GOD IS AN OCTOPUS: Loss, Love and a Calling to Nature by Ben Goldsmith (Bloomsbury, $44.99 hb)
Iris was an arrestingly beautiful child with long flowing hair. Clever and kind, she was the apple of her parents’ eye. And brave. Shortly before her death, she swam through bloody seawater to reach a huge dead humpback whale, killed and tethered on a Caribbean island.
“‘Awesome; and so sad,
