This somewhat forced moral structure is made up for by Ms de Loo's rich evocation of life in the Budapest ghetto and by her ability, in pared-down prose, to convey Kata's and Stefan's own confusions and anxieties.

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But the pay-off comes from being immersed in Ms Patchett's enchanting prose and wondrous storytelling.

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In Mr Anderson's singular prose those habits create their own oratorical pull.

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Both tell a rollicking good tale in page-turning prose, with Mr Eichenwald's the more staccato.

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His most recent book, "The Quality of Mercy, " is a sequel to "Sacred Hunger, " and while it is smaller and less ambitious than its predecessor, it is a marvelous story told in Mr. Unsworth's typically polished prose.

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It could be that his prose is more forceful in the original--perhaps he's been unlucky with his translators.

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Thurber's childlike drawings may survive in popular memory more indelibly than his prose, and it is their very crudeness that makes them so disarming.

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In his brief, brilliant study "Nikolai Gogol, " Vladimir Nabokov accounts for Gogol's artistry through this and what he calls Gogol's "four dimensional" prose, a sinuous style that captures characters in their inner being.

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Mr Snyder's book is revisionist history of the best kind: in spare, closely argued prose, with meticulous use of statistics, he makes the reader rethink some of the best-known episodes in Europe's modern history.

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