A Who Doesn't Like a Nice Box? Weekly Link Round-Up

 

All's quiet here at Casa Kittling. The weather is warming up, and soon we'll be going to places with air conditioning instead of the Desert Botanical Garden or the Phoenix Zoo. That's just life here in the desert. If you're not willing to get up at the crack of dawn to go to places like these in the early morning, it's best to stay away. Since Denis and I are still following his old work schedule (go to bed at 3:30 AM and get up between 10 and 11 AM), the only time we go someplace early is when one of our doctors insists. Why the weird schedule? It works when you stay in touch with family on the other side of the pond.

 

Since the only exciting thing that's happened in the past week is the death of our microwave, I thought you'd like to see a box that arrived in the mail recently...

 

Now that has to be just the sort of mail we all like to receive, right? In my case, four books fresh from The Poisoned Pen. I've already read one of them, and it went straight onto my Best Reads list. I'm now into a second and can't wait to dive into books three and four. Who knows? You might be seeing some of these in future giveaways!

 

Enjoy the links!

 

 

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Working against the clock: Time Colonialism and Lakota Resistance.
• Uncle Sam wants you to donate books!
• Earrings for children's book lovers.
• Elly Griffiths on knowing when to say goodbye.
• Barbie introduces its first doll with Down syndrome in a new Fashionistas lineup.
• The State of the Crime Novel: A roundtable discussion with the Edgar nominees. Part 1. Part 2.
• The lure of the bookshop setting.
• What murder mysteries get wrong (and right) about wills.
• Scientists are making drones from taxidermy birds.
  

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• On shuttered libraries, censorship, and the threat of book bans.
• Library funding becomes the "nuclear option" as the battle over books escalates. (If you don't take these nasty books off the shelves like we want you to, we'll just close your library down.)
• The Florida legislature expands the "Don't Say Gay" law, along with book bans.
• In case you think the crazies are all contained within the borders of the US: Southern Manitoba (Canada) libraries battle defunding attempts over sex-ed content in children's books.
• A Utah mayor confronts a school board over "pornographic" library books and demands their removal.
• Campbell County (Wyoming) residents speak out on proposed library policy changes.
• The Union County (North Carolina) school board has approved a new rule on decor in classrooms. (Seeing as how rainbows are known grooming tools...)
• Something that everyone should have done a long time ago: The Dorchester District 2 school board (South Carolina) officially decided that only parents and guardians can formally challenge books in libraries. 
• I am proud of the state in which I was born: Illinois is the first state to ban book bans.
• A Tennessee teacher planned a Mother's Day class. Then came the MAGA rage.
• "Free People Read Freely." Read librarian Tracie D. Hall's full TIME100 speech.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• A Roman mosaic has been revealed at a shopping mall in England.
• A "lost" second-century Roman fort has been discovered in Scotland.
• A 2,000-year-old mysterious monument has been unearthed in the Oman desert, and people are calling it the "Arabian Stonehenge".
• A metal detectorist was shocked at finding a fifteenth-century baby Jesus ring.
• Resistance Pottery: two recent exhibitions of the work of Black potters find political acts in the placid history of nineteenth-century American stoneware.
• 2,600-year-old stone busts of "lost" ancient Tartessos people have been discovered in a sealed pit in Spain.
• French archaeologists are unearthing new insights in an ancient necropolis in Paris.
• The mysterious "painted people" of Scotland are long gone, but their DNA lives on.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• It takes a village to save a frog.
• A newborn monk seal pup and its mother are getting 24/7 police protection in Hawaii.
• Turning off your lights could save millions of birds each year from deadly building collisions.
• A vet tech hilariously reenacts how different dog breeds react to getting their nails clipped.
• Scientists have discovered a never-before-seen brain wave after reading octopuses' minds. (I know some of you-- like me-- are thinking of Marcellus.)
• A K-9 therapy dog named Otto has forged a friendship with a polar bear at the Columbus Zoo.
• Twenty endangered California condors die amid an avian flu outbreak.
• Balto's DNA provides a new look at the famous sled dog.

 

►The Wanderer◄

• These ten supermarket chains give you the most bang for your buck.
• The US fast food chains that failed internationally.
• Feast your eyes on some beauty: gorgeous timelapse photography of short-lived echinopsis cactus flowers blooming (because not all of you can get to the Desert Botanical Garden to see this in person).
• Gibraltar: Crime on the Rock. (My niece Karen used to live there.)
• Five lighthouses where you can be an overnight keeper.
• Cemeteries that save the American landscape.
• This made me laugh: A giant phallus-shaped iceberg floating in Conception Bay surprised the residents of Dildo, Newfoundland, Canada.
• What makes Seattle such a good setting for thrillers?
• UK "yarnbombers" knit and crochet for the coronation of Charles III.

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Gordon Lightfoot, legendary folk musician, is dead at the age of 84. At the end of "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," he mentions a musty old hall in Detroit that rang the bell twenty-nine times to honor all those sailors lost aboard the ship. At the news of Lightfoot's death, the 175-year-old Mariners Church in Detroit rang the bell thirty times in the pouring rain. Twenty-nine times for the lost sailors, and once for Gordon Lightfoot.
• Beatrix Potter was a keen observer of the natural world. 
• Peter Robinson, remembered. 
• Sybil Ludington, the 16-year-old Revolutionary hero who rode twice as far as Paul Revere. 
• Eugenie Clark, the marine biologist who fought sharks' bad reputations as "gangsters of the deep." 
• Georgina Schuyler, the woman who saved the Statue of Liberty. 

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Ten facts about The Police's Synchronicity.
• A reading list of twins in literature.
• Nine non-fiction books about nature that will make you fall in love with Planet Earth.
• Sixteen uplifting books coming out this spring.
• Fifteen dual-timeline books for your wishlist.
• Seven novels about falling in (and out of) love in London.
• Eleven entertaining British mystery shows like Father Brown.
• Six crime novels that feature natural disasters.
• Cozies that bloom in the spring.
• Twelve mysteries and thrillers set in dream vacation destinations.
• Ten new bookish tote bags for your latest library or bookstore haul.

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.

No matter how busy you are, don't forget to spend some quality Me Time with a good book!