An Unsentimental Weekly Link Round-Up

It's been a very quiet week here at Casa Kittling. We've had another winter storm come through, giving us a good, soaking rain which is always a wonderful thing. I much prefer our winter rains to the ones in summer because they do tend to be gentle, not the microbursts that can give us half our annual rainfall in ten minutes. Those summer toad chokers are the ones that usually fill the pool with mud. Nope, give me winter rains any day-- especially when they usually mean a fantastic spring showing of wildflowers out in the desert. Now... if the temperature would only go back up to normal. You know Mother Nature is having a laugh when the morning temperature in Anchorage, Alaska is eight degrees warmer than Phoenix, Arizona!

You're probably wondering why I've titled this link round-up "unsentimental." Well, it's because I'm not sentimental at all. Nope. Not me. Never in a million years.

It would never occur to me to look for a ring that combined my birthstone with Denis'.  But I did manage to "stumble" across one that combines my January garnet with Denis' June moonstone, and you see it to the left. I love how the moonstones catch the light and flash with blues and lavenders. I just thought I would share one of my Christmas presents with you. The unsentimental one, of course!

In the meantime, Denis and I have some events at The Poisoned Pen to look forward to. After the hectic holiday selling season, authors will be coming back to our favorite bookstore, and we're really looking forward to that.

It's time for me to put on my wellies and slosh on out to the link corral. They're wanting some attention. Head 'em up! Mooooooooove 'em out!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• A school has installed a vending machine that dispenses free books to kids who read.
• The little blue books that made French literature mainstream.
• Val McDermid: Be careful which stories you tell a working crime author.
• A woman with a womb transplanted from a deceased donor successfully gives birth.
• When the streetlight first came to London, disaster ensued.
• Everything BookBub knows about the Killers of the Flower Moon movie. (The book was one of my Best Reads one year.)
• Sequel rights and wrongs: why some stories should be allowed to end. 
• The joys of designing a debut writer's book.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• A recently deciphered 4,500-year-old pillar shows the first known record of a border dispute. 
• Thousand-year-old rock art likely served as a gathering point for llama caravans crossing the Andes.
• The British Bake Off that resurrected a forgotten medieval cake.
• An unknown John Donne manuscript has been discovered in Suffolk, England.
• Egypt has unveiled a "one of a kind" ancient tomb and expects even more finds. Here's a corresponding article from NPR.
• Steve McQueen's 1979 Pontiac Trans Am has been pulled from a barn in Illinois.
• This strange sculpture of a menacing skull surrounded by sun rays was discovered at the foot of the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico.
• This Bronze Age regicide may be the world's oldest-known political murder.

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• A lonely parrot goes shopping online with Alexa while his owners are out.
• A Utah bobcat named Mr. Murderbritches was just released back into the wild-- and the video is going viral.
• The shrinking of a Utah national monument may threaten 660 bee species.
• The story of Dyngo, a war dog brought home from combat.
• A Dracula ant's snapping jaw is the fastest known appendage in the animal kingdom.
• To help corals fight back, scientists are breeding populations separated by hundreds of miles.
• Cliquey Adriatic dolphins may have strategies for avoiding each other.
• Their songs suggest that cardinals in different regions could actually be distinct species.

►Fascinating Folk◄

• A VR experience lets you join Nellie Bly on her 72-day trip around the world.

►I ♥ Lists◄

• The best historical crime novels of 2018.
• Twenty funny illustrations that prove the world has seriously changed for the worse. 
• Twelve unusually long English words.
• Can you guess how much these popular books cost when they debuted?
• Five controversial facts about Melvil Dewey and the Dewey Decimal System.
• The top ten fictional booksellers.
• Twenty-one book-based movies and TV shows to consume in 2019.
• The award-winning novels of 2018.

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!