Strange Fruit for a Weekly Link Round-Up

My quiet summer continues. The monsoon season doesn't know if it wants to show up or not, although a microburst came through Monday night that made getting to work interesting for Denis. The street he usually takes into the airport was closed due to a large uprooted tree, and the alternate he took was under two feet of water, but that seemed to be the most interesting part of his shift. 

Strange cactus fruit

Me? I'm getting chores done so I can go out to the pool and read like a house afire. For the most part, I've chosen some choice books that you'll be hearing all about in the days to come. I'm not getting much knitting done because it's too hot to work on a large project (not the time of year to work on an afghan!), and I keep losing concentration on small projects if they're the least bit complicated. Planning menus is about as complicated as I'm getting lately.

I just had to share this photo I took at the Desert Botanical Garden. Some species of cactus look like they're from outer space, and-- as you can see-- so do their fruit. If these hadn't been so high up on the cactus (and out in an area where we're not supposed to walk), I'd go up and feel one of them. It looks as though they'd feel all soft and furry, don't they? I'd just love to put that to the test!

In the mean time, I hear complaints coming from the link corral, so I'll get down to business. Head 'em up! Mooooooooove 'em out!

 ►Books, Movies & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Weird Al's "Word Crimes" is the "Blurred Lines" parody every grammar nerd secretly wanted. 
• How much U.S. history do Americans actually know? 
• A potato battery can light up a room for over a month. 
• The history of creepy dolls. 
• How posters helped shape America and change the world. 
• Americans think national parks are worth way more than we spend on them. 
• A rare J.R.R. Tolkien poem will be republished after seventy years.
• Vonnegut's six ways to tell a story. 
• The library of last resort. 
• Where books are all but nonexistent.
• The revival of print books continues. 
• Taking a reading break at the tiniest library you can imagine.
• Carla Hayden has been confirmed as the fourteenth Librarian of Congress.
• You can see Pennywise the Clown in a first look at the movie It.  
• One person explains how depression got in the way of reading. 
• The new 53rd Street Library in New York City is nice... unless you like to read books. 
• Here are some new pictures from the set of Sherlock. 
• An interview with one of my favorite authors, Ben H. Winters. 
• What the sun looks like from other planets. 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• How the key to the Bastille ended up in George Washington's possession.
• Siberian archaeologists found a 5,000-year-old skeleton couple holding hands. 
• Twenty-three more wrecks have been found at a Greek hotspot for sunken ships. 
• "Britain's Pompeii" was a Bronze Age "new build" site. 
• A tomb in the Great Pyramid of Giza is protected by a primitive machine built by ancient Egyptians. 
• How China is rewriting the book on human origins. 
• In the first-ever Philistine cemetery to be discovered, archaeologists are wondering if they've found Goliath's burial site. 
• A rare Noah's Ark mosaic has been uncovered in an ancient synagogue in Israel. 
• A discovery that dates from the Stone Age could rewrite ancient history.

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• Ducklings are as clever as they are cute.
• The island of Luzon has the world's highest concentration of unique mammals. 
• An entire boar family came to watch one of its youngsters being freed from a fence.
• New programs being set up in the American West will pay landowners to preserve animal habitat, but will they work?
• Need a pick-me-up? Take a look at this baby beaver that can't even control its own tail. 
• The secret life of urban hedgehogs. 
• At the turn of the twentieth century, why did American cats get blamed for so many divorces? 
• Dinosaurs may have been cooers and mumblers, not roarers.

►The Happy Wanderer◄

• El Caracol-- the observatory of Chichen Itza.
• Glasgow's first monument to William Wallace has been unveiled. 
• Exploring the France that Josephine Baker loved. 
• I'd love to visit Fawcett's Antique Toy and Art Museum in Maine.
• This tree in Massachusetts has been protected since 1964, but the story behind this 338-year-old tree is amazing. 
• Six of Scotland's most spectacular rail journeys. 
• New Zealanders just crowdfunded a new addition to the Abel Tasman National Park. 
• The amazing design of this Chinese bookshop makes it a fairytale for bookworms. 
• This photograph shows stunning aerial views of the Forth bridges in Edinburgh. 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• One of my favorite artists, American Master William Merritt Chase, is coming back into fashion. 
• Seductress Betty Pack stole secrets that helped defeat the Nazis.
• First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln gets a modern-day medical diagnosis. 
• Maud Wagner, the first female tattoo artist in the United States.
• Van Gogh cut off a lot more than his earlobe. 
• The secret midnight paintings of Dr. Seuss. 

►I ♥ Lists & Quizzes◄

• Fourteen thoughts you have when someone tries to talk with you while you're reading. 
• Seventeen poems to read when the world is too much. 
• Which literary movement do you belong in? 
• What role would you play in a fairy tale? 
• Here's an online English vocabulary size test. 
• Which Stephen King character are you? 
• The most feared books of all time. 
• The top ten grandmothers in fiction. 
• The ten best whodunits. 
• Writers who can't shake their roots.
• The top ten political conventions that mattered the most.

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!