This article, listing the 70 most beautiful words in the English language could be useful, if you applied the words wisely—in your book title or synopsis, for example.
I’m surprised at two omissions, words that I like and which I’ve seen authors mention as their favourites when interviewed—tintinnabulation, for the sound of a bell ringing—and susurration, meaning a whispering sound made by people, waves on a beach or wind through leaves.
I guess, that for most writers, two of the most beautiful words appear when they type The End…except that they’re followed by one of the most terrifying of words—Editing!
Do you have any favourite words that didn’t make the list?
Which writer’s work do you eagerly anticipate reading, impatient for their new novel to be published?
It could be someone who writes a series of novels featuring the same characters, or an author who takes years to pen their new story, which finds itself shortlisted for major literary awards. You might be working your way through a writer’s back catalogue, enthralled by their skills, while still taking glee from the occasional stinker of a title, that simply didn’t work.
We’ve all got our favourite authors, and some of them aren’t highly regarded by the critics, but who cares? If books are like food, why not have the occasional naughty treat?
My own list of got-to-read authors includes Walter Mosley, James Lee Burke, John Connolly, Michael Connelly, Barbara Kingsolver, Andrea Camilleri, Annie Dillard, Alice Hoffman, Dennis Lehane, Henning Mankell, Elizabeth Strout, Jo Nesbø, Justin Cartwright, Haruki Murakami, C. J. Sansom, Ann Patchett, Joe R. Lansdale, Don Winslow, Donald Ray Pollock and Jane Harper.
I read two hugely impressive debut novels in 2017, which whet my appetite for the second titles by Lars Mytting and by Kim Zupan.
My list of authors I seek out is based on those that I like. There are plenty of novelists whose books I admire, but don’t particularly like. As an example of this, I recently re-read Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, which was written in a complex way, with long sections devoted to streams of consciousness. Woolf was experimenting with ways of writing a novel, as part of the Modernist movement, but it doesn’t make for easy reading.
Who floats your boat?
Which author makes you forget what you’re doing, to read their story?
