The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree

New all-time favorite book. It could not be more timely and I experienced a disconcerting catharsis while reading it. It employs magical realism, which I know is not for everyone, but if you are willing to suspend disbelief to surrender to the storytelling, and nods to Persian folklore and mythology, while allowing it to symbolically tell you an otherwise brutal (but very necessary) story of the consequences of political oppression and religious zealotry and its all too often accompanying indifference, you may even shed a few tears when you reach its final pages and recognize its devastating beauty.