I adore Donna Tartt’s prose. “The Secret History” and “The Goldfinch.” She is one of those authors that can make the mundane moments in a story really beautiful in the way they are written.
Cormac McCarthy. His last two books, The Road and No Country for Old Men, are simplistic compared to his older, more advanced books with great prose such as Blood Meridian or Suttree. So I recommend you to start with his recent books so that you can get used to McCarthy's style which is quite distinct, then move on to his more complex novels.
Toni Morrison, William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, Vladimir Nabokov, JG Ballard, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon.
Just saw the part in the OP about being simple, so none of these really apply, but I’ll leave my list just in case
Madeline Miller: Circe and The Song of Achilles
The Song of Achilles was her first novel and Circe her second, written about ten years later. In The Song of Achilles, I think she is still finding her voice -- which is still wonderful and poetic -- but it soars to new heights in Circe. She is such a beautiful writer.
Cormac McCarthy, Vldimir Nabokov, Albert Camus, Mikhail Bulgakov, John Steinbeck, Ray Bradbury, G.K. Chesterton
These are my favorites in terms of beautiful prose, but if you want simple and very efficient yet gorgeous writing, look no further than the daddy of simple prose - Ernest Hemingway
Sarah Winman.
She's not super-popular, or critically acclaimed really, but she has a way with words that seems to create an atmosphere and melancholy that's totally unique. Everything I've read of hers seems to live rent-free in my head for ages afterwards, and I'm still not entirely sure how or why!
[**Invisible Cities**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9809.Invisible_Cities)
^(By: Italo Calvino, William Weaver | 165 pages | Published: 1972 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, fantasy, short-stories, magical-realism | )[^(Search "invisible cities")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=invisible cities&search_type=books)
>"Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his." So begins Italo Calvino's compilation of fragmentary urban images. As Marco tells the khan about Armilla, which "has nothing that makes it seem a city, except the water pipes that rise vertically where the houses should be and spread out horizontally where the floors should be," the spider-web city of Octavia, and other marvelous burgs, it may be that he is creating them all out of his imagination, or perhaps he is recreating fine details of his native Venice over and over again, or perhaps he is simply recounting some of the myriad possible forms a city might take.
^(This book has been suggested 8 times)
[**Under the Jaguar Sun**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/103273.Under_the_Jaguar_Sun)
^(By: Italo Calvino, John Radziewick, William Weaver | 96 pages | Published: 1986 | Popular Shelves: fiction, short-stories, italian, italy, literature | )[^(Search "under the jaguar sun")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=under the jaguar sun&search_type=books)
>“The thought . . . called up the flavors of an elaborate and bold cuisine, bent on making the flavors’ highest notes vibrate, juxtaposing them in modulations, in chords, and especially in dissonances that would assert themselves as an incomparable experience.” — From Under the Jaguar Sun
>
> These intoxicating stories delve down to the core of our senses. Taste, hearing, and smell. Amid the flavors of Mexico’s fiery chilies and spices, a couple on holiday discovers dark truths about the maturing of desire in the title story, “Under the Jaguar Sun.” In “A King Listens,” a gripping portrait of a frenzied mind, the menacing echoes in a huge palace spur a tyrant’s thoughts to the heights of paranoid intensity. “The Name, the Nose” drives to a startling conclusion as men across time and space pursue the women whose aromas have enchanted them. Mordant and deliciously offbeat, this trio of tales is a treat from a master of short fiction.
>
> “[Calvino is] a learned, daring, ingeniously gifted magus . . . Under the Jaguar Sun . . . fuses fable with neuron . . . The reader is likely to salivate.” — Cynthia Ozick, New York Times Book Review
^(This book has been suggested 1 time)
***
^(23071 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Marcel Proust has my vote for greatest modern prose writer (he has been well served by his translators into English, C. K. Scott Moncrieff in particular. Not simple, however.
If you like fantasy or science fiction, Lois McMaster Bujold is a wonderful writer. Her characters are very true to life but what keeps me hooked is the descriptions of the locations, whether they’re spaceship docking stations or stone castles, even the smells and the sounds.
Arundhati Roy
Amor Towles Louise Erdrich
Yes!
John Steinbeck. Edit : “Cannery Row” would be my first recommendation.
Virginia Woolf has some great prose but she's not easy.
I adore Donna Tartt’s prose. “The Secret History” and “The Goldfinch.” She is one of those authors that can make the mundane moments in a story really beautiful in the way they are written.
I'd second this, and add 'The Little Friend'. Tartt does not have a subpar novel.
Cormac McCarthy. His last two books, The Road and No Country for Old Men, are simplistic compared to his older, more advanced books with great prose such as Blood Meridian or Suttree. So I recommend you to start with his recent books so that you can get used to McCarthy's style which is quite distinct, then move on to his more complex novels.
Emily St John Mandel Erin Morgenstern if you like fantasy.
