What are the top book recommendations for 'beautiful language wonderful characterization'?

Now airing as a Starz series.

In the "compellingˮ (The Boston Globe) and "pitch perfectˮ (Entertainment Weekly) follow-up to Tana French's runaway bestseller In the Woods, Cassie Maddox has transferred out of the Dublin Murder Squad-until an urgent t... Read more about The Likeness

This is Lexie Madison’s story, not mine. I’d love to tell you one without getting into the other, but it doesn’t work that way. I used to think I sewed us together at the edges with my own hands, pull...

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Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. Despite their differences, Achilles befriends the shamed prince, and as they grow into young men skilled in the... Read more about The Song of Achilles

MY FATHER WAS A KING AND THE SON OF KINGS. HE was a short man, as most of us were, and built like a bull, all shoulders. He married my mother when she was fourteen and sworn by the priestess to be fru...

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The pride of high-ranking Mr Darcy and the prejudice of middle-class Elizabeth Bennet conduct an absorbing dance through the rigid social hierarchies of early-nineteenth-century England, with the passion of the two unlikely lovers growing as their un... Read more about Pride and Prejudice

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first enteri...

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B is for Brontë. A novel of intense power and intrigue, Jane Eyre dazzles and shocks readers with its passionate depiction of a woman's search for equality and freedom. Orphaned Jane Eyre grows up in the home of her heartless aunt, where she endures ... Read more about Jane Eyre

THERE WAS NO POSSIBILITY of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined earl...

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'His spectacular inventiveness makes the Discworld series one of the perennial joys of modern fiction' Mail on Sunday

NAMED AS ONE OF THE BBC'S 100 MOST INSPIRING NOVELS

The Discworld is very much like our own - if our own were to consist of a flat ... Read more about The Colour of Magic

FIRE ROARED through the bifurcated city of Ankh-Morpork. Where it licked the Wizards’ Quarter it burned blue and green and was even laced with strange sparks of the eighth color, octarine; where its o...

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At the end of the world, a woman must hide her secret power and find her kidnapped daughter in this "intricate and extraordinary" Hugo Award winning novel of power, oppression, and revolution. (The New York Times)

This is the way the world ends. . .f... Read more about The Fifth Season

For the past ten years you’ve lived as ordinary a life as possible. You came to Tirimo from elsewhere; the townsfolk don’t really care where or why. Since you were obviously well educated, you became ...

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A masterpiece of Biblical scope, and the magnum opus of one of America's most enduring authors

In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden "the first book," and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set ... Read more about East of Eden

I remember my childhood names for grasses and secret flowers. I remember where a toad may live and what time the birds awaken in the summer—and what trees and seasons smelled like—how people looked an...

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The #1 New York Times bestseller!

Now a Hulu original series starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington.

"I read Little Fires Everywhere in a single, breathless sitting." -Jodi Picoult

"To say I love this book is an understatement. It's a deep p... Read more about Little Fires Everywhere

The previous June, when Mia and Pearl had moved into the little rental house on Winslow Road, neither Mrs. Richardson (who technically owned the house) nor Mr. Richardson (who handed over the keys) ha...

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By the New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks

Now a major motion picture

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

Includes a new Afterword by David Mitchell... Read more about Cloud Atlas

Beyond the Indian hamlet, upon a forlorn strand, I happened on a trail of recent footprints. Through rotting kelp, sea cocoa-nuts & bamboo, the tracks led me to their maker, a White man, his trowzers ...

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Percy Jackson has ADHD, dyslexia, and a taste for trouble, so he's stuck going to a private school in upstate New York for hard-to-handle kids. If he doesn't get his life into shape, this could be the sixth school he's expelled from.

Then one day, Pe... Read more about The Lightning Thief

But if you recognize yourself in these pages—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it’s only a matter of time before they sens...

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