end of summer reading

What with taking on far too many projects this summer, I haven't had nearly enough time to read, but there are two books I must recommend in the few days before school starts.

One is Foreskin's Lament, by the genius memoirist Shalom Auslander . I zipped through this in one night and one Boston-New York train ride. Auslander writes of being "raised like a veal" in an orthodox Jewish family in New York.

The other, which I've barely begun, but which is almost unbearably gripping, is "Love You to Pieces," a collection of essays by mothers raising "special needs" children.

What most of all unites both books is a breathtaking honesty. I can't get enough of it...