A Little Dirt and Water Weekly Link Round-Up

 

As many of you already know, this week has not been unremarkable for the simple fact that I went to The Poisoned Pen for an author event. I've already posted about that, but I teased you by withholding information about my trip back home.

I waited inside the bookstore for as long as I could because I didn't want to wait outside in the heat. However, I wasn't about to keep the employees from going home, so I girded my loins and zipped outside. 

I should have been paying more attention to what was going on outside. 

Found Image. Phoenix dust storm.

As the door closed behind me, my mouth and eyes were filled with dirt from the tail end of a dust storm. (That'll teach me to keep my mouth shut!) The wind was so strong that I almost lost my pinwheel, but I managed to grab it in the nick of time. Then it began to rain, so I did manage to lose a lot of my dust coating. I sheltered as much as I could because mobility scooters can get cranky if they get too wet. By the time Paratransit arrived, the rain had stopped, a fresh breeze had mostly dried me out, and the scooter wasn't in a bad mood.

So it would appear that travels from The Poisoned Pen to Casa Kittling demand a bit of drama. I'd say that I'd take an umbrella with me when I return to the bookstore next month, but I don't have one, and the wind would probably turn it inside out anyway. Yes, there was drama, but it just made me laugh and shake my head. (I think I heard Denis laughing, too.)

Virtual hugs to you all, and enjoy the links!

►Books & Other Interesting Tidbits◄

• AI companies are buying tons of old books because they're free of AI slop.
• Stop saying kids can't read.
• Quiz: Can you name all the countries that begin with "A"?
• What comes after book bans? One school district is questioning traditional libraries.
• As book criticism disappears, the booksellers are stepping in.
• Cushty, prat, cowson... and other British terms I can no longer say in America.

►Channeling My Inner Indiana Jones◄

• Oops! DNA has revealed that an ancient Bronze Age shaman long assumed to be a man was actually a woman.
• An ancient bronze chariot has emerged among the remains of a mysterious society that burned down its own buildings and then disappeared.
• An Elamite helmet with divine figures: A warrior king's 3,500-year-old bronze armor depicting a raptor and gold-plated gods.
• Railway construction revealed a coin minted by a Roman officer who proclaimed himself "Emperor of the North" in Britain 1,700 years ago.
• How has Roman concrete lasted for millennia?
• Enslaved and free workers built Thomas Jefferson's Monticello brick by brick. Archaeologists just discovered on the of the kilns they used.

►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄

• Giraffes might be even smarter than we think.
• 15 kitten photos.
• An unusual-looking raccoon nicknamed Jimothy is winning hearts across the internet for his short, round, body.
• An orange-lipped monkey that roars and snorts deep in the Congo rainforest is a new species to science.
• Scientists are deep-freezing koala eggs and sperm to protect the species from extinction.
• Scientists are releasing the lovingly nicknamed "snot otters" into Ohio waterways in a big success for conservation.

►The Wanderer◄

• A culture of collaboration: the legacy of Lunigiana's traveling booksellers.
• Florida dumped half a million oyster shells into the Gulf of Mexico. No one expected the results to be this good.
• The Chocolate Hills: the color-changing mounds in the Philippines that inspired legends of mud-slinging giants.
• The Italian bells that survived the Nazis, fires, and even the medieval ages.
• Here's why you should set your crime novel in Boston.
• One morning in Auckland.

►Fascinating Folk◄

• Maharajah Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinjhi Jadeya, ruler of the princely state of Nawanagar, opened his realm to young Poles who had been detained in Soviet labor camps as the children of the intelligentsia. (Please don't ask me to type that name again!)
• Polly Cooper walked over 200 miles in the snow to feed a starving army. The Oneida Nation has remembered her for 250 years.
• Thousands of intimate photographs reveal the everyday lives of the Romanovs, Russia's last imperial family.
• How the bicycle gave women unprecedented independence from restrictive Victorian society.
• Who, exactly, were all those girls in Renoir's paintings?
• This 19th-century diary written by enslaved Maryland man Adam Francis Plummer, is a crucial record of his life and family history-- and the only one of its kind found in the United States.

►I ♥ Lists◄

• Every state's favorite type of pizza, mapped.
• BookBub's most anticipated books of the second half of 2026.
• New historical mysteries.
• 13 books to read if you're excited about The Odyssey.
• 6 cozy mysteries set in the publishing world.
• 9 memorable animal detective books.

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!