A Thoughts of Spring Weekly Link Round-Up

I've just spent another week enjoying the glorious spring weather and reading some good books, so you're not about to hear any complaints from me!

I met a friend for lunch at the Desert Botanical Garden, and while we talked and laughed, we had little ground squirrels and Gambel's quail eating right at our feet.

I'm just about ready to mount an expedition into the shed to get a rake and some loppers to do a bit of gardening. (Ooops! My apologies. I didn't mean to startle you so badly!) I think I'll take this as my cue to head out to the corral and round up the links that I've been collecting all week. Head 'em up! Mooooooove 'em out!

►Books, Movies & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Life lessons from the Brontë sisters. 
• Too many women writers are left to languish in moldy archives. What will it take to bring them back? 
• What we can learn from women's book clubs.
• Fantastic books that might not get published today.
• What Catherine Nichols found out when she sent her novel out under a male name.
• It takes 16 people working full time to publish all of James Patterson's books. 
• From the ridiculous to the grotesque: More than half of writers in France earn less than minimum wage.
• Why Happy Valley is television's most brazenly feminist show. (Season 2 is now available on Netflix. Just sayin'....) 
• Readers will always judge a book by its cover...this time a slightly different perspective from the publisher's point of view. 
• An activist hacker group known as Anonymous is threatening to target Denver's Tattered Cover bookstore. 
• The pulp fiction dime novel is making a comeback. 
• There's one book that the Swansea, Wales Oxfam charity shop doesn't need more copies of. 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Pharaoh Ramesses III did not come to a pleasant end. (Amazing what all they can find out about the past using today's technology!)
• Now you can explore an interactive 3D model of Richard III's grave.
• A Glasgow Scottish Water project has uncovered a medieval castle. There's more on Patrick Castle from The Scotsman, too. 
• This Polish museum exhibit was completely curated by kids. 
• A stash of books from the Witch Library of Nazi Chief Himmler has been found in Prague. 
• Lead-based ink from scrolls may unlock an ancient library that was destroyed by Vesuvius. 
• Hidden text in England's oldest printed Bible has been revealed. 
• Inside the FBI's fingerprint factory before it went digital.
• Archaeologists say that a scan of Shakespeare's grave shows the playwright's skull was probably stolen.  
• Loch Ryan's World War II flying boat history is being celebrated. 
• The contents of Galloway's Viking treasure pot are being revealed after more than 1,000 years.
• How to be a whaler's wife in 1908.
• The world's most expensive Easter egg hunt. 
• An unusual carved Pictish stone is being displayed at the Elgin Museum. 

►The Happy Wanderer◄

• An interview with a bookstore: Octavia Books in New Orleans, Louisiana. 
• At the Tucson Festival of Books: freaks, cranks, poets, and more.
• Nebraska's Homestead Settlement Trail.
• Ann Patchett's Nashville bookstore hits the road, with dogs in tow. 
• Step inside the Smithsonian's incredibly organized hidden collection rooms. 
• Those Yellowstone supervolcano eruptions were even bigger than we thought. Yikes! 
• The history of the Glasgow accent explained. 

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!