A Non-Medical Weekly Link Round-Up

 

The weather continues to be glorious, so I'm going ahead with my plans to go to the Phoenix Zoo Thursday, which means that I have to get all my ducks in a row. Make sure my trusty scooter is fully charged. Make sure my camera batteries are charged. Book Dial-a-Ride. Decide which of my "designer outfits" I'll wear. 😉 It's great to be planning a non-medical outing. So... I'm writing this link round-up early. I'll probably post it early, too. Three posts from me in three days? Wow!

I'm almost finished with Devon Mihesuah's Blood Relay, which looks like it's going to be my first Best Reads of 2026. Then it will be on to the first book in a new series by Dana Stabenow, The Harvey Girl. I'm really looking forward to this one because the history of Fred Harvey's hotels and the early tourism of Arizona have always fascinated me. (I've also visited one of the Harvey House hotels in Winslow.) I'm hoping that these books will help me get my reading groove back.

I've been knitting and needlepointing up a storm and wishing that I'd purchased more of a now-discontinued yarn that I love. I've always enjoyed making things for the house, and this new color scheme for the kitchen and family room is keeping me busy.

In the mean time, take a look at this Little Free Library that I found. Perfect for Arizona, isn't it?

I hope you're all safe and warm and have plenty of reading material at hand. Virtual hugs to you all.

Enjoy the links!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• Adriane Leigh on why we are living in the age of the unreliable narrator.
• Quiz: Can you match the opening line to the TV show?
• Stories about the end of reading tend to leave out some inconvenient data points.
• Farmers' Almanac has announced its final publication after a 208-year run.
• In 1982, a physics joke gone wrong sparked the invention of the emoticon.
• How local bookstores are helping immigrants amid ICE fears.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Beach erosion has revealed the fragments of a 136-year-old shipwreck that sank in New Jersey's "Graveyard of the Atlantic."
• 5,000-year-old rock art from ancient Egypt depicts the "terrifying" conquest of the Sinai Peninsula.
• Eerie "sand burials" of elite Anglo-Saxons and their "sacrificed" horse have been discovered near a UK nuclear power plant.
• A metal detectorist discovered the earliest known coin ever produced in a Scottish mint.
• A rare 2,000-year-old war trumpet, possibly linked to the Celtic queen Boudica, has been discovered in England.
• Archaeologists in Mexico have discovered a long-lost city inhabited by Maya rebels who resisted the Spanish Conquest.

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• A rare mountain lion standoff in San Francisco ended peacefully after a 30-hour search.
• When vampire bats become close friends, they start "talking" like each other.
• New recordings suggest that wild jaguars sometimes meow just like house cats. The sounds may help mothers and cub find one another.
• Watch Betsy the bulldog greet her neighbors through an elaborately decorated hole in the fence.
• Sylvia, the tamest grizzly of Yellowstone.
• Even though they don't have brains to rest, jellyfish and sea anemones sleep like humans.

►The Wanderer◄

• You can buy this 438-year-old mill in Wales that inspired a stunning J.M.W. Turner painting.
• Why Palm Springs is the perfect setting for suspense.
• Crime and the City: Osaka.
• 50 of National Geographics' favorite U.S. state parks.
• The most unusual house in every U.S. state.
• Ice cream, elephants, organs, death: the triumphs and terrors of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Thomas White's escape from slavery, told on tattered pages, was found more than a century after it was documented.
• An 11th-century monk named Eilmer, not Halley, was the first to discover the comet.
• Richard Burton, the explorer who faked his way through the Hajj.
• Laura Secord's walk.
• 13 memoirs from people who rose above impossible circumstances.
• Filles du roi: the founding mothers of New France.

►I ♥ Lists◄

• 5 novels with perfectly unsympathetic protagonists.
• New mysteries and thrillers by your favorite authors.
• 10 mystery films that feature trains.
• 7 crime fiction books to read if you loved True Detective.
• These are the best books of 2025.
• 5 novels set in the wild British moors.

That's all for this week! No matter how busy you may be, don't forget that quality Me Time curled up with a good book!