I want to read something really intelligent and beautifully written

[SalveRibena]

I have been reading crap on my Kindle for too long and now want to go back to reading Proper Books. Past favourites include Atonement, Bring Up The Bodies, The Poisonwood Bible, The Sea and The Line of Beauty.

Any advice?

Have you read White Light by Susan Fletcher it's beautiful and captivating. '
I also read Clare Balding's autobiography recently - that's a good read.

Jim Harrison? The English Major is superb. His writing is beautiful and bittersweet.

Second Graham Greene, John Banville and Fitzgerald.

Michael Ondaatje - In the Skin of the Lion.

So beautifully written I didn't want to finish it. I eked it out over months, savouring every single sentence.

Have you read any Ann Pachett? Bel Canto and State of Wonder are both beautiful.

Wolf Hall - Hilary Mantel
Lots of lovely suggestions in this thread.
Beautifully written, but maybe not the most intellectually demanding - anything by Nancy Mitford.

Found my recommendation (Gilead) eloquently put by sunnysummer upthread. One of the most beautifully written books I have ever read.

I also enjoyed Women on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy.

Gillespie and I by Jane Harris is fantastic.

Anything by China Meiville is beautifully written and will stay with you forever.

the Cornish trilogy by Robertson Davies or anything by him. A truly under celebrated author. I found myself having to check the dictionary for some of his words but when I learned their meaning I thought to myself "that is the perfect word!".

Christopher Isherwood -A single man or Goodbye to Berlin.

Roberto Bolano -The skating rink

Poe Ballantine's short stories are beautifully written and hilarious in parts.

Angela Carter?

John Updike's Rabbit series?

Have you read Any Human Heart by William Boyd - I've just finished it, I think it will stay with me for a long time.

Going back a bit, but I bet you'd love Carol Shiend lds if you haven't discovered her stuff already. My favourites are Unless and Larry's Party.

Life after life . Kate Atkinson.
House of rumour. Jake Arnott.
There is some utter bollox on Kindle. Maybe allsome of those people who publish there cant get a proper publishing deal for a reason.

YY to Ann Patchett, and the two that Leo mentions are the ones I would also recommend. The clarity of her prose is fantastic.

These book threads are great - I had literally (literally literally, not OED literally) never heard of Ann Patchett!

Have just ordered State of Wonder to begin with (Kindle version as I'm going on holiday soon. If I love it I will buy actual books when I get back )

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson is one of the most beautifully written books I've read. I read it before having children and her description of a dying man watching his sleeping son came back to me last night as so accurate and beautiful that I had to reread

Yes! It's a joy to read. Her Housekeeping is also fantastic. Apart from things already mentioned I loved Umberto Eco's Name of the Rose and Margaret Attwood's The Handmaid's Tale, both of which also have the advantage of being page-turners. Also Carson McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. The first of those in particular is gorgeous.

Oh yes, Carson McCullers was a wonderful writer.

I second Life After Life, amazing book.

Off to look at some of the other suggestions.

Many many years ago I worked in the warehouse at P*nguin Books & used to nick borrow masses of books inc Carson McCullers, Muriel spark, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Graham Greene & many others mentioned above

I know I loved them all at the time but have forgotten the details now & have mislaid them all

I should start again, shouldn't I? (& pay for them this time

Kate Atkinson or Maggie O'Farrell

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Quite lovely.

If you like short stories, there is a fabulous collection by Edith Pearlman that was published recently. Like Alice Munro (whom I love) but morevaried.

Elizabeth Taylor (the writer)'s recently-published short story collection is also very good, and so are her novels. I have read "A view of the harbour" and "in a summer season" and thought both were really excellent. I have also really enjoyed many of the books published by Persephone Books.

I'd second Gilead, one of the most beautifully written books and also clever without being pretentious.

Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels, who is a poet as well as a novelist, and so this novel has poetic undertones. It is heartbreaking and yet uplifting.

My 2 favourite 'serious' books, which I go back to time and again -

Herman Hesse - Siddartha
Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being

I second the recommendations of:
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Umberto Eco (especially Foucault's Pendulum)

And I add to the list:
Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino
This Thing Of Darkness - Harry Thompson
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
Heart Of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

These are very "intelligent" but not at all easy to read. Only if you dare:
Anathem - Neal Stephenson
Umbrella - Will Self
The Atrocity Exhibition - j G Ballard

Oh, and Steinbeck. Try East of Eden and The Grapes of Wrath. In the latter especially you can feel his passionate involvement in the theme of families struggling to survive. Simply and beautifully written - his writing really stands the test of time.