Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury is the kind of writer you don't read so much as soak up through your fingertips. Though he is best known for his works of science fiction, like "Fahrenheit 451," he wrote many other kinds of fiction as well, and I don't think it's exaggeration to say that his work is some of the best writing of the 20th Century. Evocative doesn't even begin to describe it; Bradbury molds language in such a way that you don't quite feel like you're reading. You smell the hot air of the Midwestern summer, hear the far off singing of the local junk man, feel the inexorable wonder of being a twelve-year-old boy. It's almost too much, in fact. "Dandelion Wine" is not a long book, but it took me a week to read because you simply cannot read it quickly. Everything has to sink in, or else it's not worth it. Bradbury was a man born to write, and we are lucky that he did so with such vigor.