Anyone who cares about language, who relishes the pinpoint appositeness of a particular phrase, should read the novels of Nabokov and the non-fiction of Martin Amis. Here we have a fine example of the two juxtaposed from last Saturday's Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov/14/vladimir-nabokov-books-martin-amis
The snippets from Nabokov's novels and Amis's felicitous phrase-making combine to make the tastiest of appetisers for their main courses.
Read it and weep for your own shortcomings as a writer.
