I've been so busy putting the finishing touches on the guest bath, going out to Butterfly Wonderland, and then posting B&B photos (butterfly & bathroom) photos on Facebook that I completely forgot that I hadn't put the finishing touches on this round-up. Yikes! So I'll just give you a taste of the lovelies Denis and I saw Wednesday and get this sent into the ether.
Have a great weekend, and enjoy the links!
►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄
- What Kim Beil learned while cataloguing an entire library of nineteenth-century schoolbooks.
- Author Anne Emery on when reality is too strange to make it into your novel.
- The reason why all your favorite '60s cartoon characters have collars.
- Why every generation re-discovers Stephen King.
- How Vincent van Gogh's favorite works of French literature influenced his art and identity.
- Your pupils can count...sort of.
- How David Foster Wallace anticipated Netflix's digital gatekeeping.
- Why mysteries involving quilts and cats are big business.
- How crime stories foiled reform in Victorian Britain.
- Is Amazon changing the novel?
►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄
- A 1,200-year-old canoe has been found in a Wisconsin lake.
- Indonesian divers discover treasures from the enigmatic "Island of Gold."
- The ancient tomb of an official of Pharaoh Rameses II has been found in Saqqara.
- A well-preserved Maya canoe found in Mexico may be 1,000 years old. (This must be Canoe Week...)
- Ancient child sacrifice victims have been unearthed in Peru.
- A mummy discovered in a vast burial ground of Egypt's pharaohs could change how ancient history is understood.
- New secrets of the Black Prince's tomb have been revealed.
- Three nineteenth-century shipwrecks discovered in Lake Superior.
►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄
- Two amazing dogs worked together to save their owner who had collapsed.
- Big whales eat three times as much as originally thought, which means killing them for food and blubber is even more harmful to the environment.
- A yellow lab named Korey lets his owner know whenever her blood sugar is too low.
- Why do dogs tilt their heads?
- Mother Nature is working to save her children: A study has found that California Condors can have "virgin births."
- Scientists say that the rapid evolution of tuskless elephants is due to the ivory trade. I say it's another example of Mother Nature working to save her children.
- Watch this border collie wait for the ice cream truck to get a free cone from the driver.
- These singing lemurs are the only other mammal species to possess rhythm.
►Craftsmanship & Artistry◄
- Discover how artist Kelly Church is ensuring that centuries of Indigenous traditions are preserved for future generations with her beautifully woven basketry.
►Fascinating Folk◄
- Ben and Stella Dickson: from outlaws to folk heroes.
- How a group of women defied expectations to form a National Football League.
- Locusta of Gaul: Rome's imperial poisoner and possibly the world's first serial killer.
- Stanley Tucci is savoring it all.
- Wolf Cukier, a teen interning at NASA, discovered a new planet on his third day on the job.
- A brief compendium of historical Karens.
- Texas lawmaker Matt Krause is targeting 850 books he says could make students feel uneasy. The more things change...
- Oliver Chase, the pharmacist who launched America's modern candy industry.
►The Wanderer◄
- Germany's love affair with crime fiction.
- Harare, Zimbabwe: writing crime fiction in a tough town.
- Live like the Darcy's in the $6.8 million English estate featured in Pride and Prejudice.
- Dine at the Caverns Grotto in Peach Springs, Arizona. You could also pick up a permit to take the only drivable trail down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon in Peach Springs...
- An Italian villa with a ceiling mural by Caravaggio may fetch $547 million at auction.
►I ♥ Lists◄
- Twenty words Merriam-Webster is adding to the dictionary in 2021.
- Sixteen of the best historical mysteries.
- The most anticipated mysteries and thrillers of 2022.
- Crime fiction that challenges the notions of inherent female goodness.
- Ten British mystery series to curl up with.
- Eight modern Gothic mysteries.
- What ten classic pop culture cars would cost in real life.
- Eight of the most controversial books ever.
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.
It's weird, isn't it, how the week gets away from you. I love that photograph, Cathy - hope you'll post more! In the meantime, that pharaoh's tomb is calling me (but you figured that, didn't you?)!
ReplyDeleteYes, I did deduce that. ;-)
DeleteDon't worry-- I'll be posting more photos from Butterfly Wonderland.
The mysteries are calling to me. :)
ReplyDeleteThey call to me, too. :-)
DeleteI haven't made it past your first section of links yet, but a couple of thoughts are pushing me to comment already. The articles on Netflix and Amazon are similar in the way that they punch wholes in the concept that we are more in charge of our own reading and viewing choices than ever before. In a way, I guess it could be argued that we are...but we only see the choices tailored to our past behavior because those companies use such finely tuned personal data on us to offer us what we are most likely to buy or consume. I always wonder what I'm missing because of that and spend a lot of time doing random searches just to see what pops up. Or I sign in as my wife to see what the services recommend for her, and have found some really interesting stuff that way. It's a brave new world for sure, and I'm not sure I much like it yet.
ReplyDeleteAs for Stephen King being discovered by successive generations, etc. I wonder if he is not also pretty much abandoned as the generations age. That's been my experience with him anyway; I don't think that I would have ever taken to him at all, even though I read about 20 of his titles when I was younger, if I had only discovered him say at 50 or 60 years of age...definitely not now that I'm in my 70s.
Back to the links...
I agree with your thoughts on Amazon and Netflix, Sam. Sometimes all their algorithms make me feel like a steer being guided through the chute and on into the slaughterhouse. I don't want to be force fed things that a shadowy someone else has decided that I need. I'm contrary that way.
DeleteAs for Stephen King, I was a fan when I picked up Carrie and 'Salem's Lot, stopped reading him somewhere around The Tommyknockers and I've started reading him again with Mr. Mercedes. I don't read everything he writes, but I do enjoy him now and again, and I'm in my mid-sixties.
As I look out my window today, snow is falling. That butterfly was a welcome sight!
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the articles about Netflix and Amazon, I needed something lighter. I loved that video of the Border Collie waiting for his ice cream cone. You can't not smile when watching that 🙂.
Enjoy your weekend, Cathy!
That Border Collie made me smile, too. Have a great weekend, Gretchen!
DeleteWhat a beautiful butterfly! And heading back to read the piece about lemurs, with rhythm!!
ReplyDeleteI love lemurs, so that article jumped out at me!
DeleteWell, on the mystery of why women's backs are shown on book covers. Catriona McPherson at the PP said that she thinks of this as, "where is she off to now?" She said that holding up some books with that particular design.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the links. It puzzles me why books are controversial, and now many of the best books being banned. Some are now even being burned. Is this the premonition of 1930s Germany?
I mean book burning? Astounding. And that Beloved, by Toni Morrison, is one of the targeted books, is a crime. She won the Pulitzer Prizer for that novel after a campaign by Black academics and writers. That book is in my top 10, and it is an incredibly written and told story of a historical reality.
If children don't learn the real history of this country, what fuzz will be in their minds? Facts, reality, science, and fiction that portrays historical reality so so important.
I consider The Grapes of Wrath and Beloved two books that should be required reading. They and other "contraversial books make people learn and think. Book banning and burning? Terrible.
That is "controversial." Late at night typing.
ReplyDeleteI will never understand people who want everyone to conform to a very narrow and misinformed view of the world. There's so much out there to understand, and it should never be considered "scary" and "wrong."
ReplyDelete