Run, don't walk

I'm in love.

And, since school is now officially under way, and those glorious summer days spent hand-in-hand with a great book are wistfully over, I'd like to share the two keepers of the season. Really folks, you gotta read them. You can't possibly live one more day of your life without them...

Beware of God: A collection of stories
by Shalom Auslander
He's a recovered Orthodox Jew, 30something, and hands-down the best American Jewish writer living today.

A chimpanzee suddenly achieves "total conscious self-awareness.... God. Death. Shame. Guilt" — a burden he cannot bear.

A yeshiva student wakes one morning with a brawny, goyishe body and is reviled by his community.

A man enrages all major world religions with his discovery of original Old Testament tablets preceded by the disclaimer, "The following is a work of fiction."

God suffers from migraines, stalks a modern-day prophet and appears as a large chicken, among other incarnations. "Beautiful day," an adman says, making small talk at a pitch meeting with God. " 'I made it myself,' God answered loudly."

A Girl Named Zippy: Growing up Small in Mooreland, Indiana (memoir)
by Haven Kimmel
It's hard to believe that someone in their early 30s could write such a poignant, touching and compelling memoir about her childhood -- but she did. And it's a childhood blissfully sans drugs and abuse and psychotic meltdowns.

Less a formal autobiography than a collection of vignettes comprising the things a small child would remember, the book is set in a small town of only 300 people. Her prose is lush yet simple, and it is infused with pearls of third-grade wisdom: "Julie in a dress was like the rest of us in quicksand";

and "There are a finite number of times one can safely climb the same tree in a single day";

or, regarding Jesus, "Everyone around me was flat-out in love with him, and who wouldn't be? He was good with animals, he loved his mother, and he wasn't afraid of blind people."