Swimming Pigs, Macbeth, Turkish Potatoes, Sensory Reading & More: Endnotes 29 March

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.

The colorful shop above is found in Exuma in the Bahamas. This archipelago of 365 islands — I don’t know: maybe you want to visit a different one every day for a year — is known for flawless soft-sand beaches, amazingly clear water, and pigs that swim. Pig Island, a.k.a., Big Major Cay, is uninhabited and the pigs are not native. So how did the little piggies get there? One tall tale says the pigs survived a shipwreck and have enjoyed living on their own private island ever since. The truth is less swashbuckling: The pigs started out on nearby Staniel Cay but were moved by farmers to Big Major Cay. The pigs soon learned their food arrived via boat and started to swim out to greet the farmers and be first in the food line. Now they’re local celebrities visited by tourists and locals who feed them carrots, grapes, and watermelon. Here are six reasons to visit Exuma (mile-long sandbar! iguanas! snorkeling!) and a collection of candy-colored photos that make a very compelling case. You might also like this 4-minute 4k video of the inviting beaches and a quick look at the swimming piggies.

• 5 New Mystery Novels Whisk Readers Around the Globe. Very excited about the new Veronica Speedwell mystery A Grave Robbery.

• Copyeditor and author Ben Dreyer on anachronyms. Full disclosure: I’m guilty of using almost all of these! Anaychronyms are words used ‘in an anachronistic way, by referring to something in a way that is appropriate only for a former or later time.’

• This bronze sculpture of an enormous table in Liberec, Czechia, has a very specific message. ‘Feast of Giants is in the shape of a table, with an array of representative items atop it. A toppled menorah sits between Czech and German beer steins. A vase stands full of carnivorous Venus flytraps, poised to swallow the insects in their jaws. Lastly, a human head lays cheek down on a dinner plate alongside traditional Liberec sausages, pierced by a fork and knife.’ Click through to see what it all means.

• Must-click headline: People Wore Things to the Mark Twain Prize.

• I need this for making phone calls, for sure: instructions to how to make a bingo card to help you with tasks you dread.

• Very exciting news: David Tennant will star in a new radio adaptation of Macbeth. You can listen to his 2022 performance for BBC Radio 1 on YouTube. The witches in this one are very spooky!

• When one of your favorite poems meets one of your favorite actors:

• Um… a trip to the Dublin Book Fest seems really fun. ‘Started as a pop-up in 2010, featuring mostly Irish authors, today it’s a four-day cultural extravaganza, running from June 13 to 16, with music, comedians, movies, and more, attracting some 20,000 people.’

• I want to go to Turkey for other reasons, but this potato is also very compelling:

• This quiz about film-making terminology is pretty fun! (I got 14/16.)

• Is It Possible to Successfully Split Costs on a Group Trip? Helpful tips for the ‘the unavoidable, but not unavoidably awkward, task of sharing expenses such as accommodation, group dinners, and more.’

• 7 Midwestern Towns for Modern Architecture Lovers. ‘In these seven cities, architects from Frank Lloyd Wright and Frank Gehry to Eero Saarinen and I.M. Pei have changed the landscape of American design with their innovative homes, museums, libraries, churches, and more—with many even earning UNESCO World Heritage and National Historic Landmark status.’

• Love this list of Six Books That Will Jolt Your Senses Awake. To that I would add Piglet by Lottie Hazell; I read it weeks ago, and I’m still obsessed.

New Episode of The Library of Lost Time

In each mini-podcast episode, we discuss two books at the top of our TBR, then share a fun book- or travel-related distraction. Get all the episodes and books galore here.

In this episode, we get excited about two books: The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft and Why We Remember: The Science of Memory and How It Shapes Us by Charan Ranganath. Then Dave shares his thrilling experience at Guys and Dolls in London. [transcript]

This episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/StrongSense and get on your way to being your best self.

Links

• The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft

• Flights by Olga Tokarczuk

• Excerpt of The Extinction of Irena Rey by Jennifer Croft

• Why Translators Should Be Named on Book Covers

• 27 Great Books In Translation

• Why We Remember: The Science of Memory and How It Shapes Us by Charan Ranganath

Distraction of the Week: Immersive Theater

• Nye at the National Theatre, London

• National Theatre Tour info

• Six, The Musical around the world

• Guys and Dolls at the Bridge Theatre, London

• Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club, London

Hope you feel like singing!

Top image courtesy of James Zwadlo/Unsplash.