Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

I completely ignored this book for years, letting it languish on my shelf, looking at it and wincing, figuring it was one of those books: self-help; self-discovery; travelogue; my-life-is-great-now-yours-can-be-too!; you know, the books that I loathe.

It is, in many ways, all those things, but more incidentally than specifically. Gilbert's voice on this travel is compelling, funny, sincere and most of all real. Honestly, I loved every page of this book.

Look Me in the Eye: John Robinson

This weekend I read Look Me in the Eye. Written by John Robinson, it is the witty and often painfully familiar account of an Asperger’s Syndrome adult who wanted desperately to fit, and finally did, and the road he took along the way. I highly recommend the book, not really so much as a textbook account, but for a beautifully written memoir. I by turns winced and laughed, but was always engaged. It’s a quick read, and one understands in the first chapter why this book was an instant bestseller.