- May Day Mystery - Since 1981, yearly cryptic full-page ads have been published in a university newspaper by an unknown group. What is the mystery behind the May Day ads? I found out about this through a youTube video from Curiosity Crusades. It's just under 5 minutes. I would check that out first and then go to the link, which is the website set up by the student mentioned in the video. Site is old school but still maintained. There are scans of the pages and you can enter comments if you have any ideas on any of the clues.
- How the World's Most Famous Code was Cracked - Outside the CIA headquarters there is a sculpture with encrypted messages, Kryptos. The first 3 codes were cracked early on but it wasn't until last September that the 4th one was deciphered.
- 52 Things I Learned in 2025 - I found this through one of the sites I follow but I didn't note which one. I have feelings about Substack, which this is hosted on, but it's a free article with lots of cool factoids. Even better, the author has noted where she got the factoids from so this could lead to a lovely round of rabbit-holing.
Listening
Some of the podcasts I listened to this past week:
And how about some indie alternative Korean rock?
Reading
I finished up No Precious Truth by Chris Nickson, a WW2 mystery set in Leeds, England with a lady copper, Cathy Marsden, who has been seconded to a Special Investigations Branch in order to find a spy running amuck in town. I really enjoyed this mystery. I appreciated that the main character's personal life was fleshed out and we got a taste of what it was like living in an area that was subject to rationing and nightly bombing raids. I thought the mystery was well done, too. This author has several historical series but this is the first one in this series - at least I hope there are more because I'd like to read more adventures with Cathy!
I've been slowly working on Starship Librarians, a really great anthology of space librarian stories. It's been my in-between books book. But, I've put it down again because...
I got a notice on Saturday from the library that my hold came in! Last week I talked about placing both an e-book hold and an actual book hold on T. Kingfisher's Hemlock and Silver and the physical book came in first! I just picked that up today and I've started reading it already.
I haven't updated my reading log on the Library page yet but I did total up my reading stats for 2025 - 61 books and 4 DNF (did not finish). 61 sounds like a lot but there were several novellas in there so maybe not quite as impressive as it first seems.
I even made a pie graph breaking down my year's reading by genre:
Watching
I'm almost at the end of season 2 of Royal Flying Doctor Service. After that there's only one more season. I'm so liking this show! I have no idea if a season 4 is planned or not but I hope there is.
All Creatures Great and Small comes back to PBS on January 11 and not only am I excited about that, the friend who got me into that show has suggested we have a watch party at her place so that will be fun for both of us!
And I'm a little bit late to the party but I've started watching the last season of Stranger Things. I've enjoyed the show but this season is weird because the "kids" are SO OLD. I've only watched 2 episodes of it so far.
Well, that's it for now but I'll be back on Wednesday with a tiara post!
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