Kittling: Books
Birds fly. Dogs bark. Fire burns. I read. (Mostly mysteries.)
Thursday, October 31, 2024
A Linkless Weekly Link Round-Up
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
November 2024 New Mystery Releases!
When opening day arrives, Violet is nowhere to be found, and the gardeners are restless. Things go from bad to worse when Maggie finds a boot buried in one of the plots… and there’s a body attached to it. Suddenly, the police are looking for a killer and they keep asking questions about Violet. Maggie doesn’t believe her friend could do this, and she’s going to dig up the dirt needed to prove it.
The Gardener’s Plot takes readers to the heart of the Berkshires and introduces amateur sleuth Maggie Walker in Deborah J. Benoit’s Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award-winning debut."
Curator Ambrose
Nussknacker believes one of the paintings could be a genuine Rembrandt.
Why is Sir Flyte so reluctant to get it authenticated, and so determined
to avoid the tributes due to the discovery of one of the world’s great
lost treasures?
Marigold arrives at Hatchet Farm, a moldering, gothic pile of a house inhabited by relatives so mired in the sins of the past, they have no future. She sets out to modernize the recluses with a brisk, ruthless efficiency, but her well-intentioned plans to manage their lives lead to malice—and murder. Marigold spies a body floating in the stormy waters surrounding the island, and her suspicions immediately turn to her hostile, weapon-wielding relatives when one of the local girls turns up missing. And she might not be the only one.
When another dead body is found in the garden of the estate, Marigold finds herself accused. She must enlist the help of an eccentric, colorful cast of friends and found family to save herself—and everything she holds dear. As secrets are uncovered and lies exposed, the question of “who done it?” turns into “who didn’t do it?” and Marigold must face a truth that shatters her steely poise and shakes her very sense of self."
It's all Anna wants.
But in a closed rural community, strange traditions and a suspicion of outsiders mean everything is not as it seems.
Three teenage girls have vanished at the annual Gathering as they reach their sixteenth birthday.
No one seems to be investigating.
And a fourth girl begs Anna for help, fearing that she will be next to disappear.
Everyone has secrets.
Anna is watching everyone.
But who is watching Anna?
An unpredictable and wild page-turner, with shocks, surprises and a killer twist for a finale."
Until one of them is murdered.
In a lavish mansion on a hill in Dalat, all four men have gathered for an evening of indulgence, but one of them won’t survive the night. Toggling between this fatal night and the six days leading up to it, told from the perspectives of the four men, their mothers, their servants, and their lovers, an intricate web of terror, loyalty, and well-kept secrets begins to unravel.
Fans of Longmire will thrill to this pulse-pounding and bone-chilling novel of extreme adventure that adds another indelible chapter to the great story of Walt Longmire."
Inspired by an event that traumatized Madison and shocked the nation, this absorbing novel blends fact and fiction and is sure to delight both mystery enthusiasts and UW alumni."
When answers evade her, Mud heeds her grandfather's and great-aunt’s words of wisdom and embraces Kiowa tribal customs to find the answers that she seeks. But her ceremonial sweat leads to a vision with answers wrapped in more questions.
Mud and Denny race against the clock to uncover the real killer and must face the knowledge that there may be a traitor—and a murderer—in their midst. It’s already too late for one victim—and Mud may be next."
Dottie’s company is the first group of American women assigned to a combat theater, and with Ruth’s death, the entire operation is being questioned. Determined to do everything she can to help win the war, bring justice to her friend, and hopefully reunite with her daughter, Dottie must rise to the occasion before the killer strikes again.
But when her past comes back to haunt her, Dottie must prove she’s not a German spy and put a stop to a deadly conspiracy that threatens the entire American war effort."
Maya’s family and friends aren't happy about her work for Hamilton. And now, with her ex, Detective Koa Yamada, on the case, she’s forced to contend with the very person she was determined to avoid.
All too soon, Maya is dodging assailants and digging for clues while juggling girls’ nights out with her old BFFs and weekly family dinners. Convinced the police are after the wrong man, Maya is determined to stop the killer before it’s too late.
Exploring timely issues in Hawaiʻi, including locals getting priced out of paradise, Ghosts of Waikīkī is an engrossing mystery in the vein of The Verifiers."
As DCI Kelso Strang's investigation grows more complex, he unearths layers of hatred, greed and revenge that cast doubt even on the local police force. Having only just found happiness with his new girlfriend, Cat Fleming, Strang faces an existential threat not only to his career but to his very life."
With the Malabar House team tasked to hunt down the assassin's co-conspirators - aided by agents from Britain's MI6 security service - Persis is quickly relegated to the sidelines. But then she is given a second case, the burned body of an unidentified white man found on a Bombay beach. As she pursues both investigations - with and without official sanction - she soon finds herself headed to the country's capital, New Delhi, a city where ancient and modern India openly clash.
