# Just damn good writing

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-damn-good-writing/82944>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [September 21, 2001, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-damn-good-writing/82944 "2001-09-21T02:39:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2001, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-damn-good-writing/82944/21 "2001-09-22T20:10:49Z")

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Tolkien. All of his work is good, of course, but to see him at his best, pick up _Unfinished Tales_, and read the tale of Turin Turambar. It’s one of the most depressing things I’ve ever read, and I don’t like depressing literature… But it was so well-written that I enjoyed reading it just for the quality of the writing.

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**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2001, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-damn-good-writing/82944/22 "2001-09-22T20:33:27Z")

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I know people have already mentioned **Orwell** , but many may not know that some of his best writing is actually contained not in his novels, but in his shorter essays and journalism ,as well as his non-fiction books. The essays etc. can be found in a four-volume collection entitled_The collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell_, published (i think) by Penguin.

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**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2001, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-damn-good-writing/82944/23 "2001-09-22T21:23:24Z")

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Larry McMurtry - you have to spit the dust out of your mouth after reading _Lonesome Dove_.

Diana Gabaldon - yeah, yeah, sometimes her characters are well, too good to be true. However, she can sure spin a tail. Her imagery and prose are simply awesome.

Anita Shreve - I love how she writes. Concise yet descriptive.

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**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\
**Post date:** [September 22, 2001, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/just-damn-good-writing/82944/24 "2001-09-22T21:26:47Z")

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This is very meta, but Strunk, of Strunk and White gets me hot. I think it was someone here who described _The Elelments of Style_ as technical writing elevated into an art form.

Melville, at times, esp. in “Benito Cereno”.

Milton. I was blown away when I realized that the invocation of _Paradise Lost_ was _written_, that somebody had set down and crafted it, made choices, seen the path nneded to make such an epic tone seem natural, organic . . .wow.

Keats. The only romantic who could really control his languafge without losing the emotion, and in doing so showed that the pleasure of the mind and of hte heart are all legitimate and really the same . . . If I could pick one minor historical detail, I would have saved Keats from TB.

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