A Move 'em Out Weekly Link Round-Up

 

 

 

I don't know what got Denis on board my Clear-Out Train, but once he climbed aboard, he went to town. There was a slight blip in my proceedings when I called Goodwill to schedule a home pickup and discovered that they were no longer doing it due to COVID-19. (The phrase "due to COVID-19" is one of my new least-favorites, but we all just have to deal until we've got this defeated.) I don't know if I'm strange or not, but I can stand piles of stuff in my house only so long before I want them GONE, so we hired someone to take care of this for us. They came to pick up everything yesterday, and I'm loving the new empty spaces.

Speaking of COVID-19, I'm a member of a Facebook group for the village where I grew up-- mostly to keep track of people I grew up with-- and during the first few months of the pandemic, an occasional poster there would tell us all how this was a hoax, yada yada yada. You've all heard the nonsense. Unfortunately, the pandemic has now reached central Illinois, and now there are people posting what they and family members have been experiencing and categorically stating that they don't want to hear any crap about the pandemic being phony. It's so miserably sad that something like this has to happen before people become believers.

On that note, I'm going to leave you with another t-shirt that seems to describe me while I head out to the link corral. Head 'em up! Moooove 'em out! (Oh! Oh! Next week I hope to remember to show you the new additions to my mask wardrobe.)

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• How a library handles a rare and deadly book of wallpaper samples.
• The demise of the secondhand bookshop in the UK.
• A bookstore operator denies raiding Little Free Libraries for stock. (Why does it not surprise me that this is happening?)
• The drop in emissions during COVID-19 will have "no effect" on the climate. (We've sown the wind for millennia, and I think we're now beginning to reap the whirlwind.)
• Julia Heaberlin's  pandemic master class with The Silence of the Lambs. 
• Counting down the greatest crime films of all-time: #2, The Maltese Falcon.
• The world of Robert B. Parker's Spenser and the birth of the 1970s private detective.
• Why do so many physicists write crime novels?
  

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• A rare Bronze Age sword and horse harness have been unearthed in Scotland.
• The site where Crusader King Richard the Lionheart defeated Saladin has been found. And more from the Smithsonian Magazine.
• Did the ancient Greeks design temples with accessibility in mind?
• Dog walkers found the remains of a World War II RAF fighter plane that lay buried on the beach for 76 years.
• A six-year-old boy discovered a rare Canaanite tablet.
• An ancient Roman mosaic floor has been unearthed beneath an Italian vineyard.
• Vintage maps from hot air balloons give a bird's eye view of nineteenth-century America.
• Walls made of ancient human leg bones have been found beneath a Belgian church.
  

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• How America became obsessed with horses.
• Max the police dog found a missing mother and her baby during his first shift on the force.  
• Seabird poop is worth more than $1 billion annually.
• Caesar the "no drama" therapy llama helped keep protesters and police calm in Portland.
• Video: A deaf ferret is surprised by a cascade of colorful pit balls following her down the stairs.
• Piper the rescued raccoon learns how to make beautiful handprint art.
• Video: Submersible robot spy monkey observes the spa grooming rituals of snow monkeys from underwater.
• A Colorado man attaches tiny hummingbird feeders to his glasses for a close-up view of the birds.
  

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Laura Lippman: "My imagination is really dark."
• The evolution of Dave Robicheaux and the incredible career of James Lee Burke.
• Why the U.S. sent librarians undercover to gather intelligence during World War II.
  

►The Happy Wanderer◄

• The Angel Oak on John's Island, South Carolina is one of the Southeast's oldest living oak trees.
• Will America's roadside attractions survive COVID-19?
• Ten American towns that feel like Europe. 
• I'm not sure I'd rent this or not: Anthénea, an autonomous floating luxury hotel pod.
• The world's last Blockbuster location is available to book on Airbnb for a 1990s movie marathon sleepover.
• Sigtuna Stora Gatan, Sweden's oldest street, has not changed for nearly a millennium.
  

►I ♥ Lists & Quizzes◄

• The best frenemies in fiction.
• "George Eliot" joins twenty-four female authors making debuts under their real names.
• Ten curious cases of getting lost in the wilderness.
• Twelve words with very different meanings in the U.S. and U.K.
• Raymond Chandler's 36 great unused titles: from The Man With the Shredded Ear to Quick, Hide the Body.
• Can you pick the number that completes the book title?
• Nineteen heist books that you won't be able to put down.
• Thirteen thrilling books like The Silent Patient.

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.

Stay Safe. Stay Healthy. And don't forget to curl up with a good book!