I believe that a whole lot of what constitutes good writing can be developed through exposure to good writing, almost like osmosis. I always tell my writing students to read up, never to read down. There’s no point to reading something that’s badly written or written with less skill and artistry than you yourself currently possess. If you read something wretched or just clumsily written, all that will do is make you wonder how that person became a published writer while you’re still battling in the trenches. Forget about that author and others like her. The point is to develop yourself as a writer, not to wonder about anyone else.
Toward that end, here are some books that I recommend for various reasons:
SENSE OF PLACE
Broken Harbor by Tana French
Rose by Martin Cruz Smith
A Stained White Radiance by James Lee Burke
Our Lady of the Forest by David Guterson
The Magus (original version) by John Fowles
Wildfire at Midnight, The Moonspinners, and This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart
The Dogs of Winter and Tijuana Straits by Kem Nunn
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See
The Wolf and the Watchman by Niklas Natt och Dag
NARRATIVE VOICE
Disobedience by Jane Hamilton
The Trespasser by Tana French
Shining Through by Susan Isaacs
Penmarric by Susan Howatch
The Collector by John Fowles
A Perfect Spy by John le Carré
The Dawn Patrol by Don Winslow
Sula by Toni Morrison
The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Telling the Bees by Peggy Hesketh
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
ALL-AROUND GREAT
In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien
Possession by A. S. Byatt
The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
Atonement, On Chesil Beach, and Enduring Love by Ian McEwan
Waterland by Graham Swift
Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Constant Gardener by John le Carré
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The World According to Garp and A Widow for One Year by John Irving
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
ADORED CLASSICS
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Desperate Remedies, Far from the Madding Crowd, and The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Light in August and Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
The Anne of Green Gables series by L. M. Montgomery
The Poldark series by Winston Graham
And of course, there are others. Those I’ve listed above are right off the top of my head.
There are thousands of books well worth reading in order to expose yourself to good writing. I encourage you to seek some of them out.