A Happy Thanksgiving Weekly Link Round-Up

I'm not going to blather on about my week today. Pretty boring stuff, actually. More doctor's appointments in preparation for my second cataract surgery next Tuesday, haircuts, blah, blah, blah. The most important thing this week has been Thanksgiving and the profound thankfulness I feel for all my many blessings.

Enjoy the links, my friends. You're the best!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Val McDermid on what it's like judging the Man Booker Prize.
• Reading Rebecca in the time of Trump.
• Judy Blume grants Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret screen rights to James L. Brooks and Kelly Fremon Craig.
• How to get kids to read nonfiction. 
• Smartphones are endangering Iceland's love of books. (Say it ain't so, Joe!)
• Author Jeff Abbott can tell us what happens when your crime library goes up in smoke. 
• The enduring problem with children's picture books.
• It was only a matter of time: Microplastics have been found in human poop for the first time.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• The world's oldest intact shipwreck has been discovered in the Black Sea. And another article about it from Smithsonian Magazine.
• Five Bible Museum Dead Sea Scrolls have been exposed as fakes. 
• The traditional wooden halibut hook that's still snagging fish off Alaska.
• A World War I handmade American flag will be staying on the Isle of Islay (eye-luh) in Scotland.
• How an astonishing Holocaust diary resurfaced in America. 
• A medieval book that opens six different ways, revealing six different books in one. (The video is mesmerizing.)

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• The bison returns to the American Great Plains. 
• A lioness killed the father of her cubs in a rare attack at the Indianapolis Zoo.
• Crafty New Caledonian crows can assemble tools. 
• How many squirrels are in Central Park?
• Meet Africa's newest crocodile species.

►The Happy Wanderer◄

• Maybe all bankers' mansions should become libraries?
• Mongolia's Beatles monument. 
• The town of Kingman, Arizona is fighting back and shaping its image.
• The world's longest sea bridge has opened amidst controversy.
• They're beautiful! Tibetan Buddhist butter sculptures.
• The Goldfield Hotel is now the hottest spot in Nevada for ghost hunters.

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Todd Bol, the creator of the Little Free Library movement, is dead at the age of 62.
• The FBI of the National Park Service.
• Joachim Ronneberg, the commando who foiled Hitler's atomic ambitions, has died.

►I ♥ Lists & Quizzes◄

• Seven classics of dread, suspense, and the uncanny.
• Ten novels that capture northern England's brooding menace.
• Killed book covers: eighteen designs that didn't make the cut.
• Seven expert tips and tricks for organizing your home library.
• Seven mothers you meet in crime novels, from gothicly evil to disastrously giving.
• Test your knowledge of women writers with a fun pop quiz.
• Five crime novels set in small-town Australia.

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!