A Week to Recharge Weekly Link Round-Up

 

It's been a rather unremarkable week here-- something we all need from time to time. The weather has cooled off down into the 80s, which is my perfect range if I'm not able to sit in the pool and read. The City of Phoenix tree trimmers have finally made a long overdue appearance here, and they've got their hands full cutting all the tree limbs away from the power lines. 

 

Only one feral cat shows any interest in where I leave JR the raccoon his treats, but the feline has yet to make any attempt to try to get them for himself. I hope it stays that way. 

 

We had a nice long, soaking rain here last weekend, and I got to do something very rare: stretch out on the daybed with a good book to read and watch water fall from the sky.

 

Having received a little windfall in the mail recently, I'm torn. Takeaway? Hummingbird nectar? Or... treats for JR? I think JR might win this round, thanks to the windfall giver. 

 

Before I sign off to return to Bruno in the south of France, I'll leave you with another photo I took at the Desert Botanical Garden.

 

 

Have a great weekend, and enjoy the links!

 

 

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Collectors of book inscriptions share their notes.
• How Amazon accelerated the commodification of literature. (Now that's a mouthful...)
• Why some books forgo quotation marks. 
• The cloudy origins of the phrase "under the weather". 
• Translators and publishers reflect on what still needs to change. 
• Why the word tomato is pronounced differently by English speakers worldwide but the word potato is not. 
• Audiobooks: every minute counts. 
• Let's get rid of the blobby book cover. 

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) and Representative Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) have introduced a bill to support school libraries. More from Book Riot.
  
• Book banners insist they don't ban books. (Don't snort; it's not polite.)
• Lessons from a book controversy in Montgomery County, Texas.
• Katy (Texas) school trustees vote to remove students from the book review committee.
• See the formal challenges issued to pull thirteen books off Kent County (Michigan) library shelves.
• "It's not fair or transparent": parents are split over a Bedford County (Virginia) book policy.
• Wilkes County (North Carolina) School Superintendent Mark Byrd's ability to remove materials has been increased.
• Westfield (New Jersey) Library has taken a stance against book bans and passed a resolution.
• The Nixa (California) school district has restricted access to ten books, including Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye.

 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Did druids build Stonehenge?
• Ancient Maya cities were polluted with high levels of mercury.
• The ship that tried to warn the Titanic has been found.
• A skeleton found in a castle could be the key to cracking a 17th-century cold case.
• King Solomon's mines were abandoned and became a desert wasteland. Here's why.
• Chinese archaeologists have excavated a 1-million-year-old human skull.
• Ancient Americans made art deep within the dark zones of caves throughout the Southeast.
• A buried treasure of 44 Byzantine gold coins has been found in a nature reserve in Israel. More from Smithsonian Magazine. (I always wonder what happened to the owners to prevent them from coming back to collect their valuables. Do you?)

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• In a first, detailed video shows orcas hunting great white sharks in South Africa.
• Wax worm saliva is the unlikely hero of fighting plastic waste. (Mother Nature is just trying to help us save our home.)
• Sixteen breathtaking images from the Nature Conservancy's annual photo contest. 
• This cat makes biscuits while watching a baking video. 
• In 1932, Australia started an Emu War-- and lost. 
• The London Natural History Museum's best wildlife photos of 2022. 

 

►The Wanderer◄

• Eleven abandoned ghost towns in the U.S. that you can still visit.
• Ten secure places to wait out the Zombie Apocalypse.

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• The woman who inspired Miss Moneypenny and other heroic women spies of World War II.
• Emily Post's evolving legacy. 
• Megan Piphus Peace, the first Black woman puppeteer on Sesame Street. 
• Ada Límon, a Poet Laureate for the twenty-first century.
• Jeanne Villepreux-Power, the nineteenth-century French dressmaker who invented the aquarium.
• Vivekananda, the Indian guru who brought Eastern spirituality to the West.
• Nineteen-year-old Tristan Dare has forged a knife from a 4.5-billion-year-old meteorite. 
• The literary blood feud between Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald.

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Eight mysteries/thrillers by Asian authors.
• Twelve must-read 2022 books by Indigenous authors. 
• Barnes & Noble's Best Books of 2022. (Already?!?) 
• Bookish DIY kits to buy and make for holiday gifting. (Some of these are so cool!) 
• Five books on ancient Rome. 
• An unprecedented era of Native American noir. 
• Antiheroines to have a drink with. 
• Five magical realist novels with murder mysteries at their centers. 

 

 

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!