A Windy Days and Umbrellas Weekly Link Round-Up

My quiet, restful summer continues. Other than some of the marvelous reading I've managed to get done, the most excitement I've been getting is when a monsoon storm tries to blow through town and take my umbrella with it. Since that umbrella creates most of the shade I sit in while I'm in the pool, I've gotten pretty good at the old read-with-an-elbow-on-the-umbrella-stand ploy to keep it from blowing out of town.

To the left you see a bloom on a barrel cactus at the Desert Botanical Garden. I find it interesting that almost all the types of barrel cactus bloom during the hottest part of a desert summer before the monsoon sets in.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised. I already knew that they were stubborn and strong. There's a barrel cactus out in our front garden that withstood repeated onslaughts from the neighbor boy's BB gun. But we won't go there... I hear those links calling to me from the corral. Head 'em up! Moooooooooooove 'em out!
 

►Books, Movies & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Inside the original Shakespeare and Company Bookshop in Paris. 
• Kindle debuts Singles Classics. 
• Stephenie Meyer has a new adult novel being released in November.
• A Stephen King adaptations update. 
• Seventy years ago, the U.S. military detonated a nuclear bomb underwater, and it went very badly.
• Ben-Hur gets a modern remake, including greater roles for women characters.
• Growing up in the book desert. 
• American literature needs Indie presses. 
• Why Calvin and Hobbes is great literature.
• Why do we write about orphans so much? 
• When a bookstore is also a safe haven. 
• The sales for adult coloring books remain hot. 
• The episode count and premiere date for Game of Thrones Season 7 has been revealed. 
• People are saying that Star Trek Beyond is a smart, funny Sci-Fi action- adventure movie.
• What it's like to write crime fiction on the era of Black Lives Matter.
• Why libraries are everywhere in the Czech Republic. 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Cave art is revealing religious encounters between Europeans and Native Americans.
• China is striving to become the leader in the world of archaeology. 
• A 91-year-old woman recently filled in a crossword puzzle, not knowing that it was an $89,000 work of art.
• After a museum revamp, a full view of Henry VIII's flagship the Mary Rose is available to visitors.
• An ancient logbook documenting the Great Pyramid of Giza's construction has been unveiled.
• A 2,000-year-old dog graveyard has been discovered in Siberia.
• An ancient Roman soldier with an ornate belt has been discovered in a grave in the UK.
• A rare Civil War sword was put up for auction.
• Would $4.4 million change your mind about collecting baseball cards? 
• The Apollo astronauts' "graffiti" inside the historic moon capsule is being revealed.
• Da Vinci's "irrelevant" doodles actually contain his most revolutionary physics discovery. 
• Ancient Silk Road hygiene sticks lead to a fluke discovery. 

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• The incredible things a hammerhead shark's nose can do. 
• A friendly manatee propped itself up on a woman's paddleboard.
• The mystery of the Beast of Dartmoor has (apparently) been solved. 
• China tried to drive a furry mammal to extinction. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea. (It usually isn't.)

►The Happy Wanderer◄

• Inventing the beach: the unnatural history of a natural place. 
• Ten infamous islands of exile.
• The top ten historic small towns in America, and I'm tickled pink at the town sitting in the #1 spot!
• The best places to see meteorite impact craters.
• Jane Austen's London Instagram account.
• Skye and Orkney get set to benefit from The BFG boom. 
• The science behind Yellowstone's Grand Prismatic Spring. 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• The first and only foreign-born first lady: Louisa Catherine Adams.

►I ♥ Lists & Quizzes◄

• Eleven simple facts about Henry David Thoreau.
• Twelve literary candles every reader will love.
• Ten "lost" books you should read now.
• Want to work in eighteen miles of books? First you have to take a quiz.
• 39 facts about English. 
• Forty-five haunting photos of the Romanovs' last days.
• Ten George R.R. Martin quotes on writing, fantasy, and feminism.
• Ten memorable opening lines. 

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!