A Splish Splash Weekly Link Round-up

 

The temperatures are cooling down into double digits, and the starlings are back to splish-splash-flap all the water out of the bird baths. Autumn may be coming to the desert, and with the brutal summer we've endured, it can't come too soon.

Since nothing exciting is going on here, take a peek at my latest knitting project...

...and enjoy the links! Have a great weekend!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Get rid of your books. (Did your blood pressure just spike?)
• BookTok helped book sales soar. How long will that last? More from Book Riot.
  
• The internet's next great power suck.
• Who's tried to buy their way onto the New York Times Best Seller list?
• A brief history of book dedications.
• Cook like Christie: a look at gastronomical delights inspired by the grand dame of detective fiction.
• The strange, secretive world of North Korean science fiction.
• A lost Edith Wharton play debuts on stage for the first time.

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• The Pima County (Arizona) Public Library has a statement showing its support of diversity and inclusivity. So does the Prince George's County (Maryland) Memorial Library System.
• The Rochester (Minnesota) Public Library board has taken a stand against banning LGBT+ books.
• An author: I made the most banned book in America.
• Towns in New Jersey are battling it out over book bans.
• Oregon libraries have received the most content challenges this year since 1992.
• Ron DeSantis just put the co-founder of a book ban advocacy group on Florida's state ethics committee.
• A Darien (Connecticut) school board member crafted policies for curriculum and book challenges. The board rebuked him.
• A graphic novel at a school book fair in Ohio was deemed offensive and inappropriate by some parents.
• The Clovis (California) City Council votes to do nothing with a letter about graphic books in libraries.
• The California megachurch pushing public schools to the far right.
• A library board in Wyoming considers how to handle book challenges.
  
• Hoboken (New Jersey) will be declaring the city as a sanctuary in response to the nationwide book ban push.
• A Florida Jewish Community Center canceled a slavery-focused talk with a Jewish author, citing "the current political climate".
• The State of California will ban book bans by school boards.
• Here is every banned book in America.
• Eight authors on how it feels to have their books banned.
• An editorial cartoon criticizing Moms for Liberty was manipulated by the group for gain.

 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Ernest Hemingway survived two plane crashes. His letter about it just sold for $237,055.
• A Bronze Age girl buried with more than 150 animal ankle bones, potentially to help her to the next world.
• The origins of enslaved Africans, freed by the British then abandoned on a remote Atlantic island, have been revealed by DNA analysis.
• A mysterious 17th-century "cauldron" may be a primitive submarine used to salvage treasure from a sunken galleon.
• Archaeologists unearthed four 1,900-year-old Roman swords in an Israeli cave.
• What is this mysterious golden orb scientists found on the ocean floor?
• A 2,700-year-old "extremely well preserved" skeleton found in a fortress in Turkey may be an earthquake victim.
• A lost "rainbow cup" minted by Celts 2,000 years ago has been discovered in Germany.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• The London Zoo weighed all 14,000 of its animals, "from the tallest giraffe to the tiniest tadpole."
• A critically endangered donkey with stripy "zebra legs" was born in a UK zoo.
• The incredible athleticism of Inuit sled dogs.
• Black bears moved into an abandoned town in Canada that was evacuated due to wildfires.
• Efforts to bring back the Caribbean reef shark may become a conservation success story.
• Italians search for two missing cubs after the "incomprehensible" killing of a much-loved mother bear.
• Rufuous hummingbirds are losing their battle to survive. Here's what we can do to save them.
• Meet Peanut, the world's oldest living chicken at 21 years of age.

 

►The Wanderer◄

• A new antibiotic that slays superbugs has been discovered in "dark matter" from North Carolina soil.
• The great French Mustache Strike of 1907.
• Who and what was a knocker-upper?
• Bringing personal hygiene to France.
• Why historical markers matter.
• Toys for Tots launches a literary initiative to combat the cycle of poverty.
• The whimsical trolls taking over the Pacific Northwest.

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Martin Walker feeds his chickens.
• The cowboy as detective: finding Charlie Siringo's West.
• Dorothy L. Sayers and the thirty-foot drain: searching for Peter Wimsey.
• James Ellroy reveals the real reason he writes.
• Stephen King once played "Mambo No. 5" so much his wife threatened divorce.
• The remarkable story of World War II's 6888th Battalion, as told by the women who were there.
• Lawrence Wright on Larry McMurtry.
• Authors who work as booksellers.

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Twenty award-winning historical fiction books.
• Six book club reads with themes tied to current events.
• These oversized wooden reading nooks make every story an immersive adventure.
• Seven great crime novels set in Harlem.
• Where to start with Jenn McKinlay and her cozy series.
• Nine great Dutch books in translation.
• The best reviewed books of Summer 2023.
• These sixteen books are the best locked-room mysteries.

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!