A Newcomer to Casa Kittling Weekly Link Round-Up

 

It's Wednesday, and Denis has been in the rehab facility since Sunday afternoon. The next day, they moved him to a different room, and we found out that it was because his first roomie was not fully vaccinated like Denis, so they moved him in with another fully vaccinated patient. He was happy about the move because his first roomie coughed all night and used a very loud oxygen concentrator. Not only that, now he's got the larger part of the room, and it has a window with a nice view out to trees and shrubs and tables and chairs. Understandably, he's wanting to go full steam ahead on physical therapy, but I think he's finally beginning to realize that this is going to be a slow process. 

 

In the mean time, I'm about to break my record on how fast I complete an afghan, and looking forward with a tiny bit of trepidation to Friday (the day this posts) and having a couple of people come in to help me with some of the cleaning and laundry. We had a marvelous young caregiver who decided to move back to Utah, and I'm certainly going to miss him. I just hope these new folks turn out to be "good fits," too.

 

I thought I'd share a photo of a newcomer to Casa Kittling. I discovered this baby cactus by one of the solar fountains while I was making the rounds filling all the birdbaths. It looks like a type of prickly pear, and I hope it decides to make its home here. 

 

 

The start of a beautiful relationship?

 

I hope you and yours are doing well and enjoying the summer. Enjoy the links!

 

 

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• People are raving about how much easier it is to read the "bionic reading" font.
• How Amazon surrendered its war on bookshops.
• Is StoryGraph a good alternative to Goodreads?
• First editions annotated by Le Carré, Mantel, and others are to be auctioned in support of English PEN.
• Kim Kelly on how to fix the working conditions in book publishing.
• How Agatha Christie's deep respect for science helped her novels stand the test of time.
• Bookish decor for your garden.
• The ever-shifting challenge of promoting literature in translation.
• The New York Public Library is giving 500,000 books away for free.
  

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• The Lafayette (Louisiana) library board has given itself the power to ban books.
• The Wisconsin GOP's search for "inappropriate" books in school districts. 
• C-6 parents may monitor their children's library activities next school year in Jefferson County, Missouri. 
• Roanoke County's (Virginia) school leaders consider policy changes for school libraries, discussing controversial topics. 
• LGBTQ+ related books were a hot topic in an Abilene (Texas) City Council meeting. 
• Freedom to Read advocates sound an alarm as an obscenity lawsuit advances in Virginia. 
• The Central Bucks County (Pennsylvania) School Board's proposed library book policy. 
• With this new policy, the Washington County (Utah) School Board hopes to close the latest chapter in the banned book saga. 
• How a book gets banned in America. 
• The rise in book bans, explained. 
• A fireproof copy of The Handmaid's Tale was auctioned for $130,000 to help fight book bans. 
• A candidate running for Massachusetts Secretary of State has a platform built on book censorship. 
• Moms for Liberty has created nightmares for schools across the country.
  

 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• A vase kept in an ordinary kitchen turned out to be a Qing-Dynasty artwork worth millions.
• Archaeologists have discovered passageways in a 3,000-year-old Peruvian temple.
• Stunned experts say prized warship, USS Monitor, sunk off the coast of North Carolina in 1862, is still in astounding shape. 
• Thousands of Andrew Wyeth paintings have never been seen by the public until now.
• Penis graffiti and an explicit insult carved into ancient stone "raises eyebrows" at a Roman fort in the UK.
• Hundreds of ancient Egyptian sarcophagi, cat mummies, and gold-leaf statues have been unearthed in Saqqara, near Cairo, Egypt. More from Smithsonian Magazine. (I know where Margot's going...)
• A construction crew stumbled upon the 1,400-year-old ruins of a Maya city.
• The underwater "Lost City of Zakhiku" has resurfaced 3,400 years later on the Tigris River.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• The Greatest Show on Earth is coming back-- without circus animals.
• Lovebirds use their beaks as a third limb while climbing. (I've watched the wild lovebirds here in Phoenix do this.)
• Watch Icelandic horses respond to work emails so visitors can disconnect and see the sights. 
• Scientists unravel the mystery of how elephants mourn their dead, thanks to Youtube. 
• Dolphins may use corals and sponges as skin care items. 
• Cumulina, the mouse that squeaked its way into scientific history. 
• U.S. customs agents find a rare moth last seen in 1912. 
• Lessons in courage from a water rescue dog named Al. 

 

►The Wanderer◄

• Which is colder: the North Pole or the South Pole?
• Kathmandu: Murder in the mountain kingdom.

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Li Shiu Tong, the gay Asian activist, whose theories on sexuality were decades ahead of their time.
• The lost poems of Wilma Mankiller. 
• David Maxwell, the archaeologist who collected 4,500 beer cans. 
• The last eccentrics of the English estate. 
• Secrets of the original Code Talkers. (Thinking World War II? Think again.)
• Bessie Jones, the woman who made Black traditions a vital part of music education. 
• One of my heroes, 96-year-old Sir David Attenborough, has been given a second knighthood. 
• Years before Stonewall, chef Lou Rand Hogan published the first gay cookbook. 

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• A list of feminist thrillers.
• Crime novels with a strong sense of place and inimitable atmosphere.
• Seven novels in which paradise is not what it seems.
• Seven cozy series from the Southeast coast.
• Fifteen thrillers that will keep you hooked to the page.
• We're living in a Golden Age of Australian crime and mystery television.
• Ten books about listening to nature.
• Eight riveting science fiction mysteries.
• Fifteen books that are basically unreadable.

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!