Rijksmuseum, Ablaut Reduplication, Faroe Mysteries, Lucky Vocab & More: Endnotes 26 May

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.

As you’re reading this, Dave and I are in Amsterdam to see the Vermeer exhibit. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime show — only 34 paintings by Vermeer survive, and this exhibit brings together 27 of them from galleries, collections, and museums around the world. The show has been sold out for months, but there are excellent resources online that will take you deep into Vermeer’s world. Start with this free online experience called Closer to Vermeer. It’s a smooth-as-silk guided tour narrated by Stephen Fry. If you want to know more, the Rijksmuseum is also offering this reasonably priced online course that takes you on ‘a 90-minute journey through Vermeer’s work.’ For more about the exhibit itself, here’s a CNN report and articles from Vogue and The Guardian. When we need a break from the beautiful art, we’re also going to pop into the Cuypers Library. Located inside the Rijksmuseum, it’s the largest and oldest art historical library in the Netherlands. After recent renovations, the library is now open to tourists who crave the quiet and old book smell.

• Slate argues that Shakespeare was Shakespeare. ‘It is long past time to retire the pernicious, anti-historical, dumb search for who really wrote Shakespeare’s plays.’

• Do you know the phrase ablaut reduplication?

• This is so cool. All year, the London Review of Books is teaming up with the World Weather Network to explore the role of weather in art and storytelling. You can see all the articles here; I enjoyed this one about the marine paintings of the Dutch Golden Age. So many emotion-inducing clouds!

• You don’t need to leave the United States to visit a castle. Here are the 15 best castles in New York.

• This clothesline art makes me smile.

• Just in time for summer: 15 of the Best Audiobooks for Road Trips and Plane Rides.

• CrimeReads weighs in on great crime novels set in the Faroe Islands, ‘the most remote outpost of Scandi-Noir.

• Eater has delicious opinions on where to eat around the world in 2023.

• Wait. What?! Did you know there’s an Irish castle in California’s Mojave Desert?

• Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw turns 125 this year. Here’s a look at the top six film and TV adaptations of the ‘ultimate governess in a strange house story.’

• Enjoy these outrageous photos of a Los Angeles alligator farm, circa 1907. Nothing, and I mean nothing, about these photos looks safe. ‘Hypnotizing an alligator,’ indeed.

• Your life can only get better if you read this list of author Judy Blume’s favorite books.

• Make your own luck with this quiz featuring fortunate and unfortunate words. I got 15/16 and learned the etymology of the word windfall. That’s a double win.

May you learn something new that upends what you thought you knew.

Top image courtesy of Salvador Maniquiz/Shutterstock.