So I’m a “voracious reader in their kid to teen years” and then “hasn’t picked up a book since college required reading” millennial.
I miss reading and I want to go back to it, and this last month has been pretty successful. I’ve read 4 books so far and while I’ve enjoyed all of them (Achilles’s Song, Room, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, some embroidery books) and it’s the most I’ve done in a literal decade or so, I want some flowery language, and some, idk, verbosity.
My favorite high school, required reading book was the The Great Gatsby. I recently started it again and it’s exactly what I want, but I’d love something more recent as well.
by matchabitch-
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This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone or The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
The City in Glass by Nghi Vo
I think you might enjoy the short stories of Laurie Colwin: try the “Lone Pilgrim,” I think you will love it
Had she not died young, she would have been the Jane Austen of the 20th c
For more recent novels, I think A Gentleman In Moscow has some beautiful prose.
{The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Boat of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente}
It’s technically a children’s book but the prose is so beautiful that it’s really for all ages. (Yes, I thought of this before reading the whole post. Sorry.)
White Oleander by Janet Fitch
The Antidote by Karen Russell had very pretty prose. Not purple by any means, but she has a poetic way with words.
Have you read any Austen? I’d pick and choose some of her works if you’re looking for verbose. Pride & Prejudice, Sense & Sensibility, and Emma are my favorites in that order.
Claire Keegan’s prose is beautiful. Try *Foster* or *Small Things Like These*
*Frankenstein* by Mary Shelley is beautifully written and quite atmospheric, imho
The writing in The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce is lovely. It’s sort of a slow novel but I just loved it.