I love Kate Atkinson’s writing; she is on par with Hilary Mantel for her exquisite use of language. In Transcription, a spy novel set in England during and several years after WWII, she displays both poignancy and sly humor; some of my favorites are below:

“Her mother was still more of a presence than an absence in her life. Juliet supposed that one day in the future it would be the other way round, but she doubted that would be an improvement.”

“My name’s Clarissa, by the way.” “Juliet.” “Oh, bad luck. I bet everyone’s always asking you where Romeo is. I myself was named for a bloody awful novel.” “And do you have a sister called Pamela?”

“You are young,” he said, smiling wanly at her. “You will not feel it as much. As you grow older—I am fifty—you begin to despair of the wicked foolishness of the world. It is a bottomless pit, I fear.”

“A Roman villa, he told her. “A very well-preserved mosaic floor. It covers the hypocaust. Hypocaustum from the Ancient Greek—hypo meaning ‘beneath’ and caust ‘burnt.’ Which word do you think we get from that?” “I have no idea,” she said, caustically. Not that he noticed.”

“The majority is not always in the right, you know,” he said quietly. “You just feel as though you are.”

Near the end of the book: “Come now, quite enough of exposition and explanation. We’re not approaching the end of a novel, Miss Armstrong”