A Cheep Cheep Weekly Link Round-Up

It's that time of year. The air is filled with the sound of baby birds cheeping in frantic choruses to their parents to bring food NOW. I barely have time to set the fresh new oranges out before adult birds have flown in to get as much of the juicy flesh as they can to carry back to their greedy kids.

For all I know, I'm being watched. There are certainly many good sentinel posts in the area for scouts to keep watch on my movements. A large cactus is always a good spot. Either in nesting holes or on top of the large towering arms. 

It's also been rather windy here, and the white oleander blossoms and the cheerful yellow palo verde petals have been falling-- usually into the pool-- like rain. There are countless places in the Valley now where there are thick golden drifts of palo verde blooms lying in the gutters on the sides of streets. It's gorgeous.

It's also time for me to head on out to the corral for those links I've been saving for you. I wonder if I can get out there without being spotted by any avian scouts? Head 'em up! Mooooooooove 'em out!

 

►Books, Movies & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• In this day and age of fake news, fact check is now available in Google Search and Google News around the world.
• Can you judge a book by its odor? 
• Why dictionaries still matter for children today. 
• Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny's voices return for an X-Files case on audiobook.
• The bookmobile is making a comeback. 
• In the U.S., eBooks have declined 16.4%, and audiobooks increased by 29.2%.
• Meanwhile in the Netherlands, eBook subscription services are booming.
• Charles Dickens' reading desk.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Where to see the fabled Fabergé imperial Easter eggs.
• A 14,000-year-old village has been discovered in western Canada. 
• Some people have all the luck. A man discovered $2.4 million in gold in an ex-Army tank.
• A treasure hunter is seeking families connected to a trove of 14,000 World War II dog tags that he found. 
• Mummies have been discovered in an ancient tomb near Luxor, Egypt. Here's another article about it from the Smithsonian Magazine.
• Its location a mystery for centuries, a huge Native American city known as Etzanoa may have been found in Kansas.

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• Some folks in Florida were treated to a horse attacking an alligator. All's well that ends well.

►The Happy Wanderer◄

• Poet's Pacific paradise: Pablo Neruda's homes in Chile.
• If you're going to be taking a road trip, visiting the old copper mining towns in New Mexico and Arizona can be a lot of fun.
• While we're on the subject of road trips, if you're in the Phoenix area, driving the Apache Trail is a must-- unless twisty unpaved mountain roads make you nervous. 
• Inside London's biggest bookshop.

►Fascinating Folk◄

• How three women are shaking up tradition in Scotland. 
• The 1920s women who fought for the right to travel under their own names.
• The many lives of Pauli Murray, another important woman you've never heard of. 

►I ♥ Lists & Quizzes◄

• 10.5 ways local bookstores beat Amazon. 
• Justin Trudeau's favorite books. 
• Rarely seen literary treasures from the Library of Congress archives. 
• Nine must-read books for Broadchurch fans. 
• Can you guess the classic book by these extremely vague descriptions?
• Fifteen things you might not know about Of Mice and Men. 
• Ten debut novels that are also their authors' masterpieces. 
• Ten books about secret societies you won't want to put down.

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!