A Hallelujah Chorus of a Weekly Link Round-Up

 

All of you who have followed along with me this year know that 2022 has been a long, hard, and often painful, slog for Denis and me. It got so bad that I started having problems controlling my emotions in August and September. I think that's when we knew that getting out of the house and doing something "just for fun" was a priority, not only for the loosely-hinged me but for Denis as well.

 

When Denis made arrangements for transporting the two of us and our mobility vehicles to the Desert Botanical Garden, he asked me what I was going to do when we got there. I said I'd probably sit there for a minute or two and cry. I didn't, but I can't begin to tell you how many clouds and weights were lifted from my shoulders by being in that wonderful place for a few hours.

 

Last Saturday, it was all aboard another specially-equipped van, and Denis and I found ourselves wheeling into The Poisoned Pen Bookstore! Between Covid and Denis's health problems, it had been about three years since I'd entered one of my favorite places on earth. When owner Barbara Peters saw me, she came right over to sit and chat, and so did Stan Trollip (half the writing team of Michael Stanley) when he arrived. I was in heaven, and... my eyes did well up with tears, but that was all. Fortunately, my self-control hadn't completely abandoned me.

 

Last Saturday, I felt more like ME than I have for months. It feels good to make my acquaintance once again. 

 

Stan Trollip talking with Barbara Peters.

 

Of course, I indulged in a little shopping while I was in my favorite bookstore!

 

Enjoy the links!

 

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• How gruesome penny dreadfuls got Victorian children reading.
• Why footbinding persisted in China for a millennium.
• How to quickly fake a British accent.
• Allison Brook on cold cases and old secrets in cozy mysteries.
• Is Alexa making children rude? Scientists are studying the impact of voice-controlled devices.
• A group of authors has joined an advocacy group in penning an open letter to publishers, urging them to support libraries.
• In praise of physical books.
• A Bowdoin College Library exhibit showcases children's Spanish language books in an effort to highlight education efforts.
• Has the pandemic changed your personality? 
• Halloween cards, crafts, and paper goods for book lovers.
  

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• Canadian right-wing book banning groups don't know how school boards work.
• Jefferson County (Kentucky) Pubic Schools panel votes to keep Gender Queer on library shelves.  
• Katy (Texas) Independent School District now requires parental permission for secondary students to check out classroom library books.
• Controversy has sparked over Stamped being removed from a South Carolina school district.
  
• Dearborn (Michigan) book bans have drawn supporters and foes. 
• Did a Pennsylvania school district ban the Girls Who Code books? The answer is complicated. 
• "My books got banned in the U.S.-- and then they came for me."
  
• A group of angry library patrons in Llano, Texas, has gone to court over book removals. 
• A Maine school district has voted against the removal of one of the nation's most-challenged books. 

 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Who were the painters of Pompeii?
• Remnants of a nearly 2,000-year-old Hercules statue were unearthed in a Greek excavation.
• The sarcophagus of Ramses II's chief treasurer has been discovered at Saqqara.
• A 3,000-year-old dugout canoe has been recovered from a Wisconsin lake.
• DNA from skeletons has revealed a large migration to early medieval England.
• Archaeologists have found that artificial islands surrounding the British Isles were used for ancient parties.
• Clues found in caves suggest that drought may have brought down India's Mughal Empire.
• A 15th-century Baltic warship served as a "floating castle" by an intrepid king.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• Blake the rescue Rottweiler is winning hearts with his singing duet.
• Meet the "forest ninja bison" living in Grand Canyon National Park. (I've known about these bison for years, and I've always wanted to take the unpaved trails up at the North Rim to see them.) 
• A study shows that stress sniffing dogs can detect human distress with about 94% accuracy. (I could've told them that without spending money for a study...) 
• Coffee lover I most definitely am not, so this video made me laugh: watch this cat try to bury her human's coffee after smelling it. (The smell of coffee makes me ill, so I can commiserate!) 
• Three baby chimpanzees were kidnapped and held for ransom in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 
• Oklahoma doctor Joren Whitley provides chiropractic care to all types of wild and domestic animals. 
• How to dive with octopuses from 5,000 miles away. 
• Australia to allocate 30% of its land mass for the protection of endangered species. 

 

►The Wanderer◄

• On a Wish I Could Go note: Whistler's "Peacock Room" is now open after weeks of restoration.
• How to clear a path through sixty feet of snow, Japanese style.
• Reddit user "Mr. Griff" found an entire house in his attic.
• It's About Time: Hundreds of Federal  sites officially drop a racial slur from their names.
• After seventy years, a rare collection of 1940s art returns to Zimbabwe.
• Twelve McDonald's locations that went rogue. (Now I have this image of Chicken McNuggets going rogue...)
• The tsunami from the dinosaur-killing asteroid had waves a mile high and reached halfway across the world. (I'm glad I missed it.)
• Author M.L. Longworth's inspirational place: Aix-en-Provence.

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• On the meteoric rise of "Aunt Elsie", beloved newswoman and children's columnist.
• Bright young bookseller Sören Schuhmacher. 
• The Wright Brothers: babysitters extraordinaire. 
• Where art thou, contemporary Southern women writers? 
• The complicated life of Leo Marks. 
• On crime writer Alice Campbell. 
• Denise Mina: "All my reading is comfort reading." 
• John Canoe, the Gold Coast king who fought the might of Europe's slave traders. 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• A reading list of ballet books.
• A list of psychological thrillers with gobsmacking twists.
• Nature memoirs.
• The best senior detectives in classic crime.
• Ten ways King Tut influenced pop culture.
• The 35 greatest Western films of all time.
• Five favorite Christmas-themed mysteries.
• A compilation of Robin Williams interviews.

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!