Meanwhile, Persis's colleague, Scotland Yard criminalist Archie Blackfinch, lies in a hospital fighting for his life as all around him the country tears itself apart in the prelude to war..."
Thursday, October 24, 2024
A Let the Scheduling Commence Weekly Link Round-Up
- A new Richard Osman The Thursday Murder Club book has been announced.
- Kids aren't reading books anymore. That explains a lot about our university campuses. (Perhaps you should stop making it harder for those kids to get books to read?)
- The magic of making books.
- How The New York Post comes up with those in-your-face headlines.
- Scientists have unlocked the secret of Girl With a Pearl Earring.
- Sausage slices and love notes: the improvised bookmarks librarians find.
- America's biggest publisher just hired a lobbyist to fight book banning.
- Kate Summerscale on our obsession with true crime.
- Amazon reveals its first color Kindle eReader after years of development.
- The incendiary power of literature in an era of censorship.
- A Florida native surveys the state's war on books.
- The Spring Branch (Texas) Independent School District has confirmed the imminent elimination of all school librarian positions.
- A Texas county has sidelined librarians and reclassified a book on the abuse of Native Americans as "fiction".
- "Nobody should tell us what to be reading." These Miami groups work to end book bans.
- South Carolina's book ban regulation is in effect. School librarians are caught in the crossfire.
- Banning books isn't just morally wrong. It's also unhealthy.
- Texas has been condemned for placing a book on colonization in the library's fiction section. (Good. The inmates need to be put back on their meds.)
- A 3,200-year-old Egyptian barracks contains a sword inscribed with "Ramesses II".
- An 11-year-old boy rescued a mysterious artwork from the dump. It turned out to be a 500-year-old Renaissance print.
- Archaeologists say they've solved the mystery of a lead coffin discovered beneath Notre-Dame.
- Low water levels reveal sunken Nazi ships full of unexploded munitions in the Danube River.
- Cocaine found in mummified brains reveal that the New World drug came to Italy 200 years earlier than thought.
- See an ancient Egyptian temple's brilliant colors, newly revealed beneath layers of dust and soot.
- This lost Mozart composition hasn't been heard for centuries. Now, you can listen to it.
- Twenty amazingly valuable thrift store finds.
►Channeling My Inner Elly May Clampett◄
- The sinking of the USS Indianapolis triggered the worst shark attack in history.
- See ten striking images from the Bird Photographer of the Year Awards.
- Why the world's first pet cemetery was revolutionary.
- Watch octopuses team up with fish to hunt-- and punch those that don't contribute.
- "Rarer creatures": Elegant trogons and hummingbirds are altering flight paths as the drought persists here in Arizona.
- The night parrot, a rare and elusive Australian bird once thought to be extinct for 100 years, has been discovered by Indigenous rangers and scientists.
- See ten strange and mesmerizing creatures from the deep ocean, from sea toads to frilled sharks.
- Meet Pesto, the biggest baby penguin this Australian aquarium has ever seen.
►The Wanderer◄
- The Paternoster Lifts of Prague, hop-on "elevators of death" without doors that run continuously.
- This interactive map shows which Indigenous lands you live on.
- Crime & the City treks high into the Himalayas.
- Mysterious craters discovered on the bottom of Lake Michigan could hold lessons about early life on Earth.
- This park recreates Vincent van Gogh's The Starry Night with a dazzling display of plants, trees, and winding pathways.
- You can now order a $200 South African safari through Uber.
- The top ten state parks in the U.S.
- The 20 most haunted highways on Earth.
►Fascinating Folk◄
- Diné (Navajo) leader Allie Young is using horses to bring "the greatest Native turnout ever" to the polls.
- Anthony Bourdain on the life and legacy of a truly infamous cook: Typhoid Mary.
- How Captain George Vancouver mapped and shaped the modern Pacific Northwest.
- Desi Arnaz is getting a much-deserved historical marker in Miami Beach.
- How Indigenous weaver DY Begay's mastery of color infuses her tapestries with a life force.
- Zelda Fitzgerald on F. Scott's writing.
- The unmasking of Madame Helena Blavatsky, 19th century occult imposter.
- Controversial rare-book dealer Glenn Horowitz tries to rewrite his own ending.
►I ♥ Lists◄
- 21 books for serious foodies.
- Mysteries set during Covid.
- Six excellent thriller and horror novels set in hotels.
- Elly Griffiths' ten favourite short stories.
- Seven great haunted house novels written by women.
- Eight haunting Appalachian and Southern Gothic novels.
- Curl up with the best cozy mysteries of Fall 2024.
- Be a literary globetrotter with these 14 books.
That's all for this week! Don't forget to stop by next Friday when I'll probably 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!Monday, October 21, 2024
The Secret War of Julia Child by Diane R. Chambers
Thursday, October 17, 2024
The Could It Possibly Be Fall?? Weekly Link Round-Up
Have a good weekend, and enjoy the links!
