We talk with David Lovelace about his memoir, SCATTERSHOT: My Bipolar Family. And Maggie Jackson tells us about DISTRACTED: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age.
Bipolar disorder has carved a wide swath through the psyche of David Lovelace’s family. He, his father, his mother and his brother all suffer from the illness. But, as Lovelace writes in his powerful new memoir SCATTERSHOT, being bipolar is not all bad. If the extremes of the disorder are controlled through medication, it can bring great creativity and artistic gifts to those who are under its sway. David Lovelace is a poet, and he brings a poet’s sensibility to the writing of his memoir. He’s also former owner of the Montague Book Mill, a much-loved establishment many of our listeners in western Massachusetts know. Now he makes his living as a writer and a carpenter in Shutesbury, Massachusetts.

And we are all beset by myriad demands on our attention that leave us distracted from the real world, our families and ourselves. In DISTRACTED, Boston Globe columnist Maggie Jackson writes we are on the cusp of a dark age as a result. She wants us to turn away from some of the distractions of our tech-centered world and become more human-centered. And she reveals the scientific discoveries that will help us revitalize our powers of focus and attention.