The Domestic Goddess Weekly Link Round-Up

You know... like many of the rest of you, I just love to clean. In my case I love it so much that I'd rather take a beating than have to do it. I have a friend who used to have a cleaning woman come in once a week to take care of things, and I'd love to be able to do that, but there's something that bothers me about bringing in someone else to do something I should be doing. Does that make sense?

I wish I could be as funny as Carol Burnett whenever she played the cleaning woman on her television show, or as alluring as Melanie Griffith in "Working Girl," but I'm not.

However, there is something about spring-- and spring is fully blown here in the desert-- that gives me a minuscule molecule of incentive to freshen the feathers in my nest. I'd better take advantage of it before our greatly anticipated house guest arrives. 

I hear those links out in the corral. They're gettin' mighty restless, so I'd better put down the mop and bucket to take care of those critters. Head 'em up! Mooooooove 'em out!

►Books, Movies & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• The February 2016 eBook author earnings report is now available.
• HBO unleashes a creepy teaser for Game of Thrones season six.
• Unseen J.R.R. Tolkien poems have been found in a school magazine.
• Author Pat Conroy has pancreatic cancer. 
• Two articles on 11.22.63: one from the series' showrunner, and the second from Stephen King. 
• Jeannette de Beauvoir talks about history as mystery: Part One and Part Two. 
• Jo Nesbø's perfect writing room (that he never uses).
• After the BBC's recent television adaptation, Tolstoy's War and Peace is on the bestseller list for the first time. (Any bets on how many of those folks actually read past the first chapter?)
• How to find your birthday word. Mine? The term "artificial intelligence" was coined at just the same time I was. 
• In interesting article about one of my favorite crime fiction publishing houses: Soho Press.
• 2015 saw the opening of 60 indie bookstores.  
• Harper Lee died at the age of 89. You may choose to mourn her passing, but here's why you don't have to. (Thanks for the second link, Kathleen!)
• More than 12,000 Dallas newborns are going to be heading home with a book.
• Here's a new word for you: xylotheks. They are wooden books that hold wooden collections.
• How about a game of Shakespearean pic-up stix?

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Ancient tetrapod footprints have been discovered in Spain.
• A flower entombed in amber may have been toxic. 
• NOOA is seeking sanctuary for World War II shipwrecks off Cape Hatteras. 
• Scientists in Pakistan have found a 1.1 million-year-old stegodon tusk. 
• Take a look at some astronaut grafitti on the walls of a spaceship. 
• Getting clean, the Tudor way. 
• An ancient Roman brooch contains a "lovely" palindrome. 
• Easter Island wasn't destroyed by war. 
• I came across this in my reading recently, so I thought you might like to learn about Waterloo teeth, too.
• A 7,000-year-old town has been unearthed in Jerusalem. 
• An amateur archaeologist has found a lost Spanish settlement on the Florida Panhandle. 
• An archaeological find in France offers a glimpse into an ancient tavern. 
• How the Gold Rush led to real riches in... bird poop. 
• Here's a bit of information about the 3,000-year-old wheel that was found at "Britain's Pompeii" on a farm near Peterborough. 
• There's a 93-mile-long wall in Jordan that's been puzzling archaeologists. 
• Let's see how book ads looked in 1910. 
• This weird little item will intrigue some more than others: opium-soaked tampons were the Midol of ancient Rome. 

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• Skiers had a surprise encounter with a rare snow leopard in India. 

►The Happy Wanderer◄

• The Lincoln Memorial (which is nearing the ripe old age of 100) is to get a multimillion-dollar overhaul. 
• Check out New York's impressive array of specialty bookstores. 
• Scientists have discovered a mysterious boiling river in the Amazon rainforest.

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Howard Blackburn was an extraordinary man who sailed solo across the Atlantic. What's so extraordinary about that? Blackburn had no fingers.
• Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun-- she painted Marie Antoinette (and escaped the guillotine).
• Michael A. Orthofer's impossible quest to read-- and review-- the world. 
• The harrowing tale of Lady Grange of Edinburgh, the prisoner of St. Kilda. 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• 40 must-read books from the shelves of Ernest Hemingway.
• 26 gorgeous new covers for classic books. 
• 15 things you may not know about Beatrix Potter. 
• 7 memorable fonts from popular book covers.
• 27 products for people who are obsessed with books.
• 6 illustrations that show what it's like in an introvert's head.

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!