Apologies if this is an incredibly vague request, but I’m looking for some recommendations for particularly well-written books.
I appreciate that ‘well-written’ means something different to everyone, so I mean books that make great use of the English language, that are endlessly quotable, and thar show just how beautiful words can be, regardless of the subject matter.
Fiction, non-fiction, anything from sci-fi to text books about drainage solutions.
by TooOldToBeYoung1
8 Comments
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
The laat unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
Anything by Nabokov.
In particular, I would recommend the opening paragraph of *Despair*. (It’s not his best novel but the paragraph coherent without reading anything else of the book, because it’s the first one.) In it the protagonist brags what a great writer he is, but actually he writes terribly. Nabokov is such a brilliant writer, though, it’s still tremendous writing, because he shows the depths of the character’s self-delusion.
Another off the beaten track I would recommend is *Pnin*. (There is one sentence that describes a character sharpening a pencil. It’s up there with Joyce.) Pnin is a pretentious pedant, and yet you end up loving him anyway. For a Nabokov protagonist, this is rare.
[North Woods By Daniel Mason](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/71872930) – poetic prose and poetry so beautiful I reread paragraphs just to make sure I didn’t miss anything, and to savor as much as I could.
The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafón
The Waves or really anything by Virginia Woolf
It’s funny the first book that came to my mind wasn’t even originally written in English.
If you’ve never read *The Little Prince* by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, it’s really worth it! You can finish it in a day easily.
I have such a soft spot for children’s books that have important lessons for adults too.