Annie and Buster had an unusual childhood.  Their parents are dedicated performance artists who involved their children (as Child A and Child B) in all their performance pieces.

Both being at low points in their adult lives, Annie and Buster move home for a while - and are soon drawn back into their parents’ bizarre world.  Not long after moving back, their parents go missing.  Are they dead, the victims of a robbery - or is this yet another elaborate piece of performance art?

Ferociously funny, and a look at the consequences of putting art-for-art’s-sake above all else, this novel was one of those in the running for the Pulitzer Prize for Literature that was not awarded this year.

I was able to use some of the downtime last week to catch up on reading.  Some interesting articles:

AMERICA

• I have been researching the roots of the OWS (Occupy Wall Street) movement for some time.  This excellent article on the staggering growth of inequality in America (where the upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year, and in terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent) by Joseph Stiglitz led me to this equally interesting article by him last year

EUROPE

Two articles, one looking to the past and the other to the future, both agree that financially the euro has proved a disaster and that its survival will depend on political factors, but come to different answers as to whether the euro can survive:

• this article (part of the superb Five Books series) argues that the euro is fundamental to Europe’s dream of unification to escape the terrors of the past, and that “Europe will be forged in crisis” and that the euro will come through this
• the chief foreign-affairs columnist at the Financial Times argues that northern Europeans, especially Germany, will baulk at continually bailing out weaker members unless they can exert more and more control over those countries’ finances.  Meanwhile their southern neighbours will resent ‘jackboot Germans’ infringing on their national sovereignty until things reach a breaking point (see already the rise of nationalist-sentiment parties in these countries)

AFRICA

• superb article by Richard Dowden (author of Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles) on the state of Africa today
• for a different take from an old Africa hand, see Paul Theroux’s take on “What’s Really Wrong With Africa”.  (I’m looking forward to reading his new book The Lower River when it is released at the end of May)

HEALTH

• superb NYT article surveys the very latest thinking on depression, which goes far beyond the role of serotonin.  See also this WSJ article on how depression is now being seen as an illness of the whole body
• in an age where more and more viruses are becoming antibiotic-resistant, it is good to know that an alternative approach developed in the Soviet Union during the Cold War may now be able to help
• the classic killer diseases - cancer and heart disease - are rapidly being joined by a third: diabetes.  The CDC predicts that by 2050, one in three Americans will develop diabetes if current trends continue.  Diabetes can silently lead to a slew of serious  health problems: dental disease, kidney disease, nervous-system disorders, blindness, limb amputation, heart disease, and strokes.  So it is great to see innovative work being done on diabetes treatment

YOUTH

• new research shows that many kids diagnosed with ADHD may in fact be suffering from sleep deprivation, whose symptoms resemble those of ADHD.  The treatment for ADHD may then exacerbate sleeplessness, the real problem, as the drugs used to treat DHD, like Ritalin, Adderall or Concerta, can cause insomnia - causing a vicious circle.  Hopefully this will lead to increased screening for sleep disorders like snoring
• this comes as no surprise to me, given the already extensive literature on the effects of even small amounts of sleep loss (with texting a frequent culprit) on the moods and capabilities of teenagers - research that has led many high schools across America to now start later in the morning

TECHNOLOGY

• this Atlantic article says it’s “Time to Get Past Facebook and Invent a New Future” - a refreshing viewpoint in an era where as a mentor to many tech startups I grow increasingly weary of hearing yet another social networking idea
• in this vein, it is good to look back and revisit the original thinking by Kuhn on how paradigm shifts occur - they are not single ideas, but whole new contexts that come into view…

I’ve just finished reading Cory Doctorow’s novel “Little Brother”, which was an interesting experience for a number of reasons.

Firstly, it’s a great story.  In the aftermath of a 9/11 type attack on San Franciso the the Department of Homeland Security institutes draconian measures for spying on American citizens, using technology to track their every movement and detaining people on the slightest pretext.  The “Little Brother”, a tech-savvy high school student and his friends, fight back against “Big Brother”, using encrypted communications over the Internet to rally support (see this video on how protesters in Iran use technology to communicate).  The book contains extensive appendices on encryption technology and resources.

Secondly, I read the entire book on my iPhone.  I think that ebooks are going to be the way we read most books in the future, and the EPUB standard for ebooks is going to be increasing important, especially now that the new EPUB3 standard addresses many of the deficiencies of the previous version.

Thirdly, I read this book for free - as Cory Doctorow, a seminal contemporary science fiction writer and thinker, has made all of his works available for free in their ebook versions.  In a fascinating introduction to the book he argues, correctly I believe,  that “For me - for pretty much every writer- the big problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity” and “If you’re not making art with the intention of having it copied, you’re not really making art for the twenty-​first century”.