A Clickety, Clickety, Click Weekly Link Round-Up

 

There's nothing much to report here. Denis and I spent the holiday weekend quietly, eating too much and watching movies. We're making plans for an outing next week, but haven't made up our minds just where we want to go. It's been so long since we've really been anywhere that there are lots of candidates!

While we're making plans, I'm busy stitching away on a baby blanket. Smaller needles and thinner yarn means that this project is taking longer to complete than the afghans I'm used to making, but I'm enjoying myself, so that's the main thing.

 

 

Enjoy the links!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• What is media literacy and how can you increase your own?
• What the WGA's historic contract means for all writers in the fight against generative AI.
• How the BBC's controversial sound effects album became a surprise hit.
• Author Ian McEwan criticizes the hiring of "sensitivity readers" looking for offensive material in manuscripts.
• How a trip to a museum turned into the perfect start to a mystery.
• Pratchett Power: from lost stories to new adaptations, how the late Discworld author lives on.
• Margaret Atwood reviews a "Margaret Atwood" story written by AI.
• Why laugh tracks were used so often in sitcoms.

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• Philadelphia students navigate school without access to school libraries.
• In Miami-Dade schools, parental permission is a must for students who want to attend book fairs.
• Silent protesters read controversial books during a Cheyenne (Wyoming) school board meeting.
• The Pennsylvania Senate passed "explicit content" legislation after a heated debate over whether it's a book ban.
• Alabama libraries are battling extremists. Will state lawmakers do the same?
• Are book bans backfiring? A study reveals increased readership for prohibited books.
• Moms for Liberty members called the cops on librarians over a YA bestseller.
• Librarians are turning to a civil rights agency to oppose book bans and their firings.
• Two wins for public libraries at the polls in Michigan and Iowa.
• Pine-Richland (Pennsylvania) voters elected school board members who support book bans.

 

 

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Remnants of a Native American community dating back 1,000 years have been uncovered in downtown Tempe, Arizona.
• The first Americans were not who we thought they were.
• Archaeologists uncovered 9,500-year-old woven baskets and Europe's oldest sandals.
• Neanderthal DNA may shape how sensitive you are to pain, genetic analysis shows.
• These 1,700-year-old aqueducts built by the Nasca people in Peru are an engineering marvel.
• A painting originally valued at $15,000 turned out to be a Rembrandt. Now it could sell for millions.
• 300-year-old coins found under a fireplace may be connected to the Glencoe Massacre.
• Vibrant paint once decorated the 2,500-year-old Parthenon Marbles.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• Dugong populations are declining in the Great Barrier Reef.
• A moth that looks and acts like a hummingbird.
• How this small nonprofit helped save California's elephant seals.
• Winners of the 2023 International Pet Photography Awards.
• Winning photos from the 2023 Comedy Pet Photography Awards.
• How frogs were once used to detect pregnancy.
• Climate change is pushing many of the world's amphibians closer to extinction.
• Watch a panda mom lovingly cuddle her cub before and after its checkup.

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Author Lou Berney is a fanatical believer in naps.
• Sweden's "Queen of Noir" Camilla Läckberg has been accused of using a ghostwriter.
• Through the Indigenous lens of photographer Tomas "Teko" Alejo.
• Photos that capture the richness of Indigenous culture.
• Why Toni Morrison left publishing.

 

►The Wanderer◄

• Newfoundland's "Lady in the Tree".
• Fall foliage photos.
• September was the Earth's hottest on record.
• Crime and the City: Las Vegas.
• A new memorial honors the victims of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Curl up under a blanket with these 21 cozy fall reads.
• Sixteen modern mysteries for fans of Golden Age detective novels.
• Six adaptations of books that their authors didn't like.
• Nine crime novels featuring found families.
• Eleven unique headstone inscriptions.
• "Rizz," "Girlboss," and twenty-three other terms Merriam-Webster just added to the dictionary.
• Books with new movie or TV adaptations.
• Seventeen of the best biographies and memoirs of Fall 2023.

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!