of all the words in the world, you should read these

i was lucky enough recently to have time to read
and there are two books i have to recommend strongly for their incredible stories and timeliness, not to mention the fact that these authors make it look effortless in a way thats truly inspiring.
or, on a less positive day, makes me want to break my pencil off in my eye and give up this writing business for good.
1. the wondrous brief life of oscar wao by junot diaz

i talked to some of you about this before but couldnt remember the right title. it's not wonderful, its wondrous. and it really is. wondrous, i tell you, how diaz bulldozes into some seriously thick history and some seriously sad subjects, cursing and slanging it up in his footnotes, and somehow has created a political and personal and beautiful story.

2. the septembers of shiraz by dalia sofer

the woman is a poet and shes taken verse and stretched it across these pages in the most beautiful, unfussy way, using details and personalities to tell a huge story about a hugely important subject. heres a few lines that dont speak about politics or poetry but on how young people are expected to treat their past and to perform once they've stepped into the world after school:

"his youth is doing little for him except robbing him of the right to suffer. Pain, he has come to realize, is the domain of the elders, their suffering always more noble  and more justified than that of a boy like him, who is expected to find thrills in his new environment and to lock his short past in the cellar only to retrieve it, years later, like a bottle of wine, and share it in brief sips with dinner guests."