- What are wind phones, and how do they help with grief?
- How the swastika, an ancient symbol of good fortune used around the world, became the Nazi logo.
- Cloves: the spice that enriched empires.
- How decorated initials made early book pages pop.
- Bell-ends, pillocks, numpties, and sh*tgibbons: why the Brits swear better.
- Social media is helping bring Indigenous languages back from the brink.
- The elite college students who can't read books.
- Secrets of a book publicist.
- Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben team up on a suspense novel. More from The Guardian.
- In Arkansas, book banners have been dealt another legal setback.
- "Freedom to Read 'em": Ann Arundel (Maryland) libraries declare themselves a book sanctuary.
- California makes it harder to ban books in public libraries.
- Pasco (Florda) libraries "suppress" more than 100 children's books with LGBTQ+ themes.
- Library employee raises awareness of Banned Books Week after trustees bar celebration in Montana.
- The Cullman (Alabama) library reclassified its entire young adult collection as fiction.
- Mayor-nominated book challenger Debi Scaggs was disapproved for the library board by the city council of Denton, Texas.
- The Gilbert (Arizona) police are probing a Higley teacher after a parent complained of a book assignment.
- In Cobb County (Georgia), there's a battle over who's authorized to remove books from schools.
- Three Florida parents have filed a lawsuit over book ban policies.
- The North Attleboro (Massachusetts) school board supports a new book policy in the wake of a "Woke" uproar.
- The Charleston County (South Carolina) school board makes its first vote in the state book ban policies.
- This Pennsylvania graduate is lending a hand in the fight against book bans in her hometown school district.
- The Conway (Arkansas) School Board grills candidates on anti-trans restroom policies and book removals.
- New billboards in Van Buren (Arkansas) claim voting Republican will help keep "porn" out of the county library.
- A South Carolina library won't buy new books for those under 18.
- Drought reveals a sunken village in Greece as a reservoir dries up.
- The news sites went crazy when an enthusiastic amateur found a "remarkable" Pictish ring that had been buried for more than 1,000 years. CNN. Live Science. Smithsonian Magazine.
- A Stone Age burial ground in France used for 800 years is nearly all male-- and ancient DNA reveals that they are largely related.
- Archaeologists unearthed a rare trove of silver coins on a Mediterranean island.
- The Roman siege of Masada may have lasted weeks, not years.
- A 16,000-year-old skeleton, crystals, and stone tools were discovered in Malaysian caves.
- A man discovered a 900-year-old stone carving beneath his house in Germany.
- Four silver Viking Age bracelets were discovered "untouched" on a mountainside in Norway after more than 1,000 years.
- How do cats squeeze through small spaces?
- Raccoons in the laboratory.
- A runaway capybara is evading capture and "living her best life" in England. Cinnamon's freedom lasted four days.
- These 34 creatures were recently discovered as a new species.
- In Colonial Williamsburg, thieving rats save history.
- Watch baby falcons take their first flights from a steep mountain ledge.
- Three remarkable spiders: a vegetarian, a vampire, and a predator that uses "pincer, fork, and key."
- The adorable baby hippo Moo Deng is more than a viral sensation. She offers a are glimpse of an endangered species.
- Why seven animals became associated with Halloween.
- Workers just started building the world's first 3D-printed hotel in the Texas desert.
- Eight fact about Olduvai Gorge, the "Cradle of Mankind."
- In Ann Arbor, Michigan? Visit the West Side Book Shop.
- The most common last name in every country, mapped.
- See 24 beautiful photos of fall foliage in its most vibrant colors.
- Rome's Trevi Fountain will get a much-needed cleaning-- and a controversial new entry fee.
- See 14 photos of the beauty of Cuba through its striking shoreline and buzzing streets.
- The rise and fall of the "Women's Hotel" in American cities.
- Another way Jimmy Carter, aged 100, bested his fellow presidents.
- Was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde inspired by a real murder case?
- Frederick Gowing, king of poachers.
- The Montana rancher who created giant, hybrid sheep (to sell for higher prices to hunting preserves) was sentenced to six months in prison.
- 17 signs that you'd qualify as a witch in 1692.
- Robert Dugoni on a life of writing.
- Eleanor Roosevelt, one of my personal heroes.
- Land, oil, and Indigenous identity: on the disappearance of Tommy Atkins.
- Recent must-read Indigenous non-fiction.
- A list of mysteries featuring librarian sleuths.
- BookBub's best historical fiction of Fall 2024.
- 17 bookish mystery novels.
- The best mystery and thriller shows on Peacock.
- Martin Walker on classic crime fiction's epicurean delights.
- Eight thrillers and mysteries around reality TV.
- BookBub's best biographies and memoirs coming this fall.
That's all for this week! Don't forget to stop by next Friday when I'll probably 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!