BBC推薦：6月必讀書單

8. Lee Daniel Kravetz, Strange Contagion
《奇怪的傳染效應》李?丹尼爾?拉維茲

Kravetz moved to Palo Alto, California in 2009. His wife had just taken a job at Google and was expecting their first child. Within months, five local high school students died by suicide on the train tracks near his apartment. Why? "These kids are driven," one teacher tells him. This affluent small town at the center of Silicon Valley, Kravetz writes, is huge in terms of innovation and scaling of new ideas – and stress upon its young. Kravetz gathers research on social contagions – the ways in which others influence our lives by catchable thoughts, emotions and behaviours. He speaks with the school's principal and other community members struggling to comfort the survivors and stop the deaths. Yet in 2014 another suicide cluster emerges. A chilling and important look at the social contagions that threaten us. (Credit: Harper)
2009年拉維茲搬到舊金山附近的帕洛阿爾托。她的妻子在谷歌找了一份工作，準備迎接他們的第一個孩子。但在幾個月內，當地學校的5名高中生在他公寓附近的鐵軌處自殺。這究竟是什么原因？一位老師告訴他：“這些孩子被煽動了。”拉維茲寫道，這座位于硅谷中心的富裕小鎮具有強大的創新力、匯聚了眾多創意，同時也給年輕人帶來了巨大壓力。社會傳染效應是指其他人通過可感知的思想、情緒以及行為對我們的生活產生影響，拉維茲整理了與此相關的研究。他和學校的校長以及其他社區成員盡力安撫幸存者，并阻止再有人自殺。然而，2014年又發生了一次群體自殺事件。社會傳染效應威脅著人類，這本書揭開了令人不寒而栗卻又至關重要的現象。（來源：哈勃出版社）