Friday Links Just Pulled Into the Station

Tony Horwitz is my new hero. I've just begun Confederates in the Attic, which I should have read centuries ago, and which is one of the funniest and most engaging history books I've read in ages. This bodes well for his newest book, another review for which becomes Link Numero Uno in this week's links roundup.

• See, I told you - another review of the new Horwitz book, A Voyage Long and Strange.


• The secret abandoned rail platform beneath the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. A lot of the video clip seems sort of made up - I think people have pretty well known this platform's been there the whole time, and it wasn't actually built for FDR even though he used it. (Thanks, Daryl! For a guy whose blog title suggests a marked wish to eradicate history, you're still pretty cool. PS, I totally know it's a Ren and Stimpy reference, folks. Don't email me.)


• Mental Floss throws up a collection of Victorian-era memento mori -- easily the most strange and disturbing thing I've seen all week.


• Did we really have a gay president, or was he just a swingin' bachelor who happened to live with a close male friend and be called "Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy"? Oh, James Buchanan. Whatever your sexuality, you are an enigma wrapped in a mystery wrapped in a lavender-scented bow. (Best Week Ever)