A Bambi on Ice Weekly Link Round-Up

 

We've had a series of winter storms move through Phoenix this week. The high temperatures have only been in the 50s, which is very unusual. You can see desert dwellers bundled up like they're jumping on their dogsleds and heading for the North Pole. The sight made me laugh when I first moved here, and it still does because, although I do own a coat, I've only worn it once in the past five years. (My rememberer doesn't go back any farther than that.)

Denis put on his sleeveless fleece vest along with his shorts and t-shirt, hopped on his scooter, and headed over to Target to pick up his prescriptions. Having been outside myself, I did raise an eyebrow at his attire, but the man is usually a veritable furnace of body heat, so I let it go. When he came back, he was almost frozen solid. When I left him to come in here to finish this post, he was bundled up in an afghan and drinking a big mug of hot tea. When I'm finished here, I'll check to see if he's thawed out yet.

For three mornings straight, the water has been frozen almost solid in the birdbaths. This so rarely happens that it completely discombobulates the birds who are used to their morning baths-- especially a large flock of starlings. Shame on me... I did have a laugh watching the clips from the birdbath camera showing starlings slip-sliding across the frozen surface. I guess they don't like hard water! Hopefully, this film clip will run properly so you can be amused, too.

 

 

Wherever you are, I hope you're nice and warm and well supplied with plenty of food, drink, and good books.

Enjoy the links!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Books that travel: A report from the 2023 Nairobi International Book Fair.
• Latin American writing in translation.
• Author Timothy C. Baker rereads his childhood.
• Should historical fiction have modern sensibilities, or should it stick to its time?
• A book club began Finnegan's Wake in 1995. After 28 years, it finally reached the end.
• In the world's first known case, a man tore his windpipe from holding in a sneeze. (Hmm... maybe I'd better stop doing that.)
• Fictional versus real settings.
• The weird, wonderful world of collecting French cake figurines.

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• Analysis shows that books targeted for banning by western Pennsylvania school board members are almost never checked out.
• A proposed bill in Tennessee would allow parents to sue school districts over "inappropriate" books.
• The Alabama Public Library System "blacklist" has just one book so far. The rest of the challenges have been farcical according to the APLS director.
• Laws on book challenges and "indoctrination" have created a culture of fear in Arkansas school libraries.
• Queer Louisianans are fighting book bans-- and winning.
• The Hutchinson, Minnesota school board has opened the possibility for book removal.
• The Northern Justice Project and the ACLU of Alaska have filed a preliminary injunction to put 56 removed books back on the Mat-Su school library shelves.
• Parnassus Books' owner and author Ann Patchett learned that a Florida county has banned her novels.
• More than 1,600 books have been banned in Escambia County, Florida.
• Speaking of Escambia County, they've banned the dictionary, and the Guinness Book of World Records among others.
• And while we're still in Florida, you could soon be fined for defamation for calling someone racist in that state. 
• Moms for Liberty has sent a letter to Alabama lawmakers urging action on libraries.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• A temple linked to Hercules and Alexander the Great has been discovered in an ancient megacity in Iraq.
• Archaeologists discovered a brutal "bakery-prison" at Pompeii.
• An 800-year-old healing bowl emblazoned with a double-headed dragon has been unearthed in a Turkish castle.
• She bought a $3.99 vase at Goodwill. It just sold for $107,100.
• A father and daughter discovered a 152-year-old shipwreck while fishing in Green Bay.
• A 103-year-old artificial Christmas tree sold for over $4,000.
• The world's oldest known fort was constructed by hunter-gatherers 8,000 years ago in Siberia.
• The discovery of "calendar" rock carvings from the Ancestral Pueblo in the US Southwest surpasses archaeologists' "wildest expectations."

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• 25 powerful winning photos from the 2023 Nature Conservancy photo contest.
• Winners of the 2023 Dog Photography Awards.
• Watch a bathtub loving beaver get his own pond.
• America's 25 most popular dog names.
• Like humans, some bonobos cooperate with outsiders.
• Finney, the "miracle dog" who survived 72 days in the Colorado mountains after her owner's death is recovering, and had a "ravenous appetite."
• Watch dolphins outsmart crab traps in some first-ever footage.
• Watch an orphaned baby anteater learn to forage with help from his teddy bear.

 

►The Wanderer◄

• If you're ever in London, stop by the Street Cat Bob memorial statue.
• Have you ever seen the United States-Canada border slash?
• Plans to install contemporary stained-glass windows in Notre-Dame Cathedral have sparked a backlash.
• Exploring the isolation of the British countryside.
• Crime and the City: Kinshasa and the DRC.

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Teacher Teresa Kaye Newman admits there are eleven things that Boomer parents totally got right.
• 104-year-old Dorothy Hoffner broke the world record for the oldest person to skydive.
• Stuck in a Tokyo hotel, the Beatles divided a canvas into quarters and started painting.
• Robert S. Duncanson and James P. Ball were the height of Black artistry in 19th-century America.
• Ian Hamilton on the joys and sorrows of finishing a series.
• Lily Gladstone makes Golden Globe history as the first Indigenous best actress winner.

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• The best descriptions of joy in literature.
• 36 exciting new book releases for 2024.
• The best bookish calendars for 2024.
• Home Alone, The Nightmare Before Christmas and more join the National Film Registry.
• 20 must-read historical fiction books set in Korea.
• Six mystery novels were everyone's a suspect.
• Ten epic novels unfolding over a single day.
• The best 1980s detective shows.

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!