A Mattress Slinging Weekly Link Round-Up

 

Due to his back surgery, Denis had moved into the guest room to sleep. I'd forgotten why our mattress was bad for him until he gave it a test lie-down a few days ago. It had been too high. He's done quite a bit of healing since then, and now it's not. This means that our nieces won't have to sleep out on the daybed and trundle when they come for a visit from the UK at the end of the month. Denis will move back in our bedroom, and they will have their own bedroom and bathroom. Thank heaven! But... we still have new mattresses to put on that daybed and trundle, and that's going to be fun. I'd better start eating my Wheaties and pumping iron in preparation. They won't be too heavy... just awkward, and Denis has no business twisting that metal-reinforced spine of his.

Denis and I did get to spend some time at the Desert Botanical Garden, and we did enjoy ourselves even if the place was heaving with people. We'll be going back soon, because the garden was showing signs of spring getting ready to pop. Naturally, I will share some photos of our visit in the near future.

 

In line at the Patio Cafe

Enjoy the links! (And thank you to the friend who keeps adding to my TBR pile!)

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Shannon Reed on re-learning how to read.
• "Reading is so sexy": Gen Z turns to physical books and libraries.
• What adults forget about reading.
• The importance of humor in crime fiction.
• Can we please put an end to overperformed audiobooks?
• The power of neurodiverse characters in mysteries. 
• Laurie R. King on Sherlock Holmes, that enigma we know so well.
• Did the people of Easter Island invent a writing system from scratch? More from Live Science.
• Viking unveils a new Richard Osman series.
• Colorado librarians are now front-line crisis workers, managing homeless patrons, mental illness, and book-banners.
  

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• A reversal of fortune concerning book banning in Washington.
• Author Khaled Hosseini on book bans in the U.S.: "It betrays students."
• A proposed ban on banning books sparks a firestorm at the Oregon Capitol.
• Colorado lawmakers to consider a bill that may curb book bans in school libraries and public libraries.
• Autauga-Prattville (Alabama) Library Board bans LGBTQ+ books for under 17s and red labeling queer adult books.
• A new bill in New Jersey targeting book censorship in libraries leads to a partisan clash.
• A proposal calls for tax-funded libraries in Kenosha County (Wisconsin) to create secure, adults-only sections.
• After a lawsuit threat, St. Louis Park (Minnesota) public schools will allow Somali families to opt out of LGBTQ+ books.
• Maryland introduces a Freedom to Read Act.
• Ron DeSantis finally admits the war on books has been a total disaster.
• In response to Florida's book banning, Ripley's will give the state's residents free books.
• Calls to ban books are in the rise in Canada. So is the opposition to any bans.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• This cache of coins was hidden in a box underground for 850 years. 
• A tomb was hidden under the jungle floor in Guatemala for 1,700 years-- until now.
• An "ancient arcade"-- with a familiar game-- was found in Kenya. More from Smithsonian Magazine.
  
• A metal detectorist found a gold trinket that turned out to be a rare 3,000-year-old accessory.
• An ancient tomb held anonymous bodies for 2,300 years. It turns out they're famous royals.
• Archaeologists discovered a "high-end" blacksmith's Iron Age workshop.
• Scientists believe Stone Age people used this 35,000-year-old woolly mammoth tusk tool to make rope.
• A forgotten J.M.W. Turner watercolor was discovered in an attic.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• Traps scented like mink butts could be the key to removing the invasive species from the UK.
• Bobi, known as the world's oldest dog at 31, has his title suspended amid an investigation.
• Humpback whales have rebounded in South Georgia Island's Cumberland Bay which had been decimated by whaling.
• A new species of octopus thrives in deep sea nurseries. More from Smithsonian Magazine.
  
• Bo the bloodhound is already leaving his mark as a K-9 officer.
• Cicadas are coming: a rare "dual emergence" could bring one trillion of the bugs this year.
• Indian Relay may just be America's most extreme sport.
• This "Satan" spider turned out to be a real teddy bear.

 

►The Wanderer◄

• A new study on decomposing microbes could help transform forensic science.
• Egypt has aborted a controversial pyramid renovation plan.
• The Musée d'Orsay breaks attendance records with an interactive Vincent van Gogh exhibition.
• Eyam Plague Village was the basis of Geraldine Brooks' Year of Wonders, which is why I made a point of visiting on one of our trips to the UK.
• Shop for books in the New Orleans house where William Faulkner once lived.
• Take a look inside these six presidential homes.
• The Philippine fishing authority says Chinese fishing vessels are going scorched earth and pumping cyanide into contested waters.
• Bordeaux, city of wine and crime fiction.

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Elizabeth Freeman, the formerly enslaved woman who successfully sued for her freedom.
• What a teacher's letters reveal about Robert Smalls, who stole a Confederate ship to secure his freedom from slavery.
• Cait Corrain, an author who review-bombed writers of color, insists that she's not racist.
• These women were the real geniuses behind the iconic Tiffany lamps.
• Ten Black inventors who changed the world. 
• Douglas Preston, the archaeology journalist whose adventures are stranger than fiction.
• James Holman, the "blind traveler."
• Who was Georgina Hogarth, Charles Dickens' "best and truest friend"?
  

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Ten actors who should have their own detective shows.
• Five ways you might be crushing on a book.
• The biggest book-to-screen adaptations of 2024.
• Five of the best campus novels.
• Eight unsettling thrillers about friends turned bad.
• Nine of the most thought-provoking mysteries ever written.
• Twelve books to read if you can't move on from Night Country.
• Twenty once-popular baby names now at risk of disappearing.
  

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!