The We Dodged a Bullet Weekly Link Round-Up

 

I'm still in shock over what happened Sunday, so I have to share. Denis used to work 2 PM to midnight before he retired, and for some reason, both of us have stuck with the same sleep pattern. This means that we go to sleep sometime around 3 AM and get up between 10 and 11 AM. (Just setting the stage for y'all.)

I woke up several times during the night and even turned the ceiling fan up a notch, which isn't normal for me. It was warm in the house, and I saw that the temperature on the little clock that I have on my side of the bed said 87° when it had never had a reading above 81° before. (I know what you're thinking, but that's cool here in the summer.) I never once heard the air conditioner running. I got up at 11 AM and took a shower, knowing that something had to be wrong but trusting Denis to have noticed and called it in.

I was wrong. When I told him that the thermostat was dead, yada yada yada, he called the company who installed and services the air conditioner at 12:15 PM. Both of us were expecting to be sweating in the house for at least a day. The repairman arrived at 1:20 PM, and the air conditioner was fixed twenty minutes later. Boy, did we dodge a bullet on that one!

 

The red hot speeding bullet of a broken air conditioner...

My leg is s-l-o-w-l-y improving, and besides the usual household chores, I have home health nurses who come on Mondays and Wednesdays to change the bandaging. One of the nurses is a young man named Alex, and when I told him that the area code of his phone number looked familiar, we found out that we're basically from the same neck of the woods. (Me from south of Decatur, Illinois, while he's from Quincy, Illinois.) The work week concludes with Dial-a-Ride to the doctor's office on Fridays. Thank heavens I have good books, knitting, and plenty of British crime dramas to get me through these interminable medical appointments!

Which reminds me: the company that "supplies" the bandaging and other necessities is pretty much worthless, so I'm relying on Amazon and some online medical suppliers to send me the things that are needed. I did manage to take advantage of a sale, so I'll be getting a shipment of yarn within a week or so-- so much better than bandages, disinfectants, and antibiotics!

And that's my week. Boring, but ever so much better than many of the alternatives that I can think of. I hope you're enjoying summer; staying cool when necessary, taking road trips when possible, and finding good books to read.

Enjoy the links!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Josh Kendall on the life of a crime fiction editor.
• 125 years later, why The Turn of the Screw still haunts us.
• This medieval manuscript reveals a 15th-century comedy routine.
• The Guardian ponders novel crimes: which is worst-- folded corners, cracked spines, marginalia, or cheese bookmarks?
• Want a living wage? You won't find it working at most indie bookstores.
• The casual ignominy of the book tours of yore.
• The dangers of tea drinking.
• Alison Gaylin on the challenges of bringing a Robert B. Parker PI into the social media era.
• Curly hair keeps the head coolest.
  

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• American Library Association's 2023 Annual Conference: Experts and allies supply librarians with information and tools to fight censorship.
• Los Angeles County to grant access statewide to banned books.
• Ferndale (Michigan) library adds more LGBTQ+ books after a "Hide the Pride" campaign attempt to remove them.
• A Tallahassee (Florida) mother makes a case that the I Am Billie Jean King book "infringes" on parents' rights. (Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or punch a hole in the wall...)
• Some Montgomery County (Maryland) parents want to opt out of lessons with LGBTQ+ books.
• The Highland Park Independent School District (Texas) trustees have okayed a challenge policy for library books.
• Oak Park (Illinois) is now officially a book sanctuary city.
• The Dayton (Ohio) Metro Library has become a sanctuary to protect banned books.
• Vermont's Lieutenant Governor Zuckerman will launch a statewide banned book tour.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Italy displays antiquities looted from Italian territory and recovered from a London dealer. 
• "Lost" Roman coins uncovered at a fortress in the country of Georgia belonged to an infamously brutal military troop.
• Unraveling the secrets of the long-lost shipwrecks in the Bahamas.
• What did the ancient Romans smell like?
• Archaeologists found proof of a Viking city that was supposed to be mythical.
• King Tut's likeness has been revealed in a vivid new facial approximation of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh.
• 12,000-year-old flutes carved of bone are some of the oldest in the world and sound like bird of prey.
• A Los Angeles family discovered roughly 1 million copper pennies while cleaning out a house. More from the Los Angeles Times.
  
• Never mind Cleopatra-- what about the forgotten queens of ancient Nubia?

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• Maryland's rare seabirds get a life raft and babysitters.
• Why thousands of dead fish washed ashore in Texas.
• In Iceland, cats face curfews and bans aimed at curtailing their murderous ways.
• The unlikely survival story of Australia's bandicoots.
• An orca rammed a boat off the coast of Scotland, two thousand miles away from the original attacks.
• White Gladis the orca may have been pregnant when she started attacking boats in the Strait of Gibraltar.
• Who knew? There are noise-canceling headphones for dogs that block out scary sounds such as thunder or fireworks.
• Orangutans can beatbox, just like humans.

 

►The Wanderer◄

• Inside Umoja, Kenya's women-only village where traditional beaded necklaces are symbols of power.
• The longest place name in the world.
• A Louisiana army base formerly named for a Confederate general now honors a Black World War I hero.
• You can now visit the site where Julius Caesar was stabbed.
• Explore the world of Willa Cather in her Nebraska hometown.
• I'd love to visit the National Museum of Toys and Miniatures in Kansas City, Missouri.
• Or how about the Bibliothéque Nationale de France in Paris?
• The Tonga Volcano sparked the most intense lightning storm ever recorded.

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Françoise Gilot, whose art transcended her relationship with Picasso, has died at the age of 101.
• William Dorsey Swann, the first self-proclaimed drag queen was a formerly enslaved man.
• John William Boucher, the 72-year-old who lied about his age to fight in World War I.
• How Ann Rule, the Queen of True Crime, transformed murder stories forever.
• Enslaved by George Washington, Harry Washington escaped to freedom-- and joined the British Army.
• Isabelle Eberhardt, travel's rebel with a cause.
• The genius behind Bisa Butler's vibrant quilts.
• How Thomas Edison tricked the press into believing he'd invented the light bulb.

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Eleven books in translation from East Africa.
• Thirty author names you might be mispronouncing.
• Twelve cozy mysteries with idyllic coastal settings.
• Before they were clichés: On the origins of eight worn-out idioms.
• Australian noir and the best Australian crime fiction.
• The twenty most famous books of all time.
• This is what AI thinks people from each of the fifty U.S. states look like.
• Twenty must-read fiction and non-fiction books about the disability experience.

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 may be, don't forget that quality Me Time curled up with a good book!