A Suck It Up Weekly Link Round-Up

 

To continue our conversation from last Friday, Denis and I have officially canceled our trip to Left Coast Crime in Albuquerque, but in the process of doing so, I learned something that chapped my hide. There are 382 rooms in the hotel where Left Coast Crime is being held. Less than 10% of those 382 rooms are ADA rooms. (I was told less than 1%, but I can't believe that a hotel that's used for conventions and the like would only have three ADA rooms. If I'm wrong, my hide is even more seriously chapped.) This disparity is common. There are hotels with no ADA rooms at all. Evidently, folks with some sort of disability are either considered to be too poor to travel or too much of a hassle to deal with and we should either suck it up and cope with a regular room or stay home.

I'll keep my thoughts to myself on that one. We now have our sights set on Left Coast Crime in Tucson in 2023... and we'd better be able to get a room!

Now I'll share something with you-- a quote that I aspire to.

 

Enjoy the links while I go off to add a new bookmark to my collection!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Bookselling during a pandemic: what fresh hell is this?
• When is it okay to let a bookstore die?
• Groups work to get books to incarcerated people.
• Why you can't resist Wordle. (Oh, but I can...) More on this from Smithsonian Magazine.
  
• The launch of a highly anticipated cookbook has been delayed because... all the copies probably sank.
• Book banning makes my blood boil. LGBTQ+ books have been quietly pulled from a Washington state middle school, and a mayor in Mississippi is withholding library funding until all LGBTQ books are removed from the system. (As mayor, he really should learn a bit more about the law...)
• And now for something completely different: how British Intelligence encouraged POWs to escape and gather intelligence.
• Why are online scams called "phishing"?

 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• The last Roman gladiator arena ever built has been unearthed in Switzerland.
• Climate change is threatening buried UK treasures.
• An "exquisite" wooden figurine dating back to early Roman Britain has been found in a ditch in England.
• An ancient toilet unearthed in Jerusalem proves that the upper classes weren't as elite as they thought.
• A well-preserved Visigoth sarcophagus has been found in a Roman villa in Spain.
• The underrated haute couture of Jacobean needlework. The artistry blows my mind.
• An ancient Roman trading settlement has been unearthed eighty miles from London.
• Archaeologists have found previously unknown structures among Machu Picchu's ruins.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• Air pollution makes it harder for insect pollinators to find flowers.
• Meet Methuselah, the oldest living aquarium fish. 
• Hippos unleash a poop tornado in response to stranger danger. Hey, it would keep me away...
• Seahorses aren't as committed as previously thought.
• The "mystery whale" spotted in Puget Sound is one of the world's longest.
• A pod of orcas freed a humpback whale from certain death. Was it intentional?
• A California city overrun with crows turn to lasers and a boombox to scare them away.
• Polar bears took over an abandoned island and moved into empty houses.

 

►The Wanderer◄

• Author Traci Hall on why Scotland is the coziest setting of all. 
• A massive "pristine" reef of rose-shaped corals were found unusually deep off the coast of Tahiti.
• You could own a possibly haunted castle visited by Mary, Queen of Scots.
• An historic New Mexico train ride promises unique adventures for travelers.
• The Gamble House looks to the future of historic house museums.

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Holocaust survivor Rose Girone spent her 110th birthday knitting-- the craft that was key to her survival.
• Twelve authors to follow on social media.
• Teen pilot Zara Rutherford became the youngest woman to fly around the world solo.
• Before jazz, ragtime gave America its first music stars.
• Anita Berber was too scandalous even for 1920s Berlin.
• For pilot Bessie Coleman, every "no" got her closer to "yes."
• Twelve writers share the stories behind their author photos.
• That one time Eleanor Roosevelt was a DJ.

 

►What? More End-of-Year Book Lists?◄

•  Suspense Magazine's Best of 2021.
• The Unseen Library's favorite Australian books of 2021.
• Live and Deadly's 2021 Books of the Year.

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Five blizzard thrillers that will speak to your snowbound soul. 
• Twenty of the most accurate Sci-Fi "predictions."
• Seven book-to-screen adaptations to watch in 2022.
• Eleven inspiring books from the activists of our time.
• Eight mysteries with swampy Southern settings.
• The twenty-five greatest Western films of all-time.
• 221 pieces of Sherlock Holmes history on view in New York City.
• A brief compendium of weird retro tubs.

 

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!