Almanac for July 7

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for July 7th: https://ko-fi.com/post/July-7-Tanabata-J3J81HQC4G

Artist Birthday: Ringo Starr

Bummer July 7th

July 7, 1535: Sir Thomas More is beheaded for refusing to acknowledge King Henry VIII as the head of the Church. More remains loyal to the Pope.

July 7, 1930: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle dies of a heart attack at age 71. Reportedly, his last words were to his wife Jean: “You are wonderful.”

July 7, 1973: 50-year-old actress Veronica Lake dies of cirrhosis following years of heavy alcohol use.

July 7, 2002: Retired NBA player Bison Dele, his girlfriend Serena Karlan, and boat captain Bertrand Saldo are presumed to have been murdered by Dele’s older brother Miles Dabord aboard Dele’s boat near Tahiti, French Polynesia. After the 8th of July, only Dabord is ever heard from again. Arrested for forging his brother’s signature and trying to use Dele’s passport, Dabord gives himself a lethal dose of insulin and dies in the hospital, so the exact circumstances of the incident will never be known.

July 7, 2026: Erin O'Riordan is disappointed to learn that Daniel Brühl is voicing Voldemort in the German-language audiobook recordings of the Harry Potter series. Oh Daniel, I thought we all agreed we don't want the bad wizard lady to earn any more money (she doesn't need it) since she's only going to use her platform to scapegoat and try to pry human rights away from transgender people.

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Almanac for May 22nd

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for May 22nd: https://ko-fi.com/post/May-22-Arthur-Conan-Doyle-J3J81G1EPI

Beatles Trivia
May 22, 1965: The Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride” hits #1 on the singles chart.

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Arthur Conan Doyle Quotes

A Bessie Love film based on an ACD novel. Nov. 11, 1925

Bummer May 22nd

May 22, 1960: An earthquake centered near Lumaco, Chile, is one of the most powerful earthquakes ever recorded and causes a tsunami that devastates Hilo, Hawaii. An unknown number of people are killed by the earthquake and tsunami; estimates range between 1,000 and 6,000 people lost their lives.

May 22, 1981: Film director Boris Sagal, best known for directing the Charlton Heston movie The Omega Man, dies after walking into the rotors of a helicopter on the set of the miniseries World War III. Partially decapitated, he is rushed to the hospital, where he dies a few hours later. Sagal is the father of five children, including actress Katey Sagal.

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If my words are not being censored by the Trump Regime, you may find my books here on Gumroad. https://creativista668.gumroad.com/

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Almanac for April 14th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for April 14th: https://ko-fi.com/post/April-14-Coal-Miners-Daughter-V7V51DHVCW

Beatles Trivia
April 14, 1963: The Beatles and the Rolling Stones meet for the first time. The Beatles are in Richmond, England, to film a TV appearance. The Rolling Stones are performing at a Richmond club; the two groups meet backstage.

Bummer April 14th

April 14, 1865: U.S. president Abraham Lincoln is shot by John Wilkes Booth.

April 14, 1922: Shortly after she heard a radio program on which Sir Arthur Conan Doyle describes his Spiritualist beliefs, a New Jersey woman named Maude Fancher decides she wants to live in the spirit world with her 2-year-old son Cecil. She kills Cecil, then attempts to kill herself by drinking a bottle of Lysol cleaning solution. Maude Fancher survives.

April 14, 1965: Perry Edward Smith and Dick Hickok are executed by hanging by the state of Kansas for the murders of the Clutter family on November 15, 1959.

April 14, 2017: 5-year-old Charlie Holt is crushed to death when his head becomes lodged in a small space between the stationary and rotating sections of the Sun Dial rotating restaurant at the Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia.

Almanac for March 27th

Erin O'Riordan's Almanac for March 27th: https://ko-fi.com/post/March-27-Where-the-Streets-Have-No-Name-K3K61CMH37

Author Julie S. Howlin post of the day: Paella

Bummer March 27th

March 27, 1977: The single deadliest aviation accident (as of this writing) occurs on the Spanish island of Tenerife when two jets collide on the runway. Both KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736 had been diverted to Los Rodeos Airport (as Tenerife North Airport was known at the time) from Gran Canaria Airport. A terrorist group fighting for the Canary Islands’ independence from Spain had set off a bomb at Gran Canaria, injuring eight people and causing all airline traffic to be rerouted.

As the Pan Am jet sat on the runway, the Dutch plane, unaware that the Pan Am was directly in its path, began its takeoff run. Conditions on the ground were foggy and it seems that the Dutch plane didn’t correctly identify the runway its crew was being asked to use. A lack of standardized language in the communication between the Dutch pilots and air traffic control may have caused the pilots to think they had been cleared for takeoff when they should have waited.

Both crews made valiant last-minute efforts to avoid collision, but it was too late. Everyone on the Dutch jet, 248 people, were killed, as were 335 people on the Pan Am jet. Of the 61 survivors on the Pan Am jet, almost all were in the nose section of the plane, including the pilot, first officer, and flight engineer. The full fuel tanks on both aircraft contributed to fires that made rescue efforts more difficult. 

