The Best Laid Plans Weekly Link Round-Up

 

How do you manage to move a bunch of bulky, awkward, heavy objects and not have your husband (the middle part of whose spine is pinned and screwed together and encased in a metal cage) not try to take over?

Wait until he's gone to a doctor's appointment. Hehehe...

In this case, my best laid plans did not blow up in my face. While he was gone-- and while seated on my scooter-- I picked up and/or moved a trundle bed frame, a large chair, three bookcases, and four twin mattresses. And that's only a partial list, folks.  When Denis came home, he walked right past two of the mattresses, and didn't see a blessed thing I'd done. Men...

 

 

I've also done more needed chores in preparation for our visitors at the end of the month, so it's no wonder that my hands, arms, and upper back think I've gone nuts. 

I said something last week about the marvelous stretch of "Best Reads" that I've had lately, and I'm stunned to report that I've since had another one to add to the list. Moreover, I've fallen under the spell of Stig Abell's Death Under a Little Sky, and it may very well join the rest. How lucky can a person get?!? (I just hope that this doesn't mean I'm due for a run of stinkers...)

Virtual hugs to you all! I'm going to go rest my weary muscles and get back to Abell's book. Enjoy the links!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Libraries are on the front lines of America's problems.
• The celebrity book club lives on.
• One writer's winter with Edith Wharton.
• What is the dominant emotion in 400 years of women's diaries?
• The real history behind FX's Shogun.
• Phillipa Gregory on how the Norman Invasion brought patriarchy to England.
• A Massachusetts library system will let you pay fines with cat pictures.
• Amazon's big secret.
• Why daylight saving time messes with your brain.
  

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• Redford (Michigan) Union Schools remove a controversial book due to concern over its original title. (Think Agatha Christie, and you should be able to guess which book, and... for crying out loud!!!)
• The New York Public Library continues its nationwide "Books for All: Teen Banned Book Club" with The Downstairs Girl.
• Shouts erupt in New Hampshire over a proposal critics said would create a "state-run book banning process."
• Tensions still run high one year after The Glass Castle challenge in Grinnell, Iowa.
• A Denton, Texas grandparent challenges library books in a local independent school district.
• Wellington, Colorado has a plan to tackle censorship: banning book bans.
• The Virginia Beach (Virginia) School Board passes an amendment to ban "sexually explicit content" in elementary school libraries.
• Charlotte-Mecklenburg (North Carolina) schools changes eBook app over "Parents' Bill of Rights" concerns.
• An Oregon bill that challenges book bans in schools has passed its Senate.
• Beaufort, South Carolina, schools return most books to shelves after an attempt to ban 97 of them.
• In Georgia, a bill to cut all ties with with the American Library Association is advancing.
• The Llano County (Texas) public librarian fired for not banning books is suing the county and library commissioners.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• This medieval sword spent 1,000 years at the bottom of a Polish river.
• Dozens of ruins-- up to 4,000 years old-- have been unearthed in the mountains of Oman.
• Vittrup Man violently died in  bog 5,200 years ago. Now researchers know his story.
• A 3,500-year-old shipwreck-- one of the world's oldest-- sank carrying items in hot demand.
• Archaeologists were amazed to find that a 1,700-year-old chicken egg still has liquid inside.
• A stunning rock art site reveals that humans settled the Colombian Amazon 13,000 years ago.
• Archaeologists say that this snake artifact was used in shamanic rituals 4,000 years ago.
• Archaeologists have discovered a 19th-century chocolate factory in Barcelona.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• The first-ever white rhino IVF sparks hope that the "doomed species" could still be saved, despite there being no males left.
• Civilization without horses: the Epizootic of 1872. (Growing up in central Illinois, whenever someone got sick, it was common to hear someone ask, "Got the epizootic?" I didn't know it was a real thing!)
• Hungry sea otters help prevent erosion on California's coast.
• Fifty years after Jaws, we've learned a lot about great white sharks.
• A twelve-year-old vanished in frigid weather. Then Massachusetts police K-9 Biza picked up the child's scent.
• Bald eagle dad Shadow has been anxiously waiting for his turn to tend to eggs in a snow-covered nest in California.
• A nocturnal creature with a bushy tail was caught in a trap in Madagascar. It's a new species.
• Could fish sex be keeping Floridians up at night?

 

►The Wanderer◄

• Near the site of the Gettysburg Address, these Black Civil War veterans remain segregated, even in death.
• Ninety years of the Orient Express.
• Drones fired "seed missiles" into the dirt. A year later, the trees are already twenty inches tall.
• An Italian photographer waited six years to get a perfectly aligned photo of the moon, a mountain, and a basilica.
• Larry McMurtry's library.
• How English took over the world.
• The largest wildfire in Texas history is raging. Here's what you need to know.
• How a microbe from Yellowstone's hot springs could help feed the world.

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Why some Spartan women had two husbands.
• Mary Cardwell Dawson, founder of a trailblazing opera company, put Black singers at center stage.
• Juanita Sheridan and the Lily Wu Quartet: a rediscovered gem from the Golden Age of detective fiction.
• "Mrs. Sherlock Holmes" and the other real female sleuths who were written out of history.
• The long-lost story of Joseph Laroche, the only Black man on the Titanic.
• The "sad, happy life" of Carson McCullers.
• How Richard Wright's Native Son eventually made it to the big screen.
• Mark Twain's obsession with Joan of Arc.

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• 35 lesser-known inventions of famous inventors.
• Eight historical mysteries set outside the U.S.
• Mysteries where the sleuth is wrongly accused.
• The literary film and TV you need to stream in March.
• Older sleuths get the job done in these new mysteries and thrillers.
• Eleven riveting non-fiction books similar to The Wager.
• Fifteen absorbing historical novels set during the Gilded Age.
• The best mystery and thriller movies of the 1970s.

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!