"The glacier is experienced as a silence"

At the TLS, Robert Macfarlane on the memory of ice:

Ice is a recording medium and a storage medium. It collects and keeps data for millennia. Unlike our hard disks and terrabyte blocks, which are quickly updated or become outdated, ice has been consistent in its technology over millions of years. Once you know how to read its archive, it is legible almost as far back – as far down – as the ice goes.

"It's an abominaccino!"

For some reason I haven't seen much to blog these last few days (it is never clear to me, except on August weekends when the news is genuinely slow, whether this is due to internal or external factors), but here are a few tabs to clear:

Ancient beehives; gladiator graveyards.

David Markson has died; thoughts and a links round-up from Sarah Weinman.

Thirteen writers and scientists name their favorite science books.

And I have saved the best for last - Geoff Dyer on discovering the perfect doughnut-and-cappuccino combination! It was National Doughnut Day on Friday, and I consider it a minor miracle that I resisted the temptation to obtain and consume one. NB the kind that Dyer mentions are indeed pretty much the best I have ever tasted - they have them at my local branch of Oren's Daily Roast - but I am surprised that he does not mention the fact that they can be obtained from the actual Doughnut Plant on the Lower East Side.