On the bright side, the commercial aviation industry as a whole added regulations to standardize communications so that miscommunication of this type would be much less likely from then on.

March 27, 2004: Richard Lancelyn Green, a noted scholar of Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is found dead in his home at the age of 50. His sister, who worries when he doesn’t answer his phone, finds him face-down on this bed, garotted with a shoelace tightened with a wooden spoon. 

In his last days, Green has been observed acting erratically and complaining that an unnamed American was following him and that his apartment was bugged. Green’s paranoia seemed to stem from his actions in trying to stop an auction of Doyle’s papers, which Green believed were part of a collection Doyle’s daughter had intended to be donated to the British Museum rather than auctioned to the public. It remains unclear whether Green was murdered or staged his suicide to seem like a murder, as a character had done in the Sherlock Holmes story “The Problem of Thor Bridge.”

Through April 1st, 2026, get 15% off any book on this Bookshop.org list with code BSO15.

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#BookReview Lemony Snicket's 'File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents' #Mystery #KidsBooks

File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents by Lemony Snicket

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


These 13 short stories are further evidence that Lemony Snicket's All the Wrong Questions series is ever bit as much subversive fun as A Series of Unfortunate Events - if not more so. I'm starting to think the solo adventures of juvenile Snicket in the village of Stain'd-by-the-Sea are my favorite brainchild of Daniel Handler thus far.

That village librarian Dashiell Qwerty has become yet another of my fictional boyfriends does not hurt the case.

The mysteries are fun. Some of them are fairly obvious, but overall they remind me of a junior version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's best work. That they allow us yet another opportunity to interact with Stain'd-by-the-Sea's quirky residents is yet another point in this book's favor.

Yet those who haven't read Who Could That Be At This Hour? and When Did You See Her Last? can still enjoy this book as a stand-alone. Any young reader who likes Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, or any of the other half-grown sleuths of literature will find this volume delightful, whether or not they've read Snicket before.

I purchased this hardcover at Barnes and Noble with my own funds and was not obligated to review it in any way. I'm simply a Lemony Snicket fan.

Find it on Amazon.com: File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents (All the Wrong Questions)

View all my reviews on Goodreads

SOC Sunday: Relaxation Time

Today’s Writing Prompt (via All.Things.Fadra): Describe, in detail, the way you like to relax. 5-minute free write.

My #1 favorite way to destress after a long day of writing, editing or publishing, which can be very brain-draining and frustrating, is with a game of Combine. Combine can be found at MindJolt Games on Facebook. Even though it's a video game, ot's not like the mindless video games I used to destress with after homework when I was a kid. It involces strategfy: different colors of balls fall, two at a time (at a pace you control, unlike Tetris) and you have to cmbine three of one color to make them all disappear. At first it seems really easy, but as they pile up, you have to be quite stratefic or you'll end the game.

My husband doesn't really like thta my destressing thing keeps me in front of the computer scroeen. Someimes I read a fun book (not one that I habe to review) instead. I've been really into Sherlock Holmes for fun lately. The most relazing place to read is our pontoon, which doesn't have a motor, so we use it as dock. It's winter, though, so the pntoon is frozen to the bank quite firmly now.

That's five minutes. As you can see, I clearly did not cheat and use spellcheck or do any editing.

Literary Links to Love

A round-up of some juicy book topics on the Internet:

Glenda A. Bixler's review of The Smell of Gas at Book Reader's Haven. May contain spoilers!

"Mormon Women Should Read Romance Novels, Avoid Sherlock Holmes" at Island in the Pacific Books

Forbes' 10 Most Powerful Women Authors. J.K. Rowling leads the pack, naturally. You go, girls!

"One Word at a Time: Internet Resources for Writers" at Joan Swan's blog

Starla Westlake wrote the first review of Eminent Domain on Smashwords

Wuthering List: Works including and inspired by Wuthering Heights

Non-literary, but just for fun - Erin O'Riordan reviews all 6 flavors of Nescafe Taster's Choice Instant Coffees at BlissPlan

You Be the Editor: Anthology Builder

If you're anything like me, you can't resist a good book of carefully-selected, well-crafted short stories. I especially can't resist a good book of fantasy or speculative short stories...haven't been able to since I was a kid. What if you could create your own anthology, hand-picking each of the stories yourself?

You can do just that at Anthology Builder. You can also browse anthologies crafted by other editors.

Some of the world's greatest English-language short story writers are here: Louisa May Alcott, Hans Christian Andersen, L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and more. There are also contemporary writers, from Shanna Germain to your humble blogger here.

Erin O'Riordan stories and essays available for your use on Anthology Builder are:

"Fall of the Estrela"
"Handsome and Regretful"
"Synchronicity"
"Peter Parker's Aunt May is a Goddess"
"Poet's Day"
"Black Bear Skin"

Build your anthology for $14.95.