If you're into anthropology this week Euphoria by Lily King (Grove Press/Atlantic) R240One of last year's best works of fiction and now out in paperback, this thrilling, intelligent novel of three young anthropologists in 1930s New Guinea, trapped in a love triangle that threatens their careers and their lives, is based on the life of revolutionary anthropologist Margaret Mead. Full of exotic menace, it's Conrad by way of Kingsolver, and its power is as much intellectual as erotic.The issueSpeaking of Conrad, the heart of darkness beats on. The Looting Machine: Warlords, Tycoons, Smugglers, and the Systematic Theft of Africa's Wealth (William Collins) by Tom Burgis, the Financial Times's former man in Johannesburg and Lagos, has arrived with excellent notices.Burgis wrote it as a form of therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. He'd been diagnosed with the condition some 18 months after covering a massacre in Jos, a Nigerian city on the "fault line" between the Muslim north and the Christian south."The ghosts of Jos appeared at the end of my hospital bed," he writes. "The women who had been stuffed down a well. The old man with the broken neck. The baby - always the baby ."With time he saw a connection between what happened in Jos and "the pleasures and comforts" enjoyed in wealthier countries. "It weaves through the globalised economy, from war zones to the pinnacles of power in New York, Hong Kong and London."Crash courseI don't have much time for audio-books. But here's an interesting one: Blood on Snow by Jo Nesbo (Random House). It's read by Patti Smith. It's a seemingly inspired choice. In addition to writing crime novels, Nesbo is the vocalist and main songwriter with Di Derre, a Norwegian rock band. Smith, of course, is the original high priestess of punk whose memoir, Just Kids, won a US National Book Award in 2010.The problem, according to a New York Times review, is that Blood on Snow's protagonist is Olav, a rather sophisticated Scandinavian assassin who quotes from the works of Victor Hugo and George Eliot. Kathryn Harrison argues that Smith's "gravelly, androgynous voice and flat tone" serves up a different Olav from the one Nesbo renders on the page, and "to listen to him speak like a hard-boiled hit man is to experience a flattened version" of an otherwise three-dimensional character.Harrison concludes: "Blood on Snow ends with a grace that Smith's pronunciation doesn't compromise. Unfortunately, from a few sentences back, 'yella' for 'yellow' and 'pleece' for 'police' still echo."The bottom line"Where Mark Zuckerberg wants to help you share baby photos, Musk wants to . save the human race from self-imposed or accidental annihilation." - Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future (Ecco/HarperCollins)..