A To-Doing Weekly Link Round-Up

 

I don't know what Daisy and Suzanne brought with them, but ever since they left, I've been writing tons of To Do lists and feeling quite smug as I mark each item as completed.

 

Things are heating up here in the desert. I'm writing this on Wednesday, and tomorrow Denis and I are going to the Desert Botanical Garden in hopes of seeing all the cactus flowers that weren't blooming when we visited with Daisy and Suzanne. I'm sure there will be photos, but they will have to wait until I've shared other photos from our nieces' visit.

Enjoy the links!

 

 ►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Clothes in books and ways to go wrong.
• London Book Fair 2024: How will AI change life for literary translators?
• Why writers should talk about book design early on.
• Bookish death cleaning: On what we keep, and what it means.
• The American Booksellers Association and others demand that the Small Business Administration "dump Amazon."
• The origins of W.H. Auden's "Stop All the Clocks" from Four Weddings and a Funeral.
• Live events help this indie book publisher write a new chapter for authors.
• Maggie Q to star as Renée Ballard in Bosch spinoff series for Prime Video.

 

►Book Banning & Censorship◄

• Governor Cox inks bill containing a trigger to pull books from all Utah school libraries in certain cases.
• The Prattville (Alabama) Library Board breaks open meetings law to name an interim director.
• Florida has chosen Moms for Liberty members for a group to advise librarians on book removals. As my niece would say, "Oh, my giddy aunt!"
• West Shore (Pennsylvania) School District parents and community members rally against an anti-LGBTQ law firm.
• Huntington Beach (California) moves ahead on privatizing library management.
• Student Walkout in Placenta Yorba Linda (California) Unified School District to reject the school board majority's "Parental Rights" Movement.
• The Idaho Senate committee delays vote on the latest library bill.
• How the BookmarkED/OnShelf app, created to help schools navigate book bans, fuels them instead.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• An 1,100-year-old Viking sword was pulled from a UK river by a magnet fisher. More from Smithsonian Magazine.
  
• Goodwill listed this rare gold Lego piece for $14.95. It sold for $18,101.
• Archaeologists have found the top half of a giant Ramses II statue, completing a century-long puzzle. More from Smithsonian Magazine.
  
• Archaeologists say this mass grave of plague victims may be the largest ever found in Europe.
• Why a 1-cent postage stamp could sell for $5 million.
• Archaeologists stumbled upon an ancient tomb with gold inside-- and a deadly secret.
• The ruins of an 800-year-old settlement have been unearthed in France.
• Highway work has revealed "luxurious" Roman artifacts.

 

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• Baby sea stars are voracious predators that might just save an ecosystem.
• Elephant burial rituals have been discovered in India. More from Smithsonian Magazine.
  
• A very rare yellow-billed loon visited the Las Vegas Strip and hung out in the Bellagio Fountains.
• A rare gray whale, believed to be extinct in the Atlantic for two hundred years, has been spotted off the coast of New England.
• Six animals the Smithsonian has helped save from extinction.
• Hundreds of thousands of salmon die after being released in northern California's Klamath River.
• A giant ball of Burmese pythons having sex was discovered in the Florida Everglades in a record-breaking catch.
• A rare prickly shark was spotted for the first time in Panama's eastern Pacific.

 

►The Wanderer◄

• The United States just expanded the size of two Californias.
• The Little Prince Cinema in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, is the smallest in the world.
• Oregon is now home to the world's largest dark sky sanctuary.
• On saving Karachi's oldest bookstore.
• Pieces of the past at the Doctors House in Glendale, California.
• These are the most polluted national parks.
• Which states in America have the oldest and youngest people?
• A hidden house between two churches in Portugal.

 

►Fascinating Folk◄

• "Chicago May", the most dangerous woman in the world.
• Eileen Gray: an architect in her own right.
• Honoring the overlooked contributions of women anthropologists in the National Anthropological Archives.
• Our founding mothers: on the women who changed the modern world.
• Val McDermid: "I can't do romantic trips-- I'm too focused on murder."
• Françoise Gilot's artistic career persisted long after she left Picasso.
• How medieval women expressed their "forbidden" emotions.

 

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Ten gripping non-fiction books about history's greatest mysteries.
• Ten of the biggest blizzards in history.
• Ten places that no longer exist.
• The surprising origins of fifteen pasta shapes.
• Six recent and upcoming haunted house novels.
• Eight great novels of time travel.
• Nine true crime-inspired mysteries and thrillers.
• Five of the best books about the Victorians.

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!