Book Review

Nexus-Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Theory of Networks by Mark Buchanan

 

Stephanie Viggiano
3 April 2009

Response to Six Degrees:  The Science of a Connected Age by Duncan J. Watts

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Depression has been on the rise in the United States, with as many as 10% of people suffering at any given time. One in ten people will suffer a depressive episode at least once in their lifetime. It is becoming increasingly common in adolescents, and physicians are more eager than ever to prescribe antidepressants to anyone who shows even mild signs of depression. Prozac Nation chronicles a decade’s worth of suffering of Elizabeth Wurtzel, a young woman in the throes of an atypical depression.

At times Lowell Handler has been a pot head and a learner, a disruptive student and a teacher, a husband, a son, and a brother. He has traveled around the country, camping where ever he landed for the night, and he has worked closely with Dr. Oliver Sacks, publishing several pieces as both an author and a photographer. He also happens to have Tourette's, although it was not until he was much older that his wild movements and sudden outbursts were diagnosed.

 

In Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness William Styron writes lyrically and hauntingly about his descent into depression. He writes the book having emerged from depression, recounting his experiences, piecing together the fragments of his puzzle that may have served as warnings that something in his mind was amiss. In stepping into the void that is depression, Stryon then writes of his relation to the world, the muddled, muddied lens through which he now perceived, only to realize in an instant, that something had to change.