A Looking Ahead Weekly Link Round-Up

 

This has been a week of looking ahead. I've got Thanksgiving dinner for Denis and me lined up. I'm looking forward to having our shower redone in the main bathroom next month. (2021 has been Bathroom Year here at Casa Kittling!) I'm wanting to do something different with the Christmas decorations I put up, so I've been putting my mind's eye in overdrive and taking lots of notes.

But I've also been thinking of how very blessed I've been. Sure, I've had some trials and downright tragedies to weather, but name me one person who hasn't. The trick is not to forget those things, but to keep them in my rearview mirror. Keep my life in perspective. If I can do that, and so far I've been fortunate in that I have, it's easier to see the Good Stuff. And, oh, I have so much Good Stuff in my life!

 

 

Before I sign off and pick up my latest craft project, I just want to say thank you to all of you (or as they say Down South, all y'all) for being an important part of the Good Stuff in my life.

 

Enjoy the links!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Powell's Books survived Amazon. Can it reinvent itself after the pandemic?
• Hollywood loves books.
• A war on books? Conservatives push for audits of school libraries. Why not? It's not like this country has important problems to solve...
• How "Truth" became a controversial subject in classrooms.
• Saved by #BookTok: one author's perspective on selling books through social media.
• Why shouldn't children's writers talk of refugees, persecution, and genocide?
• Dune: science fiction's answer to Lord of the Rings.
• Goodreads and the curious case of the wrong genres.
• France moves to shield its book industry from Amazon.
• The "dating apps" of Victorian England.
• "Is it supposed to hurt like that?" Guys try a menstrual cramp simulator and can't take it. Yes, I'm sitting here with a smirk on my face.

 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• A rare 520-year-old coin was found at the site of the first English settlement in Newfoundland.
• Well-preserved Tudor wall paintings have been discovered behind plaster in a medieval manor in England. (Imagine my surprise and delight when I read that this fabulous find was in Calverley Old Hall in Yorkshire. Why? Well, I've written about visiting an ancestral pile in Bradford, Bolling Hall, which is now a museum. The same branch of the family tree also owned... you guessed it... Calverley Old Hall.
• Archaeologists have solved the mystery of the bowling alley under Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire.
• Stone Age textiles reveal the history of clothes making.
• A metal detectorist has uncovered the largest Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard ever discovered in England.
• Marie Antoinette's diamond bracelets fetched $8.3 million at auction.
• A property developer in Brighton, England, discovered a secret passageway behind a bookshelf in a 500-year-old house.
• Life-size camel sculptures in Saudi Arabia are older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids of Giza.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• Dogs in the trenches of World War I.
• You can't hide from your cat, so don't even try.
• Meet the opossum, nature's friendly sanitation worker.
• A new genetic tool is saving Queen Elizabeth II's favorite horse breed from extinction.
• Herds of hungry goats are helping the U.S. fight wildfires.
• Watch this clever lovebird separate trash from coins.
• Could we chat with whales?
• A mystery in Los Angeles: the mourning doves stopped singing. What happened to them?

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• The real Betty Crocker may never have existed, but she still became a symbol for American women.
• An ode to Ann Rule, the original queen of true crime.
• Rachel Howzell Hall writes longhand, loves office supplies, and has a story about a lost manuscript.
• The true story of Pearl Hart, straight-shooting, poetry-writing woman bandit.
• 105-year-old Julia "Hurricane" Hawkins just set a new track and field record.
• Doll maker Amy Jandrisevits gives every child a custom, handmade doll that looks exactly like them.
• Indigenous chef Crystal Wahpepah is putting her heritage on the menu in a landmark restaurant.

 

►The Wanderer◄

• Before Oxford's library was the finest institutional library in Europe, it was... kind of a dump.
• A car parked for 47 years in the same spot on a street in Conegliano, Italy, has become a monument.
• The Ogilvie-Wiener Mansion, a 125-year-old Victorian mansion in Shreveport, Louisiana, has lived many lives.
• The crime novels of Frankfurt, Germany.

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Eleven Viking hygiene facts that changed our perception of their lifestyle.
• Ten books with characters who feel like family at the end.
• Eleven books about female friendships.
• The top ten Agatha Christie books according to Agatha Christie.
• The most influential Sci-Fi books of all time.
• Five mysteries set at carnivals and fairs.
• Appreciating the leisure activities of fiction's greatest sleuths.
• Eight of the most controversial books ever.
• Five books about haunting, unsolved mysteries.
• Authors choose their favorite overlooked Black writers.

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!