Borrowing from another blog

In Autumn by Winifred C. Marshall

They're coming down in showers,
The leaves all gold and red;
They're covering the little flowers,
And tucking them in bed. 
They've spread a fairy carpet
All  up and down the street;
 And when we skip along to school,
They rustle 'neath our feet.

The Magician's Assistant by Ann Patchett is the story of a woman in love with a gay man, the magician Parsifal. She lives in the house that  Parsifal and his gay lover, Phan lived in. After Phan dies of AIDS Parsifal marries his long time friend and assistant, Sabine. Sabine inherits the house and most of his assets when Parsifal dies in the first chapter of the book. She learns form the lawyer that Parsifal had indeed had a family, which he had kept a secret from her for over twenty years that they were close. She learns more about his past from this family which she chooses to visit in Nebraska. Ann Patchett's writing is magical itself. I listened to the audio by performer Karen Ziemba. Beautifully done. Highly recommended.~

From Publishers Weekly

After working as his assistant for more than 20 years, Sabine marries her beloved boss, Parcifal, knowing that he's gay and has just lost his lover. What she doesn't find out until after his death from AIDS is that Parcifal was actually Guy Fettera from Alliance, Neb., and had a family he never spoke about. Karen Ziemba creates an appropriately light tone for the narrator, despite some dark events that Sabine discovers when she visits Parcifal's sweet, dysfunctional family. She crafts clear, flat Midwest accents for the magician's mother and sisters and her pace and annunciation are excellent. Ziemba's men all sound alike, but they play minimal roles. She is an experienced and professional reader with just the right stuff for Patchett's 1997 novel, which probes the complex motives of Parcifal and his assistant. A Harcourt paperback (Reviews, July 14, 1997)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

West of Sunset

After reading about the Great Gatsby this summer and then re-reading the novel, I was surprised to find a new novel written by Stewart O'Nan about the last years of F. Scott Fitzgerald in "West of Sunset." F. Scott Fitzgerald in the middle of the 1930's was broke as he had large bills paying for his daughter Scottie's boarding school and his wife's mental illness and the sanitarium that took care of her. He hadn't had much luck writing short stories or novels; at one point in the story he receives a royalty check for under two dollars. "The Great Gatsby" was not a financial success, it came out to mixed reviews. So, he heads to Hollywood lured by a set salary for working on various screenplays. The book gives a good idea of the work schedule that Scott kept, and the difficulties he had with various Hollywood types. The frustration was great as the studios would take him off a job as they would make a decision that would stop production and send him off onto a new project. As soon as the studio would move him it was expected of him to turn over his writing on one project and start on another one in short order. One could say, his work was not his own, that it belonged to the studio as long as it was paying his salary as a scriptwriter. Included in the story is his various friendships with other writers and actors and his affair with Sheliah Graham, the Hollywood columnist. He meets her early in the Hollywood years, and she keeps him company off and on as she tries to get him to stop drinking, and nurses him in his final days. F. Scoot Fitzgerald died December 21, 1940 at the age of 44.