Afternoon Tea (7/26/19)

A Peculiarly Dutch Summer Rite: Children Let Loose in the Night Woods

Honestly, this sold me, I'm going to try it: The Best Classical Music Streaming Service Is Idagio

Five Women Who Made the Moon Landing Possible

Peru celebrates Inca sun festival: Inti Raymi – in pictures

This is so neat: An Interactive Map of Odysseus’ 10-Year Journey in Homer’s Odyssey

Afternoon Tea (7/9/19)

Exclusive Investigation: Sex, Drugs, Misogyny And Sleaze At The HQ Of Bumble’s Owner

Why the USWNT’s open queerness matters

Romance Novelists Write About Sex and Pleasure. On the Internet That Makes Them Targets for Abuse

DNA Begins to Unlock Secrets of the Ancient Philistines

A few days late but very interesting: An Ives Fourth

Afternoon Tea (5/22/19)

Fighting Ebola When Mourners Fight the Responders

For These Minor Leaguers, the Living Is Good if You Don’t Mind the Dead Below

I didn't know anything about this composer, and this is FASCINATING: A Symphony for Springtime

I’m from a Mexican family. Stop expecting me to eat ‘authentic’ food.

Lot of great picks here! Summer Reading from YA Authors

Afternoon Tea (5/3/19)

The secret feminist history of illustrating plant life

Hilary Hahn: Entering the Sublime

This is very cute: Whale of a time

How The Pennsylvania Dutch Turned A Rural Town Into A Snack Food Empire

48 of the Best YA Books of May

Morning Coffee (3/8/19)

FRIDAY HAPPY LINKS.

THE BEST STORY OF THE WEEK: The story of the Iditarod-hopeful dog who got loose and followed teams for 30 miles

Wait, this one is also great: A student brought his baby to class because he didn’t have child care. His professor lent a hand.

Come for the feel-good library story, stay for the Beatles puns: Good Day Sunshine: 1968 Beatles 'Life' Magazine Finally Returned To Library

THIS BOOK IS SO GREAT: Amy Spalding's New Book 'We Used To Be Friends' Takes An Unexpected Look At Friend Breakups — Start Reading Now

And I'm so excited for this one: Exclusive Cover Reveal: Dahlia Adler's Poe-Inspired Anthology, His Hideous Heart

There's fanfic at The Met and it's all because of the Tale of Genji

Dev Patel to Star in David Lowery’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Film

Well! Hear Arcade Fire's rendition of 'Baby Mine' in new Dumbo teaser

Opera Quiz: How Much Do You Know About Women Composers & Their Operas?

I'm relieved that this sorted me correctly: Choose Some Pasta And We'll Put You In Your True Hogwarts House

Morning Coffee (3/2/19)

What’s next after the Trump-Kim summit? An expert explains.

U.S. and Taliban Begin Highest-Level Talks Yet on Ending Afghan War

Border Patrol Fed Pork To Muslim Detainee For 6 Days

Is It Cruel and Unusual to Execute a Man With Dementia?

No, Mark Meadows. Having a black friend doesn’t mean you’re not racist.

UGH: United Methodist Church votes to maintain its opposition to same-sex marriage, gay clergy

Bernie Sanders' Sexism Problem

André Previn, Whose Music Knew No Boundaries, Dies at 89

Whoa: Fox Rocked by $179M 'Bones' Ruling: Lying, Cheating and "Reprehensible" Studio Fraud

BAN MEN: Charles Dickens Tried to Banish His Wife to an Asylum, Letters Show

Afternoon Tea (2/19/19)

Is Ancient DNA Research Revealing New Truths — or Falling Into Old Traps?

I'm so excited to read Anne Ursu's new book, and this piece she wrote about it is really good: What About the Girls?

An Italian Town Fell Silent So The Sounds Of A Stradivarius Could Be Preserved

Why a Museum Owns a Chocolate Company’s Embroidery Collection

Who Was a Typical Oxford Student in the 14th Century?

Weekly Rec: Tasmin Little Plays Clara Schumann, Dame Ethel Smyth & Amy Beach

That title's a mouthful! Sorry. But it is, as you might expect, a new album by British violinist Tasmin Little in which she plays music for violin by Clara Schumann, Ethel Smyth, and Amy Beach, female composers of the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries. As in so many areas, women's contributions to classical music have generally been buried, and I'd never really listened to Smyth or Beach. Schumann is in the trap of possibly being better known than the other two in part because of her husband's fame - but she suppressed her own career for his sake. (Smyth sounds fascinating, now that I look - she was queer and involved in the suffrage movement! She fell in love with both Emmeline Pankhurst and Virginia Woolf!)

ANYWAY. This album is a good way to get a taste of these underrated composers, and luckily it is also a DELIGHT. It just came out last week and I've already listened a bunch of times. Get a taste of it below:

Morning Coffee (1/25/19)

Time for Friday happy links!

GOOD: Vanity Fair's Hollywood Issue Cover Features Majority People of Color For the First Time

Good news from my home state: Kid Governor sworn in with LGBTQ platform

3 Newborn Endangered Right Whales Seen After Year With No Births

This thread of corresponding composers and cookies is the greatest thing ever published.