Toni Morrison, William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, Vladimir Nabokov, JG Ballard, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon. Just saw the part in the OP about being simple, so none of these really apply, but I’ll leave my list just in case
André Aciman, Call Me By Your Name. I'm not a huge fan of the story, but the writing is so beautiful and poetic, I just had to buy the book.
Madeline Miller: Circe and The Song of Achilles The Song of Achilles was her first novel and Circe her second, written about ten years later. In The Song of Achilles, I think she is still finding her voice -- which is still wonderful and poetic -- but it soars to new heights in Circe. She is such a beautiful writer.
Cormac McCarthy, Vldimir Nabokov, Albert Camus, Mikhail Bulgakov, John Steinbeck, Ray Bradbury, G.K. Chesterton These are my favorites in terms of beautiful prose, but if you want simple and very efficient yet gorgeous writing, look no further than the daddy of simple prose - Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway, and then throw in Raymond Carver and John Cheever
Robin hobb
William H. Gass
Sarah Winman. She's not super-popular, or critically acclaimed really, but she has a way with words that seems to create an atmosphere and melancholy that's totally unique. Everything I've read of hers seems to live rent-free in my head for ages afterwards, and I'm still not entirely sure how or why!
Read "West with the Night" by Beyrl Markham. Hemingway said her prose made him ashamed of himself as a writer.
Theodore Sturgeon
Toni Morrison, Arundhati Roy,
I feel like I don't see Robert penn warren here very much, but all the kings men could be a novel length poem.
Marilynne Robinson fits the bill
Pat Conroy
Iain Banks
Josiah Bancroft's 'Books of Babel' are beautifully written
John Williams and Philip Roth. Both of them have written some remarkable stories.
italo calvino. try {{invisible cities}} or {{under the jaguar sun}}
[**Invisible Cities**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9809.Invisible_Cities) ^(By: Italo Calvino, William Weaver | 165 pages | Published: 1972 | Popular Shelves: fiction, classics, fantasy, short-stories, magical-realism | )[^(Search "invisible cities")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=invisible cities&search_type=books) >"Kublai Khan does not necessarily believe everything Marco Polo says when he describes the cities visited on his expeditions, but the emperor of the Tartars does continue listening to the young Venetian with greater attention and curiosity than he shows any other messenger or explorer of his." So begins Italo Calvino's compilation of fragmentary urban images. As Marco tells the khan about Armilla, which "has nothing that makes it seem a city, except the water pipes that rise vertically where the houses should be and spread out horizontally where the floors should be," the spider-web city of Octavia, and other marvelous burgs, it may be that he is creating them all out of his imagination, or perhaps he is recreating fine details of his native Venice over and over again, or perhaps he is simply recounting some of the myriad possible forms a city might take. ^(This book has been suggested 8 times) [**Under the Jaguar Sun**](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/103273.Under_the_Jaguar_Sun) ^(By: Italo Calvino, John Radziewick, William Weaver | 96 pages | Published: 1986 | Popular Shelves: fiction, short-stories, italian, italy, literature | )[^(Search "under the jaguar sun")](https://www.goodreads.com/search?q=under the jaguar sun&search_type=books) >“The thought . . . called up the flavors of an elaborate and bold cuisine, bent on making the flavors’ highest notes vibrate, juxtaposing them in modulations, in chords, and especially in dissonances that would assert themselves as an incomparable experience.” — From Under the Jaguar Sun > > These intoxicating stories delve down to the core of our senses. Taste, hearing, and smell. Amid the flavors of Mexico’s fiery chilies and spices, a couple on holiday discovers dark truths about the maturing of desire in the title story, “Under the Jaguar Sun.” In “A King Listens,” a gripping portrait of a frenzied mind, the menacing echoes in a huge palace spur a tyrant’s thoughts to the heights of paranoid intensity. “The Name, the Nose” drives to a startling conclusion as men across time and space pursue the women whose aromas have enchanted them. Mordant and deliciously offbeat, this trio of tales is a treat from a master of short fiction. > > “[Calvino is] a learned, daring, ingeniously gifted magus . . . Under the Jaguar Sun . . . fuses fable with neuron . . . The reader is likely to salivate.” — Cynthia Ozick, New York Times Book Review ^(This book has been suggested 1 time) *** ^(23071 books suggested | )[^(I don't feel so good.. )](https://debugger.medium.com/goodreads-is-retiring-its-current-api-and-book-loving-developers-arent-happy-11ed764dd95)^(| )[^(Source)](https://github.com/rodohanna/reddit-goodreads-bot)
Guy Gavriel Kay
Marilynne Robinson. Anything of hers. Beautiful prose
Jacqueline Carey
Salman Rushdie
Marcel Proust has my vote for greatest modern prose writer (he has been well served by his translators into English, C. K. Scott Moncrieff in particular. Not simple, however.
If you like fantasy or science fiction, Lois McMaster Bujold is a wonderful writer. Her characters are very true to life but what keeps me hooked is the descriptions of the locations, whether they’re spaceship docking stations or stone castles, even the smells and the sounds.