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Saturday, February 4, 2017

Below Deck, by Lizzie Presser, California Sunday

Filipinos make up nearly a third of all cruise ship workers. It’s a good job. Until it isn’t.

A Debut Follows Two Creative Women Bound By A Passion For Art, by Glynnis MacNicol, New York Times

There’s been no shortage in recent years of narratives exploring the complicated and often intense friendships that develop between women. But in “The Animators,” Whitaker has given us something we rarely see: a relationship between two women that also revolves around business and art. It’s a connection that in many ways resembles a marriage — a shared life, passion and progeny (in this case their artwork), with all the requisite compromises and envy that go along with coupledom — despite the two never being romantically involved.

Joyce Carol Oates Tackles Abortion In Her Powerful Novel, 'A Book Of American Martyrs', by Steph Cha

But with its wrath and violence, “A Book of American Martyrs” offers this teaspoon of warmth in these troubled times: that it is possible to be wrong without surrendering your humanity.

The Purpose Of Sleep? To Forget, Scientists Say, by Carl Zimmer, New York Times

Some have argued that it’s a way to save energy. Others have suggested that slumber provides an opportunity to clear away the brain’s cellular waste. Still others have proposed that sleep simply forces animals to lie still, letting them hide from predators.

A pair of papers published on Thursday in the journal Science offer evidence for another notion: We sleep to forget some of the things we learn each day.