Tea Around the World, Edward Gorey's Lists, Mrs. Dalloway & More: Endnotes 24 April

Every Friday, we celebrate the weekend — and all the reading and relaxing and daydreaming time ahead — with Melissa's favorite book- and travel-related links of the week. Why work when you can read fun stuff?!

This post is part of our Endnotes series.

When life is overwhelming, and you feel a muddle coming on, a cup of tea might be just the thing to help you restore your equilibrium. Enjoy these beautiful tea rituals from around the world.

• Visit Brontë country from your computer — then treat yourself to The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

• Sophie Yanow is a great cartoonist (and a really good human) whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Nib, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Her new comic What is a Glacier? is a moving meditation on romantic love, endings, glaciers, grief, and our place in the world.

• Writers are hardcore metal, man.

• How about a virtual trip to ancient Egypt?! I’m usually lukewarm on 3D-renderings, but these are smooth as silk and include bite-sized nuggets of information that make it feel like you’re inside a museum exhibit. You can tour the Tomb of Queen Meresankh III, granddaughter of King Khufu (Cheops), who built the Great Pyramid — and the Tomb of Menna, who was a ‘Scribe in the fields of the Lord of the Two Lands of Upper and Lower Egypt’ during Dynasty XVIII; his job was probably to document the records of land ownership. The virtual tour of the Mosque-Madrassa of Sultan Barquq doesn’t include the explanatory hot-spots like the others, but it is thrilling to wander its colorful corridors.

• We’re re-watching all of Schitt’s Creek because it’s such a feel-good show. Did you know there’s a real-life Rose Apothecary?

• Are you reading Mrs. Dalloway while quarantining? (I might.)

• These bookish confessions are so very relatable.

• Pop quiz! Can you identify these UNESCO World Heritage sites?

• Whoa. Prolonged isolation can lead to the creation of new accents. ‘If they ever really decided to colonize another planet, like Mars, we’d be right in there wanting to study that. They would develop a Martian accent. Can you imagine that?’

• Artist and author Edward Gorey was a devoted list-maker, and the new exhibit at his namesake museum lets us peek inside his journals for lists galore.

• It’s always reassuring when Rick Steves talks about the world and our place in it.

• Sure, you loved reading The Age of Innocence, but would you take decorating advice from Edith Wharton?

• Enjoy these photos of the country estate formerly owned by Queen drummer Roger Taylor. I would love to cook in that kitchen!

• The novel Jane Eyre opens with little Jane hiding in a window seat and reading Thomas Bewick’s History of British Birds. This piece from The Royal Society takes a deep dive into the British artist’s other nature drawings, including a ridiculously cute hippo. (Also Jane-related: this Twitter thread is a hoot.)

• The New York Public Library asks: Are you Patience or Fortitude? (It’s fun, but the results are highly suspect because I got ‘Patience,’ and I can assure you that that particular adjective has never, ever been applied to me.)

• Lord Byron was a naughty, and his family was, too!

• If you want to geek out on the details of book-making, card catalogs, and more, this blog is for you. (Thank you for pointing me to it, Ronda!)

• Bookish podcast of the week: This episode of the thoroughly engaging Shedunnit podcast explains, ‘There’s a reason why Agatha Christie knew so much about poisons.’

• Travel podcast of the week: John Harrington is the first Native American astronaut. In this episode of the Armchair Explorer, he takes us aboard the International Space Station.

Wishing you lots of things to pique your curiosity and engage your imagination.

Top image courtesy of Soyoung Han.