Each year, I notice an uptick in blog visitors on Thanksgiving night and the weekend that follows it, presumably because sated readers lumber to their computers in search of something savory to stuff inside their rested brains.

So here’s what I’ve collected in my mental stock-pot: a jumble of links about books, language, poetry, and art, with nary a turkey in sight.

Nancy Marie Brown sees Iceland’s trolls in Tolkien.

At Lingwë, Jason wonders what Tolkien’s “Esgaroth” means.

Leonore the linguist wonders what’s in her name.

Steve Donoghue reads Washington Irving’s Tales of the Alhambra.

Bibliographing reads Treasure Island!!!

Cynthia Haven reads Proust in Paris.

George reads Inventing the Middle Ages.

Gargoyle Girl finds faces on facades in Prague.

Levi Stahl contemplates Thanksgiving as homecoming.

First Known When Lost reaps poetic misgivings.

Dylan sings of “bent rhyme and feeble reason.”

Pete finds a classy Walgreen’s.

Frederick Turner, the man behind neat epic poems about 24th-century America and the terraforming of Mars, has published a new book on epics.

Kevin at Interpolations wonders why he adores Moby Dick.

Julie K. Rose ponders patronymic patterns.

Photographer Guido Krüger documents his Potomac adventures in front of the Corcoran and on the streets during Hurricane Sandy.

Tim Hyde’s Photoriffs blog commingles beauty and disaster.

Jake Seliger says don’t go to law school and don’t become a doctor.

At last, a blog decrying dumb classroom projects: Wasting Time in School.

University Diaries is thankful for her students.