books

The boy in the moon : a father's search for his disabled son by Ian Brown, 2009. An excellent book, very well written. A page turner really as he looks at ethics and money and humanity and through it all, how much he loves his boy.



The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, 2007. Listening to this in the car. It's good, but he wears thin sometimes. He explores his Indianness, set near Spokane. Partly autobiographical.



Goldengrove, by Francine Prose, 2008. Good book, main character Niko surviving the death of her sister Margaret. Beautiful poem unlies the plot.
Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889) from Spring and Fall
to a young child

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By & by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep & know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow's springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What héart héard of, ghóst guéssed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.