Weekend Links 10-30-20

This weekend marks both Halloween and the end of Daylight Savings Time here in the United States. Have a safe weekend and enjoy that extra hour of rest. Here are a few links of interest for your weekend reading:

Here is how trick or treating became popularized. 

Why Arsenic and Old Lace is the perfect movie for Halloween.

With the time change this weekend we will be setting our clocks back. For most of us it's not a big deal. At Windsor Castle, however, one man is responsible for changing the 400 clocks in the castle. 

This gave me chills: a Colorado high school choir performs "Down to the River to Pray" in a hotel. It is amazing.

Prepare to be heartwarmed: finding love at the Dunkin' Donuts. It's a wonderful story. 

This is the kind of news story I am  here for: an airport security officer rescued a kitten that had wandered onto the ramp.

Readers of this space know that I am a huge fan of Agatha Christie's novels. Here is a great list of her "essential" works. 

Ever wonder why lightbulbs don't last? It's because of a conspiracy. 

There's an app for everything these days including one that will let you know whether the McFlurry machine at your local McDonald's is working. 

The KGB museum in New York was one of the countless casualties of the pandemic. The good news is that their entire collection of artifacts is for sale. 

Weekend Links 10-23-20

 Congratulations on making it through another week. Here are a few links for your weekend reading.

They say there is a Shakespeare quote for every occasion. Does that also apply to Shakespeare mugs? 

Speaking of Shakespeare, a first folio set a record for the most expensive work of literature ever sold at auction. 

This year marks the eightieth anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock's film adaptation of Rebecca. Here's the story of the woman who helped the director bring the novel to life on screen. 

This is fun: select the year you were born and the engine will show you the words that first appeared in print during that year. 

It's a rite of summer: the joyful sounds of music in the streets means that the ice cream truck has come to visit your neighborhood. There were many times my girls would be overcome with excitement at those sounds. This is the story of the company that makes virtually all the music boxes installed in ice cream trucks. 

Talk about an expensive Christmas present: the puppets used in the 1964 stop action animation television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer are up for auction. 

The problem with home renovations is you never know what you will find hidden in the walls. 

Lucky detectorists: two British teens found ancient coins over a thousand years old. 

These kinds of stories warm my heart: a painting looted by Nazis from a Jewish family in 1933 was returned to its rightful owner. 

These two soldiers literally stared death in the face. Their story of survival is remarkable. 

This one is for Doctor Who fans: A dispute featuring a town council, a science fiction museum, and a Dalek. 

Weekend podcast: one of my favorite musicians is Diana Krall. She is an incredibly talented singer and pianist. I loved listening to this episode of The Checkout podcast where she discussed her craft as well as her new album This Dream of You. 

Weekend Links 10-16-20

 This weeks post is going to break all the rules. By that I mean that I am purposely disobeying my own ground rules for assembling these posts. First of all, I try to draw from as many different sources as possible. However, some of my reliable sources had so much good content this week that I am offering multiple posts from the same site. 

Secondly, and more importantly, I purposely avoid politics in these posts. The links featured here are meant to be a distraction from politics and other current events. However, I ran across a couple of articles this week that were too good to pass up. I will put those at the end so that you can skip those if you like. 

Now onto the links for this weekend:

This year marks the centennial of the publication of Agatha Christie's first novel The Mysterious Affair at Styles. To celebrate, here is a wonderful collection of the book's covers through the years. Just looking at this article will help show you why I have different editions of the same novel in my own collection. 

Sophie Hannah selects ten underrated Agatha Christie novels. I haven't read all of them yet but can agree that a couple of them certainly don't get the attention they deserve. 

One more Christie related link: How I Learned to Stop Being Sexist and Love Miss Marple. Exit question: who would you like to see portray the spinster sleuth? I like the author's suggestion a lot. 

If you ever lose your jewelry you can always call the Ring Finders. 

