A Thriving Weekly Link Round-Up

Monday night, I was sitting in my comfy chair, knitting and watching an episode of Waking the Dead. I had the sound turned up a tad because our dishwasher is older and not very quiet (rather like my joints). Around 9 PM, my ears picked up a different sound: rain. Dishwasher, TV, and I still heard the rain-- which wasn't hammering on the window by any stretch of the imagination? No wonder Denis calls me Bat Ears!

But that sound of rain reminded me of how long it's been since we've had rain here in Phoenix at this time of year. No wonder everything is thriving! When I pulled up the weather app on my phone to see how long the rain was likely to last, I checked out the rest of the country and saw wide swaths of snow. Mama Nature, it's May-- stop torturing those poor Northerners!

As you can see by the photo, we're not having snow here. No indeed. Last Thursday, Denis and I went to the Desert Botanical Garden and had an absolutely marvelous time. Between the two of us, I have about 500 photos to go through, but I hope to share our visit with all of you next Wednesday. I might even have to split it into two posts. We shall see.

Meanwhile, I'd better see about those links out in the corral. Head 'em up! Moooooove 'em out!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Author Lee Child will be developing a true crime dramatic series called Lee Child: True Crime. It aims to dramatize tales of "real-life Jack Reachers."
• Drones' newest cargo might just be human organs.
• How 18th-century crime bulletins inspired the earliest crime fiction.
• An extraordinary 500-year-old library catalog reveals books that have been lost to time. 
• Two never-before-seen poems by novelist Daphne du Maurier are discovered hidden inside the frame of a photo of her in a bathing suit 90 years after she wrote them.
• For the author and former New Yorker copy editor Mary Norris, furnishing an apartment is all about the books.
• Alexander McCall Smith is turning Scandi-Noir on its head.
• A look at Gilded Age crimes, then and now.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Found: A seal that may have belonged to a Biblical courtier.
• A recently uncovered thermopolium reminds us that Romans loved fast food as much as we do.
• The secret Egyptian palace of Ramses II was discovered by accident.
• A recently discovered shipwreck may be the oldest seafaring vessel ever found in Dutch waters.  
• The all-time greatest cases of lucky people finding hidden treasures at flea markets.
• Mummified mice were found in a colorful 2,000-year-old Egyptian tomb. 
• Cave markings tell of Cherokee life in the years before Indian removal.
• U-2 spy plane images have revealed ancient archaeological sites in the Middle East.

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• A new type of Arctic dinosaur has been discovered in Alaska.
• Cats may recognize their own names, but that doesn't mean they care. 
• Russia will free 97 orcas and beluga whales that have been held in a cramped "whale jail" since last summer. 
• A record-breaking 17-foot-long Burmese python was found in Florida. 
• A crotchety African grey parrot was caught on video ordering Amazon's Alexa to stop playing Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York."
• How a porcupine's razor-sharp quills are helping doctors create surgical staples that ward off infection.
• Why this owl raised a duckling as its own.

►The Happy Wanderer◄

• Stunning drone footage of the picturesque landscape within the canyons of Moab, Utah.
• The jail in Clifton, Arizona, built into the side of a cliff, was said to be inescapable.

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Casimir Pulaski, the famed Revolutionary War general for whom the Pulaski Skyway is named, may have been a woman.
• How Virginia Hall, a spy known as the "limping lady," helped the Allies win World War II.
• How Margaret Dayhoff brought modern computing to biology.
• Sam Howe, the scrapbooking lawman who documented 19th-century Colorado. 
• Eric Jones, the unsung Bletchley Park hero whose role in D-Day preparations was equal to Alan Turing's.

►I ♥ Lists◄

• The six oldest libraries in New England.
• Eleven authors on their one-word book titles.
• Ten surprising former librarians.
• Five novels with interracial love.
• Ten crime novels that strike a balance between humor and noir.
• Merriam-Webster added more than 640 new words to the dictionary in April 2019.
• The top ten books set in the American Midwest.
• Alafair Burke's list of the top ten thrillers about siblings.

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!