The Gift that Keeps on Giving Weekly Link Round-Up

This has happened to all of you before, and undoubtedly multiple times, too. You're out and about, or at work, minding your own business when some Typhoid Mary has to come along and give you whatever disease they've been incubating. And it hits you. Hard.

That's what happened to Denis, who works at the airport and has the opportunity to come in contact with hundreds of Typhoid Marys on any given day. He wound up with an upper respiratory infection and acute pharyngitis (a horrible sore throat), and being the kind and giving sort of man he is, he shared it with me, bless 'im.

I tell you, there should be a law against anything that turns your entire head into a-- pardon me for being blunt-- snot sponge. And the blasted disease just lingers on and on.

Denis has been to Urgent Care (twice) and his doctor, has missed almost two weeks of work, and although he's been told that he is getting much better and "these things take time," we're both more than ready for this show hit the road, Jack.

Although I didn't get pharyngitis, I seem to have received the little added extra of major hearing loss. I tend to have acute hearing-- to the point where Denis calls me "Bat Ears"-- so any time something affects my hearing, it drives me crazy. Let me tell you-- between these new windows and having my bat ears forcibly turned off-- I feel as though I'm living in a bubble (and I won't tell you what the bubble is made of because you can only mention the S word so many times). We've had a series of tropical storms move through Phoenix, one bringing us a toadchoker, and I would never have known how hard it was raining if I hadn't been sitting in the family room looking out the patio door. I certainly couldn't hear it!

But enough bellyaching. The two of us are well on the road to recovery, and with these lower temperatures, I'm feeling the urge to fire up my camera and head out to see some flowers and critters and such. But before I do that, I'd better check out that corral. You never know what those links get up to... Head 'em up! Moooove 'em out!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• On the growing influence of Barack Obama, literary tastemaker. 
• On archaeology and crime fiction.
• Why are town line signs in Massachusetts shaped like a book?
• The oldest continuously operating library in the world is in this Egyptian monastery.
• This tiny traveling bookstore wanders the French countryside.
• Early sketches from The Little Prince were found in a Swiss collection.
• Recalling a time when books could give you indigestion.
• Gwyneth Paltrow hired a personal book curator. Here's what he chose for her shelves. (I would imagine all of you are like me and prefer to be your own personal book curator, but I wonder how much the job pays?)

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Were Neanderthals getting surfer's ear from diving for seafood? 
• See a scrap of cloth believed to be from Elizabeth I's only surviving dress.
• X-ray scans uncover da Vinci's hidden painting in all its glory.
• The mystery of "Skeleton Lake" gets deeper. 
• How a Parisian lemonade craze fought the plague.
• Why Spain is seeking to catalog all of its historic shipwrecks.
• An elite Viking drinking hall has been unearthed on a remote Scottish island.

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• Service dogs in training attended a private performance of Billy Elliot to learn proper theater behavior.
• How the turtle got its shell, with apologies to Æsop. 
• Could goats help solve Portugal's wildfire crisis?
• An emotional support dog is the only thing that chills out a cheetah.
• California will build the largest wildlife crossing in the world. 
• An adorable beagle demonstrates a wide array of vocalizations for which his breed is known. 
• John Steinbeck's epic ocean voyage rewrote the rules of ecology.
• Eggs have been successfully collected from the last two northern white rhinos. And now they've been fertilized.

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Virginia Hall, a "Limping Lady" with a prosthetic leg, was the most dangerous Allied spy of World War II.
• Seven facts about Thomas Lefroy, the real-life inspiration for Pride and Prejudice's Mr. Darcy. 
• Dr. Gerty Cori, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize in medicine, was paid one-tenth the salary of her research partner.
• Susie King Taylor-- from a secret school to becoming the first black army nurse of the Civil War.
• You can thank chemist Stephanie Kwolek for bulletproof vests and yoga pants.

►The Happy Wanderer◄

• The nostalgic romance of Route 66.
• From Nazi prisons to cat sanctuaries, explore the many lives of these Russian palaces. 
• Local legend in Cambridge, England says that Isaac Newton built the "Mathematical Bridge" without any screws, bolts, or nails.

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Seven great mysteries about rare books and bibliophiles.
• Five thrillers featuring a small group of friends.
• Hot reads by women in translation. 
• Eleven beguiling Victorian mysteries.
• Twenty of the best psychological thrillers streaming on Netflix right now.
• Top ten libraries in fiction. 
• The seven most suspenseful jury verdicts in literature and film.
• Twenty-two of the greatest books about rock 'n' roll ever written.

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!