A Faster-Than-the-Speed of Light Weekly Link Round-Up

I'll be writing a post about it later, but it was a fun two weeks with our niece Daisy; however, time went by faster than the speed of light. Now Denis is back to work. Daisy is back at work for the NHS at her local hospital in England, and me.... Well, I've got to try to get back in my routine. That means getting back in blog post writing mode.  Did I say that the past two weeks went by way too fast?

Daisy's a convert!

We took Daisy to Kingman, Oatman, the Grand Canyon Skywalk, the Diamond Creek Trail down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon, a certain street corner in Winslow, Arizona, Meteor Crater, the Painted Desert, and the Petrified Forest. She and I did some fun stuff here in Phoenix, too. Since the temperature reached 115° on one of the days she was here, we spent that afternoon out in the pool with our books. 

You see Daisy to the right wearing her traveling-back-to-England clothes. The print on her t-shirt tells you that I took her to my favorite bookstore. (Was there any doubt that I would?) 

Before I sit here and start talking non-stop about her visit, I think I'd better head on out to the corral. I have a lot of restless links I've got to head up and moooooooove out!

►Books, Movies & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• An extremely rare first edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland went up for auction this week. Estimate? $2-3 million. 
• You never know when you'll be able to rescue literature-- like a Walt Whitman poem-- from obscurity. 
• What does your bookshelf organizational technique say about you? 
• Eight-year-old Madison gives an enthusiastic, inspiring speech about books. 
• The changing faces of Barbie. 
• A bookstore in Istanbul that was made by a refugee for refugees.
• Road tripping while female-- on the absence of women in the literature of American adventure. 
• How the lowly mosquito helped American win independence. 
• 20% of books sold in Canada are eBooks. 
• Like these movies? Here are 100+ things you might also like. 
• Familiar with Miss Phryne Fisher? There's a new Miss Fisher Costume Exhibition in Australia. 
• Secrets of the book designer. 
• How much do Indie authors earn from Amazon? 
• Stealing books in the age of self-publishing. 
• A new app called Litsy aims to be the Instagram of books. 
• When your research starts to terrify you.  

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Someone stole a solid gold, diamond-encrusted Maltese eagle worth $5 million. 
• Stonehenge wasn't so hard to build after all.
• 2,000-year-old handwritten documents have been found in the London mud.
• Healthy "vampires" have emerged from graves in a medieval Polish cemetery. 
• One of King Tut's daggers has a blade that was made from a meteorite.
• The original Alamo may have been found. 
• Evidence of a Roman fort has been uncovered near Lancaster Castle. 
• A Shakespeare First Folio fetched $2.75 million at auction. 
• Watch a museum visitor touch and destroy a priceless clock. 
• A twice-stolen letter written by Charles Darwin has been returned to the Smithsonian. 
• A massive ancient platform has been discovered in Petra. It was hidden right out in plain sight. 
• Chinese archaeologists have discovered the sad remains of Kublai Khan's legendary palace.  "In Xanadu did Kublai Khan a stately pleasure dome decree...."
• A team of diamond miners have found a 16th century shipwreck--- and something even more exciting. 
• Archaeologists find massive medieval cities hidden under the canopy of the Cambodian jungle. 
• Let's take a peek into the Jetsons Archive at Warmer Brothers Animation. 
• A man found a 22-pound chunk of butter estimated to be more than 2,000 years old in an Irish bog. 
• This exhibit explores ancient Roman "designer" labels and trademarks.
• These bracelets have been dubbed Denmark's largest Viking-era gold find. 
• British researchers have launched an operation to unearth King Henry I's remains n a school car park. (Another parking lot, another king....)
• Tea, pride, mystery: for one family that fled the Nazis, a tin canister held it all. 
• How knitting was used as code in World War II.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• The best way to find IEDs? Ask Chopper. 
• World War I's Sergeant Stubby. 
• A cheetah surprises a safari tourist by leaping into the Jeep.
• Man-made animal crossings, from bat bridges to toad tunnels.  
• When a man spots a black mass in the middle of a Montana road, you'll never guess what it is.

►The Happy Wanderer◄

• Margalef, Spain-- an isolated village literally built into the crevices of a mountain.
• I walked along part of the Oregon Trail (Scotts Bluff, Nebraska) when I was ten years old. See what it looks like today from above. 
• Dan Dalton ran a Scottish bookshop, and so can we. 
• The Robert Louis Stevenson Museum in Samoa.
• The Thimble Museum in Germany. 
• Scotland's Alcatraz.
• 15 stone circles that are even more beautiful than Stonehenge.
• Broadway Books in Portland.
• The most poetic cities in the world. 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• There was a third hero in that historic 1968 Olympic photo, and he was Australian Peter Norman. 
• Lina Cavalieri, the girl behind the wallpaper.
• Seaman Calvin Graham, a decorated World War II veteran... at the age of thirteen. 
• The hidden histories of a million women from all over Great Britain during World War II. 
• Garth Williams, illustrator of (my) American childhood. 
• The story of Laszlo Biro, the man who invented the ballpoint pen.
• Max Perkins, one of America's greatest editors.
• Bill Millin, the mad Highland piper of World War II.

►I ♥ Lists & Quizzes◄

• The page 69 quiz: can you identify the classic book from a single paragraph? 
• Helena Bonham Carter's ten best book-based characters.
• 15 ways to create a book title. 
• What literary character is your mental twin? (Mine? Sherlock Holmes.)
• Only 5% of Americans can pass this English test
• Bookish jewelry. 
• Name the book titles without vowels or spaces. .
• 15 things book nerds are guilty of doing during the summer.
• 19 books everyone should read.
• 34 photos that prove all book lovers should live in Hay-on-Wye. 
• Eight inspired book and film pairings. 
• The top ten chases in literature. 
• Working titles of famous novels. 
• The most translated authors in the world. 

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!