lunch with jake, actually it's never lunch, it's usually our thursday meet in the bookshop in babylon, have our special tea and buy a few books. today over tea i noticed jake eating the leaves from the strainer, mmm, i asked why, and he suggested that i try it, and it was divine, yeah, licorice, chamomile, lemongrass and some mystery herb i can't place. Now that's part of Jake i adore, actually i adore all of him but he is so outside the box. i recall when we were in port douglas we were playing in a pool in a swanky hotel, he swam to the side of the pool and started to eat the ants.
'What the fuck?'
'It's okay, these are honey ants.'
and they were.
Now that's nothing exceptional in some cultures but for an 6 year old to try that without any prompting is a healthy sign. jake knows his wildlife, he knows the animal kingdom back to front, being raised on a diet of david attenborough, even now when he comes over we will stick on a dvd and watch him explore the planets life.
after tea jake usually asks me what he should read, we have a good deal going since he was three. at the point where most divorced dads decide to shower their kids with toys and win back affection with material goods i just said that i would never buy him a toy but when ever he needed a book, he can come ask me and i'll buy it. He's now 18 and not once has he abused my offer, vary rarely did he ask despite being a voracious reader like me, usually once a month, now he's a bit older and reading material that i read, he's reading a wider range of books and more interesting ones, last week i suggested 'Fierce People' by Winterborn. We usually have a debrief before i buy the next book.
The book is brilliant, i really enjoyed its digestible narrative and plot, but i liked the anthropological side it has, here's a few lines from some other people who like it so much they may even film it.

A coming-of-age story about the perils of privilege, FIERCE PEOPLE examines the deceit and betrayal that erupts when a working-class mother and her son move to a wealthy “country club” suburb where social climbing is a blood sport
Trapped in his mother'’s Lower East Side apartment, sixteen-year-old Finn wants nothing more than to escape New York and spend the summer in South America studying the Iskanani Indians, or “Fierce People with the anthropologist father he's never met. But Finn'’s dreams are shattered when he is arrested in a desperate effort to help his drug-dependent mother, Liz, who scrapes by working as a masseuse. Determined to get their lives back on track, Liz moves the two of them into a guesthouse on the vast country estate of her ex-client, the aging aristocratic billionaire, Ogden C. Osbourne. In Osbournes close world of privilege and power, Finn and Liz encounter a tribe fiercer and more mysterious than anything they might find in the South American jungle: the super rich. While Liz battles her substance abuse and struggles to win back her son'’s love and trust, Finn falls in love with Osbourne'’s beautiful granddaughter, Maya, befriends her charismatic older brother, Bryce and even wins the favor of Osbourne himself. But when a shocking act of violence shatters Finn's ascension within the Osbourne clan, the golden promises of this lush world quickly sour. And both Finn and Liz, caught in a harrowing struggle for their dignity, discover that membership always comes at a price'…

Contrasting the mores of high society with the blunt savagery of primitive tribes, FIERCE PEOPLE takes an inside look at the upper classes, examining the darkness that lurks beneath the surface of good manners. Sporting a biting wit, this unflinching book exposes the trappings of wealth and privilege, and their overwhelming power to both seduce and corrupt.

So yeah it's a good read, this weeks book was 'Hotel Honolulu' by Paul Theroux.
Theroux's other great books that i recommend to anyone are, Mosquito Coast and Millroy The Magician.
And one other book from one of my fave writers Paul Auster, Mr. Vertigo, which i gave to jake, Austers work is well known, he achieved litery acclaim after starving in Paris, i discovered him early and was pleased to see that he got the recognition he deserved. If you want to check him out, i recommend Moon Palace.