Just finished Count of Monte Cristo, and while it was incredible, I find myself craving reading something that stands out for its beautiful prose. Artsy is good, but hopefully not pretentious. In the past I’ve enjoyed Richard Powers, Philip Roth, Cormac McCarthy, Jonathan Franzen, Don Delillo, Barry Lopez, Annie Dillard, Ken Kesey, Alice Munro, etc. Aside from being great storytellers, these authors have all quite literally thrilled me with their beauty on a sentence-by-sentence level as well.
What’s the most beautiful prose you’ve encountered in fiction?
by bonsaitreehugger
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{{fugitive pieces by Anne Michaels}}
Fiction: I’ve always been partial to F. Scott Fitzgerald. I picked up a copy of This Side of Paradise while killing time one rainy afternoon at a bookstore. I had already read the book at least twice, I just wanted something to flip through while I had a coffee. Before I knew it, I had been sitting there for two hours, coffee long cold, totally enraptured.
But for some beautifully crafted and simultaneously gut-punching and mind-blowing nonfiction, Christopher Hitchens.
A Heart So White by Javier Marias
Any book by Marlon James
Zama by Antonio Di Benedetto
The Invented Part by Fresán
Solenoid by Carterescu
Any book by Clarice Lispector
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Kundera
Wolf Hall by Mantel
The Seven Dream Series by William T Vollmann