Serendipity

I've found that there are certain books and stories that touch you incredibly deeply, not just because of what they say, but because of what place you are in life when you read them. For me, the best example is Robert Hellenga's The Fall of a Sparrow, a novel that might have meant less had I read it at any other time, in any other place. Another is this short story by T.C. Boyle, which I read last year, as winter slowly gave way to spring, on a bench just outside the Library of Congress.