Oh. Why, yes, this is what it would sound like if The National covered the Frasier theme song

After Controversy, City Approves 'Pho Keene Great' Restaurant Name

Hahaha: 'Ancient' Scottish stone circle was built in 1990s

'The Unhoneymooners' By Christina Lauren Is An Enemies-To-Lovers Romance Set In Paradise & You Can Start Reading Now

Aw: Olympians Sophie Caldwell And Simi Hamilton Announce Engagement

QUIZ: Guess the YA book from the Picture

Afternoon Tea (12/13/18)

The Dangers of Mothering While Black

Brexit Could Drastically Change English Soccer

On Junk Science, Pop Forensics and Crime Fiction

A Cave for Mithra

Yo-Yo Ma's Days of Action

Afternoon Tea (12/12/18)

Elizabeth Rowe has sued the BSO. Her case could change how orchestras pay men and women.

Why Netflix could have lost Friends — and what it means for the future of streaming

As an Indian Bride-to-Be, Seeing Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas Break Tradition Took My Wedding Stress Away

A ‘Honking Big’ Cave in Canada Lures Geologists to Its Mouth

The 20 Best Crime Novels of 2018

Afternoon Tea (12/6/18)

Jameela Jamil and the Trouble With #NoFilter Feminism

How A Corporation Convinced American Jews To Reach For Crisco

(Not?) Petrarch’s Cat

Opera 101

7 Real-Life Spy Stories for People Obsessed with John le Carré

Afternoon Tea (10/23/18)

This is fascinating: The Myth of Whiteness in Classical Sculpture

The inside story of judging the Man Booker prize 2018

Pixar's Coco, and Looking to Our Ancestors in Times of Struggle

The Velvet Revolution of Claude Debussy

The last Anglo-Saxon kings

Afternoon Tea (10/8/18)

There's some VERY interesting stuff in this interview: Catherine Hardwicke Broke Records With ‘Twilight.’ Then Hollywood Labeled Her ‘Difficult.’

#Girlboss notebooks and “Feminist AF” pencils: the case against “empowering” office supplies

The fantasy world of pre-wedding photos: inside China's billion-dollar industry

The Boy Romantic

Immigration Narratives in Crime Fiction

Afternoon Tea (10/4/18)

How Do You Take a Picture of a Black Hole? With a Telescope as Big as the Earth

This is fascinating and I can't wait to read her book: Nicole Chung on the Complexities, and Joys, of Transracial Adoption

Vladimir Nabokov's Other Favorite Crime

The new Discovering Music resource on the British Library site is really cool.

Wizards, Moomins and pirates: the magic and mystery of literary maps

Afternoon Tea (10/4/18)

The New Cold Front in Russia’s Information War

Ooh, I've never read him: Eric Ambler: A Crime Reader's Guide to the Classics

The rise of the wholesome internet meme

A Tingling Spine Every Time: Some of classical music’s most sublime moments

The Screenwriting Mystic Who Wanted to Be the American Führer

Afternoon Tea (10/3/18)

The KGB Stalked A Snap-Happy French Tourist For Eight Years. But Was He A Spy?

Useful! The Baker's Pantry: All the Staples You Need to Make Amazing Desserts

The Murderous Playwrights of Elizabethan England

Would Baseball have Become America’s National Pastime Without Baseball Cards?

The Lonely Heath at Twilight

Afternoon Tea (10/1/18)

A journalist researched the true story behind a rape allegation that occurred at her high school when she was a student, and the result is fascinating and heartbreaking: What Do We Owe Her Now?

This fits well with our current national mood: RANKED: 10 Paintings of Judith Beheading Holofernes

Photos Document What Remains of a Soviet Atomic City

The Women Spies of Historical Crime Fiction

Walking in Benjamin Britten's footsteps, Suffolk

Afternoon Tea (9/21/18)

This is FASCINATING: How Will Police Solve Murders on Mars?

Chrissy Teigen turned relatability into a brand

MY FAVORITE: Brother Cadfael: An Appreciation

John F Kennedy's childhood photos published – in pictures

A Requiem of One’s Own

Morning Coffee (9/17/18)

Me elsewhere: TV news for the week.

California professor, writer of confidential Brett Kavanaugh letter, speaks out about her allegation of sexual assault

A woman’s daring escape from a Border Patrol agent helped reveal a ‘serial killer,’ police say

The tyranny of the majority isn’t a problem in America today. Tyranny of the minority is.

I generally like John Kerry but this was bad: John Kerry criticized for saying Trump has ‘the insecurity of a teenage girl’

California Governor Jerry Brown Says State Will Launch Its Own Pollution Monitoring Satellite

New York Philharmonic Dismisses 2 Players for Unspecified Misconduct Including the principal oboist! Four days before opening night! With a new conductor!

A solar observatory in New Mexico is evacuated for a week and the FBI is investigating. No one will say why.

GLOW's Shauna Duggins Is the First Woman to Win an Emmy for Stunt Coordination

I'm not usually much of a graphic novel reader but I'm excited for this: Rainbow Rowell unveils cover for first graphic novel, illustrated by Faith Erin Hicks

Archaeologists discover ancient sphinx in Egypt