January 21, 2018

From The Guardian (Kamila Shamsie on "The book I wish I’d written"):

At the moment it’s Jenny Erpenbeck’s Go, Went, Gone.

From The Guardian (Kamila Shamsie on "The book that influenced me"):

Midnight’s Children made me see, aged 15 in Karachi, that there was a place in English language fiction for the kind of world I was growing up in.

From The Economist:

In America, another analysis shows that black children under two on average receive one hour a day less attention from parents than white children. The explanation seems to be more poverty among blacks.

From Harper's:

A sea turtle named Piggy Bank died following surgery that recovered 915 coins from her stomach.

From The New York Times:

In 1945, the Austrian physician René Spitz investigated an orphanage that took extra care to make sure its infants were not infected with disease. The children received first-class nutrition and medical care, but they were barely touched, to minimize their contact with germs. The approach was a catastrophe. Thirty-seven percent of the babies died before reaching age 2.