JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

BOOK LOVERS go by many names — bibliophiles, bibliomaniacs, bibliolaters, Larry (McMurtry, the Pulitzer and Oscar-winning author who runs a bookstore and has a personal library of 30,000 books). I prefer bibliophibians, which suggests that the species lives partly in the “real” world and partly in books, like salamanders with overdeveloped imaginations. If you belong to the species, or associate with them, you will have noticed certain behavioral patterns seemingly incompatible with an addiction to books. For instance, you would assume that when they walk into a well-stocked bookstore, they are vibrating with lust. After all, this is what they live for: being surrounded by books, knowing each book intimately, committing the literary equivalent of wanton adultery by reading several books at once.

Read our column at the BusinessWorld Weekender.

At the media lunch for the eyewear brand Theo, I found myself staring covetously at the bright orange frames worn by Theo executive Mik Somers. I wanted to buy the frames right there (I couldn’t, they’re from two or three seasons ago, but they’ll be back eventually). And then I noticed that the wearer looked like Luke Wilson in The Royal Tenenbaums.

Note: Luke Wilson doesn’t look like this anymore.

This goes out to my sister, who is in the office twelve hours a day, is raising three kids and taking her MBA on weekends. Just reading her schedule makes me tired.

One possibility is that we have all got stuck on a treadmill. Technology and globalisation mean that an increasing number of good jobs are winner-take-most competitions. Banks and law firms amass extraordinary financial returns, directors and partners within those firms make colossal salaries, and the route to those coveted positions lies through years of round-the-clock work. The number of firms with global reach, and of tech start-ups that dominate a market niche, is limited. Securing a place near the top of the income spectrum in such a firm, and remaining in it, is a matter of constant struggle and competition. Meanwhile the technological forces that enable a few elite firms to become dominant also allow work, in the form of those constantly pinging emails, to follow us everywhere.

This relentless competition increases the need to earn high salaries, for as well-paid people cluster together they bid up the price of the resources for which they compete. In the brainpower-heavy cities where most of them live, getting on the property ladder requires the sort of sum that can be built up only through long hours in an important job. Then there is conspicuous consumption: the need to have a great-looking car and a home out of Interiors magazine, the competition to place children in good (that is, private) schools, the need to maintain a coterie of domestic workers – you mean you don’t have a personal shopper? And so on, and on.

Read it in The Economist.

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The Tarsier should be an Avenger! Speaking of which:

Did you squeal when a certain arachnid made an appearance? We did. Eleven years old forever!

We don’t believe most food blogs because 80 percent of the time we disagree violently with their recommendations. Also, some of them sound like they just ate food for the first time. Too enthusiastic.

We don’t believe Instagrams of food because they just mean “I’m having a fabulous meal and you’re not.”

But if cats do food reviews and hand out Meowchelin stars, we believe them. Cats do not lie. If they hate something, they hate it.

Japanese Couple Captures Every Moment Of Cat Bros Watching Them Eat