i know not everyone shares this view, but for me, language is probably the most important factor in making me enjoy a book. I’ll forgive a book a multitude of sins if it’s beautifully written. What books do you think have really exceptional prose? I’m open to all genres.
For reference, some of my favorite authors are:
Ray Bradburry
Donna Tartt
Ocean Vuong
Joy Harjo
Toni Morrison
(Sometimes) John Steinbeck
(Sometimes) Vladmir Nabakov
by gatheringground
12 Comments
Blood meridian, but really any cormac McCarthy. It’s dark, but his prose is undeniably amazing
[The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11533770)
It uses a more typically poetic “technique“ of repetition. It feels like a drop-dead-gorgeous poem. And as with reading poetry, you’ll be going back and rereading line after line because they are absolutely perfect.
The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield
Garden, Ashes by Danilo Kis
Fortuny by Pere Gimferrer
The Land at the End of the World by Antonio Lobo Antunes
Do you like mysteries? A Faded Coat of Blue by Owen Parry is set during the Civil War and written like one of those beautiful old letters home. (It’s not epistolary, but uses that era’s style.)
The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle.
“Outside, the night lay coiled in the street, cobra-cold and scaled with stars.”
Love in the Time of Cholera, GG Marquez
This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
The Night Circus. The descriptive bits are breathtaking.
>*The circus arrives without warning.*
Lolita. Nabokov
This is how you lose the time war
On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous