The Lose a Horse or Find a Rope Weekly Link Round-Up

Denis and I have been so busy lately that we keep forgetting to go see The Martian at the nearby movie theater. We're hoping to sneak over there soon, but with our luck, it will be gone by that time!

Friends at the Patio Cafe

What have we been busy doing? Nothing of any real interest. Denis has had a series of doctor's appointments. That poor man-- if I had a dollar for every ear infection he's gotten since I've known him, we'd be on an around-the-world cruise. (Okay, I'm exaggerating, but it certainly seems that way!)

As for me, I finally broke down, admitted I was decrepit, and bought a couple of knee braces. Sure makes all the pruning and clipping I've been doing out in the yard so much easier!

I'm also slowly getting in the Christmas spirit. Many of the artificial trees I've been putting up year after year are even more decrepit than my knees, so I've retired the sad-looking ones-- with honors-- and replaced them with (fewer) new ones. I'm going to be changing the way I decorate, and that's given me a burst of energy and new ideas. Now if Denis will just get the rest of the decorations out of storage!

Speaking of storage, I've got some links trying to bust out of the corral. Head 'em up! Move 'em out!

 

►Books, Movies & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• The original manuscript of Beowulf is available online. 
• Amazon is in the process of removing thousands of self-published eBooks. (They should've read that email....) 
• The national society of French railways is offering 100,000 free eBooks in France.
• Award-winning author David Mitchell talks about book snobbery.
• Opening in early 2017, the American Writers Museum has found a nice address in Chicago. 
• Henning Mankell's "memoir of sorts" is due out next year. 
• An implantable telescope restores vision lost to macular degeneration-- of interest to me because my grandmother had it, and since I inherited her premature grey hair.... 
• If you'd like to put the special back into Thanksgiving and Christmas, support businesses that don't open on Thanksgiving Day... and businesses that celebrate one holiday at a time, like Nordstrom. 
• This entire article provided me some real food for thought: Has poetry distorted our view of World War I? 
• A forgotten Edith Wharton story was found in Yale's rare book library. Here's another article that contains the story itself, "The Field of Honour."
• I'll be going to Left Coast Crime this coming February, so I thought I'd share their Five Questions with Ann Cleeves (the International Guest of Honor). Anyone else going?
• The New York Public Library shared some of the strange questions it's been asked over the years as well as how it's dealing with storage space. 
• Tara Sparling hates women's fiction, and she tells us why. 
• How many of you knew that Amazon Smile is a great way to help your public library?  

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• The site of an ancient massacre is yielding the secrets of a lost Greek city--Selinunte. 
• King Tut's tomb has yet to reveal all its secrets. Scans have shown signs of a hidden chamber.
• The "Pompeii of the New World" is revealing the power of Mayan commoners. 
• Like King Tut, Stonehenge is also revealing more secrets. 
• What you don't know about ancient Rome could fill a book. Fortunately Mary Beard has written that book. 
• A forbidden no man's land poisoned by war: the real "No-Go Zone" of France.
• The boy who became a World War II veteran at the age of thirteen. 
• How Anne Frank's diary changed the world. 
• Archaeologist Sarah Parcak uses satellites to hunt down tomb raiders. 
• DNA from an Inca boy sacrificed 500 years ago shows us how humans spread to South America. 
• The mystery of a Titanic telegram.
• Phyllis Latour Doyle, a 93-year-old former British secret agent, finally accepts that she is a French heroine.
• A British art restorer tells us how she discovered a masterpiece.
• A new Hieronymus Bosch drawing has been found in a private art collection. 
• The history and culture of the 1960s to 1980s is disintegrating with the tapes that recorded it. 
• Can digital technology make the Herculaneum scrolls legible after two thousand years? 
• Israel has unveiled a Roman-era mosaic found during the construction of a visitor's center. 
• Researchers just unearthed a lost island in the Aegean. 

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• Scientists now say that having a cat might cause mental illness, so this "crazy cat lady" thing just may have some truth to it....  

►The Happy Wanderer◄

• Are you a Harry Potter fan? Then you've got to visit these twelve places in Scotland. (With all the Scottish travel links I post, you might almost think I like the place....) 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• 16 amazing things found under the sea.
• How many of these literary landmarks have you been to?
• 15 beautiful libraries in the United States. 
• The ten greatest stained-glass windows in the world. Which one is your favorite? Mine is Sainte-Chapelle followed by York Minster. 
• 10 things you only notice when you re-read Harry Potter. 
• 13 breathtaking moments when lighthouses said NO to the ocean's fury. 
• 10 Scottish world records you probably didn't know about. (No one country has the monopoly on crazy folks....) 
• 27 gifts every book lover should ask for this year. 
• 17 gifts only grammar nerds will appreciate. 

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.

Have a great weekend, and read something fabulous!