Mrs Dalloway Day, Horseback Librarians, Walking Vermont, Bird Names & More: Endnotes 12 June

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.

Tomorrow is Mrs. Dalloway Day, in honor of Virginia Woolf’s 1925 novel, which The Guardian called ‘a modernist masterpiece and one of the great novels about London.’ (It ranked #14 on their list of the 100 best novels of all time.) Not much happens in the book’s 200 pages, but in the way of great stories, everything happens as the titular upperclass lady walks in London, contemplating her life. The map above is St. James’s Park, circa 1833, and is the version of the Park Mrs. Clarissa Dalloway most likely visited. During her ramble through the city, she takes us to Dean’s Yard in Westminster, the famous shopping promenade of Bond Street in the West End, St. James’s Park (‘the most royal of London’s Royal Parks’), Hatchards Bookshop in Piccadilly — founded in 1979, which makes it the oldest bookstore in the UK in the United Kingdom — and many more London sights. If you’ve never read the novel, good news: It’s just 200 pages, so you can join the Mrs. Dalloway fun this weekend. To turn your reading time into a multimedia experience, here’s a visual narrative of the characters’ paths through London — and a charming hand-drawn map and photos so you can take a virtual walk along with the characters from your couch. Should you find yourself in London (lucky you!), London Walks offers a Mrs. Dalloway’s London walking tour.

• Meet the librarians who delivered books on horseback in 1930s Kentucky — and learn how their work preserved traditional recipes. ‘Today, I’m on meandering Kentucky backroads, looking out over cliffs that descend into rocky hillsides, driving past houses with worn siding and American flags waving gently in the wind… I’ve come to search for one small volume: a scrapbook created sometime between 1936 and 1943, containing recipes gathered by women who participated in the Pack Horse Library project.’ (If you’re interested in this fascinating bit of history, I recommended the novel The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson in our podcast episode Appalachia: Buttermilk Biscuits, Bluegrass, and a Big Blue Moon.

• This is pretty fun: Netflix has collected all of its literary adaptations on a Watch Your Favorite Books page.

• Heads up! Tillie Walden’s new graphic nonfiction book Charity & Silvia is out on Tuesday! You can download an excerpt for a sneak preview of the book. Alison Bechdel, the author of Fun Home, said, ‘…the preternaturally gifted Tillie Walden surpasses herself. She relates this true story of two women living as a couple in early 19th-century Vermont with a pitch-perfect blend of modern sensibility and richly textured archival detail. Her irrepressible drawings are crowded with large families in small candlelit houses, the tackle and trim of daily chores, moody landscapes, and shifting weather. As the scenes of life in a New England village unspool, time seems to slow and lengthen to a pre-industrial pace, with plenty of room for contemplation.’

• A few weeks ago, I shared The Guardian’s 100 best novels of all time. This week, they published their readers’ list of favorites.

• The Tony Awards attendees as books:

• Walking + Vermont + Dinner sounds like a lovely time. These Vermont Inn to Inn Walking Tours allow you to walk at your own pace along a predetermined route with meals and your bags waiting at four charming inns along the way.

• Do you like birds? I like birds. The 100 Greatest Bird Names of All Time.

• I lost a lot of time playing this food-guessing game. #noregrets. Guess from a photo and ingredients where the food is from.

• Sorta related: Why does roast chicken taste so good? Inside the science behind the flavors we love.

• Summer seems like a fantastic time to read great horror and sci-fi novels! Maybe start here: this year’s Bram Stoker Award® winners and Nebula Awards® winners.

• Photographer August Sander’s photos of everyday people and scenes are quite arresting. Yale University Art Gallery is hosting an extensive collection of his work through the end of the month — and/but you can see dozens of the photographs in this online gallery.

• Handy! I’ve Read a Few Classics and I’m Ready for More Starter Pack. A sequel to the I Want to Read Classics But I’m Scared Starter Pack.

• Gabriel Allon alert (for all those who celebrate the annual summer release of his latest adventures)! The new book Ransom will be out on 14 July — but you can read the first three chapters now. ‘Art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon searches for the missing wife of a British billionaire in the electrifying new tale of greed, corruption, and betrayal.’

• Enjoy the nostalgia of America’s grandest gas stations with this cross-country journey through 13 unique service stations.

• I clicked so quickly. Researchers May Have Just Identified A Rare Portrait Of Anne Boleyn That Was Hiding In Plain Sight For 500 Years. ‘A sketch by German artist Hans Holbein the Younger, created sometime in the 1530s and known only as the Unidentified Woman, may in fact be an extremely rare portrait of Anne Boleyn. ‘ Spoiler: She looks pretty!

• It’s been 100 years since Agatha Christie published her beloved and groundbreaking novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. To celebrate, download this free zine with puzzles, quotes, trivia, and more to make reading the book even better. You can read the novel on Gutenberg.org and hear Dave talk about it in our podcast episode Manor House: The Fall of the House of… Almost Everyone, Really. (Our written review is right here.)

• Related: Enter a drawing to win the complete Folio Society Agatha Christie collection, along with a custom illustration of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, The World of Hercule Poirot puzzle, and The Official Poirot Puzzle Book. (The giveaway is open to participants worldwide aged 18 and over.)

‘It is a thousand pities never to say what one feels.’ — Virginia Woolf

Top image courtesy of Wikimedia.