My favorite authors of the past are now just fond memories, and as I age, I find contemporary fiction mostly unbearable. I also find that when I re-read the classics, I either like them more or like them less, because, let's face it: I'm not the same person now that I was when I read them back then.
So, it's non-fiction for me these days.
Currently, I am much in awe of James Parker, a staff writer at The Atlantic. Every one of his essays is a work of art.
Here's the ending of his "Ode" (to gum) in the June issue.
"Someone told me at school that if you swallowed a piece of gum it would wrap itself around your heart. Amazing image. So chew on, humans. Those knobs of used gum -- they're tiny monuments to contemplation, really. They memorialize passages of the mind. The thoughts are flown, but the gum remains. Get some on your shoe, wrap it around your heart and think of me."