Archaeology News: More Excavations at Stonehenge

from BBC News:
The first excavation inside the ring at Stonehenge in more than four decades gets under way on Monday.
The two-week dig will try to establish, once and for all, some precise dating for the creation of the monument. It is also targeting the significance of the smaller bluestones that stand inside the giant [...]

Mystery: The Lizard’s Bite, by David Hewson

You can’t outrun the devil

Sequel to 2 previous installments involving Nic Costa, partner Peroni, and Commissario Falcone, Lizard’s Bite is more mystery than thriller. Two members, husband and wife, of a glassmaking family are found dead in their own Murano fornace, which has gone up [...]

Mystery: End in Tears, by Ruth Rendell

Wexford’s reddest herring

This is certainly not Rendell’s usual Wexford mystery, nor is it one of her psychological thrillers. Low key and low on drama, this is a mostly intellectual outing for the skillful inspector, one that keeps him puzzled for 4 months. No DNA [...]

Watch This!: A Good Woman

with Helen Hunt, Scarlett Johanssen, and Tom Wilkinson
Truth, love, and happiness
Is there such a thing as a bad movie made in Italy? Probably, but at least the scenery’s usually good. I can’t imagine A Good Woman working in a setting like New York or [...]

Archaeology News: Stonehenge, Woodhenge, ….Seahenge?

From BBC News:
A timber circle dating back 4,000 years which was found in the sea off the Norfolk coast is to return to the county in a permanent display.
Seahenge, with 55 oak posts and a central upturned stump dating from the Bronze Age, was found emerging from a beach at Holme-next-the-Sea in 1998. Timbers were [...]

Bad Girls: Zelda Fitzgerald

Zelda Sayre was born in Alabama in 1900, 6th child of a prominent Southern family. She was an active child who studied ballet, was a bright but indifferent student, and in high school developed a reputation as a “speed”, the antithesis of the demure belle she was expected to be.
In 1918, Zelda performed [...]

Paranormal Fiction: Heart Shaped Box, by Joe Hill

No Valentine
An aging rocker with a penchant for the grotesque and for using and discarding women. His only truly warm feelings seem to be saved for his dogs. Dogs, after all, love you no matter what. A young, beautiful groupie, who, like all the [...]

Archaeology News: A Maritime Pompeii in Pisa

From Newsweek:
The San Rossore train station on the edge of Pisa, Italy, is a lonely stop. Tourists who visit this city to see its famous leaning tower generally use the central station across town. But San Rossore is about to be recognized as one of the country’s most significant archeological digs. For nearly a decade [...]

Padre Pio and Me

I just throw out this little story because it’s interesting but may or may not be particularly meaningful.
Time: summer of 2004, about 6 PM
Place: Praiano, Italy, on the Amalfi Coast
My husband Tony and I were vacationing in paradise. We’d rented an idyllic little house in a real neighborhood in Praiano – views of the [...]

Archaeology News: The Miami Circle

Perhaps the most important archaeological site in the US.
Story/photos by Sandra Hale Schulman
Miami, Florida (NFIC) 3-08

To anyone driving over the Miami Bridge, it doesn’t look like much. Blink and you miss the small billboard that announces the Miami Circle sits
just below on the river’s edge – a dusty parcel of 2.2 acres surrounded by chain-link [...]