• 35 books to read for Asian American and Pacific Islander Month.
• 15 books for Disability Book Week.
• 6 mystery novels with unorthodox settings and setups.
• Book Riot's best historical fiction of the century so far.
• 19 mysteries and thrillers set in the Midwest.
• The 5 best mysteries for Jane Austen lovers.

That's all for this week! No matter how busy you may be, don't forget that quality Me Time curled up with a good book!