A Let the Light In Weekly Link Round-Up

The week after the successful window installation was spent with lots of new curtains. Four windows had old wooden blinds that have since been taken out to the curb where someone snapped them up, put them in the back of their truck, and headed to parts unknown. Now light, crisp white sheer curtains are at the new windows (along with others to prevent nosey parkers from making me feel like I'm living in a goldfish bowl), and Denis is in a state of euphoria. (By the way-- that goldfish bowl comment? Living next-door to a peeping Tom for a decade changes the way you feel toward being able to see in your windows from the outside!)

Not our house or curtains, but you get the idea!

It really didn't occur to me that Denis would have such a strong reaction to the new windows, but it should have. When it comes to our eyes, Denis and I have opposite "problems." I don't deal well with very bright light and consider dark sunglasses to be one of my besties. Denis does not function well at all in low light (which means that I've been momentarily blinded many, many times during the years we've been married).

Especially if you have old windows here in Phoenix, you tend to leave the curtains closed during the summer. I've had thermal-lined and/or blackout curtains for years. They help keep the heat out and prevent furniture, rugs, etc. from fading. With these new windows, Denis has been blissfully opening the curtains and leaving them open all day-- and the house is still cool. His joy has made me realize that the poor man has probably felt as though he were living in a cave for years. Nothing like being slow on the uptake!

Never fear, I will share some photos of the window installation, probably just the transformation of one window so you won't be bored to tears. Just give me a week or two.

Now it's time to mosey out to the corral. Head 'em up! Moooove 'em out!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• A Harry Potter book, bought for $1 at a yard sale, could sell for more than $37,000 at auction.
• Sweden's bokbåten is a floating library that brings books to residents of remote islands. 
• Bookworms rejoice: Amazon is selling a beach chair with a face hole for reading. 
• Terry Shames on how crime authors use small-town settings to explore the day's most important and complex issues. 
• Why we can't get enough of audiobooks. 
• Watch a 1994 Star Trek: The Next Generation Pizza Hut British TV commercial spoken completely in Klingon. 
• A literary vandal is ripping the pages of books and putting them back on shelves.
• You just can't make this stuff up. Headbanging knitters perform with yarn and needles at the first Heavy Metal Knitting Championships in Finland.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Found: Fifteen wallets from the 1940s, stolen and stashed behind a bathroom wall.
• Two Dutch shipwrecks from World War II have just vanished near Malaysia.
• The remains of Napoleon's one-legged general, Charles Etienne Gudin, have been found under a Russian dance floor.
• Viking bones and DNA will decay quickly as Greenland thaws.
• Egypt has opened Sneferu's "bent" pyramid in Dahshur to the public. Here is another article about the pyramid.
• Photographs suggest human remains could still be inside the Titanic.
• Archaeologists have confirmed a contested tale of the Crusades 920 years after the battle.  
• Stonehenge "was built using buckets of lard."

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• Hungry brown bears that took over Slovenia's forests face being shot before they reach the villages. 
• A diver snapped incredible photos with a jellyfish "as big as him" off the British coast. 
• 140 million years ago, a bird-like dinosaur swallowed a lizard whole. Here's why its final meal is exciting researchers.
• Why this whale ancestor is an evolutionary surprise.
• One of the largest subspecies of giraffes is declared endangered.
• Chicago finally caught the alligator living in Humboldt Park after nearly a week of searching.
• The Audubon Photography Award winners show the breathtaking beauty of wild birds. 
• A study has found that insects can experience chronic pain.

►The Happy Wanderer◄

• A Nellie Bly memorial is coming to Roosevelt Island.
• Why Paris is about to get a lot greener.
• Bali: with crime literature on the rise, there's a darker side to this island paradise. 
• This street in Wales is officially the world's steepest.
• You can now rent Claude Monet's former French residence on Airbnb.

►Fascinating Folk◄

• He took down dams, freed wolves, and preserved wildlands. Bruce Babbitt is still at work. 
• Edna Buchanan. She was Edna Rydzik in Jersey. In Miami, she was the hardboiled crime writer who defined an era and left a complex legacy.
• Etta Place, the Queen of the Wild Bunch.
• Alan Turing will be the new face of Britain's £50 note.
• We're so lucky that we have Inspector Montalbano to remember him by. Andrea Camilleri has died at the age of 93. Articles from the BBC, The Guardian, and a second from The Guardian.

►I ♥ Lists & Quizzes◄

• Is your next great read written in the stars? The St. Joseph County Public Library wants to know What's Your Sign? 
• The funny, unflinching, cooking memoirs you need to read.
• Five classic American road trips taken by five famous writers.
• Before going to the moon, Apollo 11 astronauts trained at these five sites.
• Eight thrillers featuring ambitious women.
• Sixteen mystery book series that keep the twists coming.
• Eight spots in the United States where you can see petroglyphs. (Not listed: an entire park devoted to them in the Phoenix metro area.)
• Literary references in Beatles songs.

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!