With more and more meetings moving to Zoom these days we are getting a look at other people's bookshelves. Why are we so focused on them? I think in a way it helps reveal something about a person. The fact there is an entire Twitter feed devoted to bookshelf credibility tells us how a real our obsession really is. 

Besides Agatha Christie another of my favorite mystery writers is Anthony Horowitz. Here's an introduction to his novel series for adults. By the way, the television adaptation of his Alex Rider series premieres in the US on November 13th. 

Weekend playlist: this week I have been listening to Palo Alto by Thelonius Monk. In 1968, a sixteen year old high school student hired Monk and his quartet to play a fundraising concert at Palo Alto High School. An enterprising school janitor recorded the session which is now available to stream. It's quite a performance. 

The reason why it is hard to spot your own typos. It makes a lot of sense. Thank goodness for autocorrect.

It's been 70 years since C. S. Lewis published the first volume of The Chronicles of Narnia. Why the novels still hold our imagination even as adults. Of all the books I read to my girls when they were younger these are still my favorites. 

This is some fascinating research: how readers rate New York Times bestsellers. 

Finally, a couple of articles about the election. The headline of the first article sums up how I feel: Why can't they both lose?  I don't identify any longer with a particular political party and I don't necessarily endorse everything that this site would stand for. However, I think the article makes some important points about what is at stake and what the two major candidates for president represent. I find myself agreeing with Joel Belz that someone other than the two major party candidates would be preferable in this election. 

Weekend Links 10-9-20

Hard to believe that we are already into the second week in October. Where has this year gone? 

Here are a few links of interest for your weekend reading:

Secrets of strong writing from the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. There's a lot of great advice in this article. 

The Art Institute of Chicago is one of the finest art museums anywhere. It's also the place to go if you want to see the works of Claude Monet. 

I've always been curious about this even though I don't own a dog: why do dogs bury things? 

Longread of the week: how to misread Jane Austen.  I'll be honest and admit I have only read one of her books which was Pride and Prejudice. I had to read it for a college literature class. I have seen adaptations of almost all of her novels so I am at least somewhat familiar with the canon. But I think that many people want her works to say what they want them to say rather than reading them at face value. 

Craig Johnson, creator of the Longmire novels, researches the mystery of an American painting that could once be found in most watering holes across the country that has since totally disappeared. 

Found: tapes from a 1962 Ella Fitzgerald concert in Berlin. I have been listening to this performance and it is every bit as wonderful as you would expect one of her concerts to be. 

I don't endorse cheating. However, this was a fun thought experiment. How the 1919 Chicago White Sox could have thrown the World Series and gotten away with it. 

Weekend Links 10-2-20

Hard to believe it is already October. This year continues to fly by. Here are a few links of interest for your weekend reading.

I don't read the news too much because it's mostly depressing. But this post from Gracy Olmstead on reading the news in dark times really struck a nerve. You can also sign up for her monthly newsletter at the link. I highly recommend it. 

When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up. In fact that was my plan until I grew too tall to be a test pilot. Anyway here are some interesting facts about astronauts. Related: what it's like to live and work on the International Space Station. 

The Society for American Baseball Research debunks eight myths about the Black Sox scandal popularized in Eliot Asinof's book Eight Men Out and the film of the same name. 

Found: a rare edition of William Shakespeare's last play. 

Also believed to be found: the Amber Room which was once part of a tsarist palace and was looted by the Nazis during World War II. 

Answering the important questions: why do milk jugs have those inverted circles?

Weird history: the unsuccessful plot during World War II to fight the Japanese with radioactive foxes. 

Remembering mystery writer Jacques Futrelle who sadly is probably best known for perishing on the Titanic. 

This is something I hadn't considered: how the U. S. Postal Service selects literary stamps. 

I had one of these as a kid and probably many more people did too. A brief history of the Wooly Willy. 

This is another article that really struck a chord with me. Things I did that my kids never will.