A Hello Wind Good-bye Carport Weekly Link Round-Up

 

Another storm came roaring through last week on the day I had a doctor's appointment. I'm thrilled for the snow/water this parched land is receiving, but I have to admit that I am looking forward to temperatures staying in the 70s for more than a day at a time here and there.

But imagine my surprise when I opened the carport door on appointment day to discover that the storm that came roaring through had ripped the carport off the side of Casa Kittling and tried to deposit its ill-gotten gains on the neighbors' property!

 

It's easy to see where the carport used to be attached to the side of the house.

 

There went my shady spot for needlepoint and audiobook listening!

Naturally, this meant calls to the insurance company as well as the cable company to send a tech out to repair the line that was almost ripped off the house, too. Goodness! We could've been without internet or TV streaming-- a thought I want to shove right back out of my mind... So far, the one thing we intentionally lost was the telephone line coming into the house. We haven't had a landline for years.

Enjoy the links!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Five takes on a reading journal.
• The risks and rewards of giving annotated books as gifts.
• BookTok is good, actually: On the undersung joys of a vast and multifarious platform.
• The best cookbook to come out of the 1980s.
• Vermont State University gets rid of its physical library for digital-only, despite protests.
• Reading to slow down, rest, and reset.
• Want a better view of the screen? AMC is now charging moviegoers for preferred seats.
• Audiobook narrators fear Apple used their voices to train AI.
• Roald Dahl books are being sanitized in new editions.
  

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• Here's a librarian's frontline view of Florida's "vetting" process for school books and the titles being banned.
• A plan to digitize mail at New York City's Rikers Island Prison would affect books, too. 
• Politics and school libraries: What shapes students' access to controversial content.
• This PEN America lists highlights banned picture books for young readers.
• Brandywine (Indiana) School Board votes to halt new inventory of books.
• In Iowa, the GOP is structuring book hearings so only parents in favor of bans are heard. How nice of them.
• Marathon County (Wisconsin) supervisors violated First Amendment protections in their library fight.
• Is being "uncomfortable" enough to pull a book?
• Most of the 150 challenged books in Indian River County (California) remain on the shelves-- literally.
• The campaign to sabotage Texas's public schools.
• Only four Flagler (Florida) students have restricted access to books. Is the opt-out policy working?
• As book bans and legislative attacks escalate, the New Press pushes back.
• Oklahoma is one step closer to implementing a state-wide book rating system.

 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Archaeologists have unearthed the oldest known gold-covered mummy in Egypt.
• A stockpile of 2,000-year-old gemstones were found in a Roman bathhouse drain. I wonder if, 2,000 years ago, someone put them in a safe place?
• An elaborate underground embalming workshop has been discovered at Saqqara.
• The battle site of the "Great Revolt" recorded on the Rosetta Stone has been unearthed in Egypt.
• A metal detectorist in Belgium found a mysterious Roman object possibly used for magic.
• The ruins of a 600-year-old convent in Spain hid a much older secret-- a three-toed footprint.
• A mysterious Cézanne portrait was hiding under the layers of a still life.
• The shipwreck of a 500-year-old floating castle is found to contain a "thrilling haul".

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• A surprising study has found that many orca males are burnouts who let their mothers do all the hunting.
• A "drop-dead gorgeous" new snake in South America has been named after Leonardo DiCaprio's mother.
• Guinness has confirmed that the teeny rodent Sir Patrick Stewart sets the world's record as the oldest mouse in human care.
• Flaco, a Eurasian eagle-owl, escaped the Central Park Zoo in New York City and has become a celebrity.
• A grim new report shows that more than a third of U.S. wildlife is at risk of extinction.
• Giraffe sex is even weirder than we thought. (Well...some of us anyway. I've never given much thought to giraffe sex.)
• Watch this sheep herd a border collie across the farm yard.
• Why buying "bird friendly cocoa" is a sweet deal.
• An Icelandic town goes all out to save baby puffins.

 

►The Wanderer◄

• Turnpike Noir, because who wouldn't want to wander New Jersey's turnpikes?
• Unique traditional ice cream flavors around the world.
• These books will transport you to New Orleans.
• See the photos that won National Geographic's Pictures of the Year contest.
• The Scottish Dark Sky Town of Moffat decided to go even darker.
• Hundreds of people showed up to the grand opening of Octavia's Bookshelf.
• Genetically modified trees are taking root to capture carbon.

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Ellen Byron, the accidental culinary cozy author.
• Hans and Sophie Scholl were once Hitler Youth leaders. Why did they decide to stand up to the Nazis?
• That time Eleanor Roosevelt disappeared for ten days.
• How high school teacher Charles Henry Turner changed early twentieth-century insect science.
• The story of George McJunkin, a hidden figure in North American archaeology.
• Twelve facts about Shirley Chisholm, the first Black American woman to run for president.

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Six gorgeous home library aesthetics and how to achieve them.
• Seventeen bookish pillows for the coziest reading experience.
• The best, creepiest old houses in fiction.
• Five crime novels that deepen our understanding of collective trauma.
• Sixteen readers share the last book they read in one sitting.
• Ten action books about survival in a frozen landscape.
• Ten book-to-screen adaptations to watch in 2023.
• Seven books starring fierce women who'd make fabulous BFFs.

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.

And spend some quality Me Time curled up with a good book!