A Good-bye Alex Weekly Link Round-Up

 

A day's euphoria and then an expected, yet dreaded, loss. Gameshow host Alex Trebek became a part of the warp and weft of my life long ago. VCRs meant that I no longer had to miss an episode of Jeopardy. There was something about the timbre, the cadence of Alex Trebek's voice that told my brain that all was right with the world. I will miss him.

Now it's time to mosey out to the link corral. I'll take Rawhide for $1200, Alex. Head 'em up. Moooove 'em out...

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Bookshops are a precious shelter from the storms of life according to The Guardian.
• Solitude, sunshine, and sanctuary in The Secret Garden.
• What children can teach us about how to read.
• The global history of the bandana.
• Santa is skipping Macy's for the first time in 159 years.
• Why indigenous crime fiction matters.
• In search of America's rarest unknown books by renowned writers.
• How redlining made city neighborhoods hotter.
• What raising the age of sexual consent taught women about the vote. 
• Are Little Free Libraries helping locals survive COVID?
  

 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Researchers have found the remnants of the jousting field where Henry VIII almost died. And Smithsonian Magazine talks about why Henry VIII orchestrated every detail of Anne Boleyn's execution.
  
• Watch as 200 years of varnish is wiped away from a 17th-century oil painting. Fascinating!
• Why did ancient Egyptian scribes use lead-based ink?
• A shipwrecked Nazi steamer may hold clues to the Amber Room's fate.
• Decomposing bodies in the 1720s gave birth to the first vampire panic.
• A 2,000-year-old Nazca Line featuring a lounging cat has been found in Peru.
• Restorers have uncovered new details in a Michelangelo Pieta.
• Drone imaging has revealed a pre-Hispanic "great settlement" beneath a ranch in Kansas.
• Traces of a 2,000-year-old Roman roundhouse have been found in northern England.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• Colorado votes to reintroduce wolves to the southern Rocky Mountains.
• A Delaware-sized iceberg could decimate wildlife on South Georgia Island.
• A mind boggler: A video which shows mountain goats climbing the near-vertical wall of a dam in Italy.
• A UPS driver is sharing cute photos and funny stories about dogs who visit him on his rural Oregon route.
• Denmark plans to kill 15 million mink to prevent the spread of mutated Coronavirus on fur farms.
• Hilarious: a video which shows a baby raccoon efficiently herding goats.
• Twenty extraordinary wild animal photos, winners of the International Siena Awards.
• "It's brought joy": A Georgia food writer has opened a porch restaurant for a chipmunk.

 

►Crafty Little Gems◄

• Atelier Soo tops her cakes with perfectly piped bouquets of realistic buttercream flowers. (Too beautiful to eat!) 

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Ann Cleeves: Stories have always been healing, so I'm funding bibliotherapists.
  

 

►I ♥ Lists & Quizzes◄

• Five country estates that defined Russia's best writers.
• Can you pick which person doesn't belong in these literary families?
• The wide world of Jeopardy! contestant authors.
• Eleven mystery and thriller novels by African writers you should add to your reading list.
• Fans vote in the thousands to name Sherlock Holmes as Britain's favorite detective.
• Dream jobs for book lovers. from book butler to elephant librarian.
• The lure of the boarding school mystery.
• Ten books about loneliness.
• Ten books about new beginnings.
• The complicated case of medieval crime fiction.

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!