A Holiday Hugs Weekly Link Round-Up

 

 

This is the perfect time of year for hugs, regardless of what you're celebrating (or not, as the case may be), and I wish I could give all y'all a big one for coming through yet another interesting year.

 

The past couple of weeks, I've found myself focusing more and more on 2022. I've already mentioned obtaining tickets for a Ladysmith Black Mambazo concert in February. Now I've also got my hands on tickets to the World Championship Hoop Dance Contest at the Heard Museum, which is also in February. Add that to Left Coast Crime that Denis and I are planning to attend in April, and it's obvious that I'm working toward feeling more a part of the human race again instead of being a hermit. (Denis, too!) It goes without saying that I sincerely hope all of you have a dazzling 2022; we certainly all deserve it, don't we?

Enjoy the links!

 

 

 

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• An author shares what it's like to have your book banned by the school board.
• Native rights are human rights.
• World War II stories and the proliferation of historical fiction.
• The joy of writing by hand.
• The publishing world is finally embracing Black cookbooks.
• How creative non-fiction became a serious, legitimate genre.
• Self-soothe with this video of a 120-year-old book of fairy tales being restored.
• A South Florida group has started a "Books in Barbershops" campaign to promote literacy.
• Crowdfunding offers the UK's independent booksellers a pandemic lifeline.

 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Archaeologists have discovered the oldest domesticated dog remains in the Americas.
• Researchers have unearthed a 2,000-year-old synagogue in Mary Magdalene's supposed hometown.
• France has approved a controversial plan to renovate Notre-Dame Cathedral.
• How a village united to save Cinque Terre's ancient terraces.
• A gold unicorn ring lost for nearly four hundred years has sold for $27,000.
• Experts have cracked the secret to the last letter written by Mary, Queen of Scots before her execution.
• A New York antiquities collector has returned 180 stolen artifacts worth $70 million.
• A piece of embroidery stitched by Mary, Queen of Scots will come up for auction.
• Rare gowns found in trunks unpack important fashion history.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• A newfound millipede breaks the world record for most legs.
• A Connecticut police dog named Izzy found a missing 10-year-old girl and helped bring her home safely.
• Zookeepers share their favorite "behind the scenes" photos.
• Lily the service dog helps her disabled human and her deaf sibling every day.
• A real-life Moby Dick has been spotted off the coast of Jamaica.
• Watch a baby elephant try to make friends with a dog.
• A rare look inside the nests of declining prairie songbirds.
• Outdoor pet cats are spreading a brain parasite to wildlife and humans. (They're called HOUSE cats for a reason, folks. They need to stay INSIDE your house.)

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Nathan Shipley uses AI to recreate how famous historical figures would look like in real life.
• Doña Viviana created a candle empire from her ancestral village in Mexico.
• Ethel Lina White, the Abergavenny writer who inspired Alfred Hitchcock.
• Marthe Hanau, the greatest confidence artist in French history.
• How Dolly Parton became the world's best-loved celebrity.
• S.A. Cosby on the conversation around policing in America-- and why it needs to change.
• Tichkematse, the first Native American employee at the Smithsonian.
• The measureless, omnipresent influence of Stephen Sondheim. 
• Luigi Galvani, the Italian electrical scientist who (may have) inspired Frankenstein.
  

 

►The Wanderer◄

• A visit to Rüstem's Bookshop, Cyprus's historic bookstore-café.
• Point Nemo, a spacecraft cemetery that's two miles under the Pacific Ocean.
• Pemberley, Manderley, and Howards End: the real buildings behind fictional houses.
• Ominous beach settings in fiction.
• A behind-the-scenes look at the new Museum of the American Latino.
• Tasmania: crime writing at the bottom of the world.
• Mary Shelley's former London apartment is for sale.
• Mail arrives weekly in Hells Canyon.

 

►More Best of 2021 Book Lists◄

• CrimeReads' Best International Crime Novels of 2021.
• CrimeReads' Best Historical Fiction of 2021.
• The New Yorker: The Best Books We Read in 2021.
• The Wall Street Journal: The Best Mysteries of 2021.
• Kirkus Reviews: The Best Mysteries and Thrillers of 2021.
• AudioFile's Best Audiobooks of 2021.

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• The ten topics everyone was googling in 2021.
• Six toy crazes that erupted in violence. (Oh, have I got a Tickle Me Elmo story!)
• The best festive revels in literature.
• Cozy crime, cookbooks, and a surprise hit: what Guardian readers have really read in the pandemic.
• A comparison of the ten tallest skyscrapers in the world.
• Fifty notable African books of 2021.
• Books in which cozy protagonists are on the move.
• Three banned Saudi novels everyone should read.
• Forty-four writers on their favorite books to give as presents.

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.

Happy Holiday Hugs for You All!