The Revolving Door Weekly Link Round-Up

It's been an exhausting week here at Casa Kittling. We're still fighting to get Denis's pain medications sorted out, and seeing someone I love so dearly in such terrible pain hurts in a way I cannot describe. 

It seems as though we've gone from being hermits to being the hottest ticket in town. Infusion nurses, physical therapists, thrice-weekly drug deliveries, phones ringing. Wheelchair rental. Wheelchair transport to doctor appointments. Grocery deliveries. Other essential deliveries. Attempts to speed up getting the home help that we need. Being at the beck and call of the antibiotics schedules, and getting very little sleep. It's all going to be worth it to get Denis back to his normal ornery self. One evening he actually smiled and joked and his eyes weren't filled with pain. Just seeing that made my eyes fill with tears.

Pardon me. I'm just tired.

And while all this is going on, it's spring, glorious spring. The windows and doors are open, the house smells like blooming things and is filled with birdsong. Amidst all the hubbub, there is beauty.

A very few of my Tombstone roses in bloom right now.

Enjoy the links!

 ►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• What is a literary salon?
• Is Goodreads a good thing?
• The sadness of disliking books everyone else loves.
• People are sharing heartwarming stories of libraries being safe spaces.
• Edith Wharton on how to write a vivid first line.
• These unread books have a long shelf life-- as decor.
• This library in Colombia goes beyond books to keep stories alive.
• Our libraries can't save us.
• A brain-computer interface helps a patient with locked-in syndrome communicate. (Locked-in syndrome has been featured in more than one crime fiction novel.)
  

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• Dr. Seuss made more money than ever before after pulling racist books. Here's how CEO Susan Brandt did it.
• The hero syndrome in book banning efforts.
• A Texas superintendent tells librarians to pull books on sexuality and transgender people.
• An American Library Association poll finds that the public broadly opposes book banning efforts.
• There's a horrifying censorship story unfolding in Anchorage, Alaska.
• Banning The Grapes of Wrath in 1939 California.
• The librarians uniting to battle school book ban laws.
• Texas is going after LGBTQ library books and Pride Week.

 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• An unexploded Civil War shell was unearthed in Georgia.
• The book collection of bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank headed to auction. I loved the photo of her home library.
• An ancient sacred pool lined with temples and altars has been discovered on a Sicilian island.
• With a stolen fragment restored, this stunning 17th-century tapestry is made whole.
• A Roman coin minted as a salute to Julius Caesar's assassination is up for auction.
• Yorkshire's "Atlantis" may finally be revealed.
• A 19th-century whaling shipwreck has been identified in the Gulf of Mexico.
• Medieval pilgrims apparently tried to ward off the plague with bawdy badges.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly Mae Clampett◄

• Scientists are using sex pheromones to lure in murder hornets.
• Mining lithium for electric vehicle batteries may threaten flamingos.
• Why aren't there more dogs at the doctor's office?
• The longest fence in the world stretches over 3,000 miles to keep the dingoes out.
• A whale of a tale about a science breakthrough ignored for decades.
• Utah captures and collars the first wolverine in state history.
• Emu dads raise the young-- which may not even be their offspring.
• Orangutans' vocabularies are shaped by socializing with others, just like humans.

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Angeles Rodriguez Hidalgo, the rocker granny of Madrid.
• Jennifer Williams, the "Book Lady" who's determined to donate one million books to children in the state of Virginia.
• Annie Londonderry barely knew how to ride a bike when she set off around the world.
• Mackenzie Scott just made the largest single donation in Planned Parenthood history. This woman knows how to spend a divorce settlement, bless her.
• The many afterlives of Rose Levere.
• Rediscovering Rome's female merchants.
• Dolly Parton will star in the Run, Rose, Run movie adaptation.
• The real-life film actors who inspired iconic Disney cartoon characters.
• Preston and Child: the most productive writing team in fiction.
  

 

►The Wanderer◄

• Is tourism bad for us?
• An under-ice crater shows that a massive asteroid hit Greenland when it was a lush rainforest.
• In Thailand, the pandemic helped a famous beach recover from an onslaught of tourists.
• Rome's new cooking museum invites visitors to feast with their eyes.
• La Plaza Cocina, a new museum in California, celebrates the rich history of Mexican cuisine.
• The U.S. will rename 660 mountains, rivers, and more, to remove a racist word.
• Inside Portugal's extravagant Art Deco McDonald's.
• Our universe may have a twin that runs backward in time.
  

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Books that smash the patriarchy.
• 26 of the best audiobooks for road trips.
• Ten must-read alternate history thrillers.
• Fourteen mysteries that will whisk you away to somewhere new.
• The 25 most influential horror novels of all time.
• Six legends that manifest fears of powerful women.
• Ten empowering non-fiction must-reads for Women's History Month.
• The best movie couples in romantic comedy history, ranked.

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!