The Circus Has Left the Town Weekly Link Round-Up

 

This week brought something Denis and I both needed. Badly. Some serenity. Some time to recharge. Since Denis was discharged from the hospital, this place has resembled a three-ring circus with one healthcare professional after another coming in and out. And in and out. And in and out. It was exhausting for us both, but we knew it was necessary in order to get everything Denis needed in order.

With no circus in town, the two of us have been able to relax and catch up on some badly needed sleep, and although he has yet to race me up and down the driveway on his scooter, Denis is getting up and moving around a lot more. Things should improve even more today when he finally gets the correct dosage of his pain medication-- something that has taken entirely too long.

It's been so good to see him getting around the house that I'm almost ready to challenge him to that race.

Enjoy the links!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Exploring automated library vending machines.
• To club or not to club? The benefits of reading alone.
• The mysterious origins of the phrase "the whole nine yards."
• See beloved author Beatrix Potter's magical drawings from nature as they go on view in London.
• An author's search history, or: How to look like a murder suspect without even trying.
• Mr. Darcy's white shirt from the lake scene stars in a Jane Austen exhibition.
• The New York Public Library ends late fees, and the treasures roll in.
• Indigenous authors are held to higher standards.
• A century before Wordle went viral, crossword mania swept the country.

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• A new PEN America study shows Texas leading among twenty-six states with book bans.
• Williamson County, Tennessee schools have locked students out of digital resources.
• Book banning makes for bad parenting.
• Unite Against Book Bans is a national initiative to empower readers everywhere to stand together in the fight against censorship.
  

 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Researchers have found potential evidence of the oldest-known mummification.
• A French farmer found a rare coin that features Charlemagne just before his death.
• Scotland's "bodies in the bog" traveled hundreds of miles to die in a toilet. (Well, when you've got to go, you've got to go...)
• An 800-year-old wax seal found by a ten-year-old boy was sold for $5,000.
• Charles Darwin's notebooks, which have been missing for twenty years, have been returned to the library.
• Why did the Vikings abandon their most successful settlement in Greenland?
• In 1980, an earthquake destroyed an Italian town-- and revealed another.
• A mechanic found hundreds of canvases thrown into a dumpster and now they're worth millions. More on this from Smithsonian Magazine.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• Dexter the homesick dog escaped doggy daycare but was found safe on his front porch thanks to a doorbell camera.
• Watch a confused cat try to stay on a treadmill after its human switches it on.
• A rescued baby rhino and a rescued baby zebra have formed a very caring bond with one another.
• This dog knows forty commands and can play cards. A hospital hired him.
• Watch a pit bull teach a baby raccoon how to survive in the wild.
• Watch a puppy give a small possum a ride before the dog's owner sets the possum free.
• A wind energy company has pleaded guilty after killing at least 150 eagles.
• The science behind those big ol' puppy-dog eyes.
• Ecuador's High Court has ruled that wild animals have legal rights.

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Refrigerators and women's empowerment: the "peaceful revolution" of rural electrification.
• Pullman women at work: from Gilded Age to Atomic Age.
• Mary Lumpkin, the enslaved woman who liberated a slave jail and transformed it into an HBCU.
• Edgar Allan Poe, the surprising gothic father of modern detective fiction.
• The packhorse librarians: the women who rode miles on horseback to deliver library books.
• Joseph Mikulec, the man who walked around the world, collecting autographs of the rich and famous.
• Naomi Weisstein, the feminist psychologist-turned-rock-star led a full life of resistance.
• New artifacts document the soaring popularity of Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

 

►The Wanderer◄

• Down the rabbit hole into a Parisian Wonderland.
• What the world's most remote islands were like before humans arrived.
• This may be the quietest spot in the United States.
• Faroe Islands: the most remote outpost of Scandi Noir.
• Twelve mesmerizing places to watch flowers bloom.
• How an L.A. bookshop became the house bar of a literary golden age.
• The National Park Service has added sixteen new Underground Railroad sites to its commemorative network.
• The fisherman's cottage overlooking a Cornish harbor which was used as Doc Martin's surgery in the ITV show has gone on the market for $1.7 million.

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Six epic female warriors you don't want to mess with.
• Blood ties can be bloody: crime novels about a killer in the family.
• Twelve non-fiction books about brave women who defied the odds.
• Seven novels set in Italy.
• Eight historical novels with gardens you'll envy.
• Eight thrillers set in eerie apartment buildings.
• Seven great rural crime films.
• The twelve most unforgettable descriptions of food in literature.

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!