That cosplay is absolutely magnetic. Very attractive.

“Purple” prose is not gauged by any objective measure, and that subjectivity means that all but the most spartan of writing will be labelled as “purple” by someone. There are certainly hallmarks of good and bad prose, and general rules one should follow when writing, at least until they know how to break those rules effectively, but everyone uses a different yardstick to measure and some folks like their prose more descriptive.

I don’t track normally, but I challenged myself in 2020 to read more, and I kept track of what I read using a goodly spreadsheet. It’s kinda cool to go back and look at what I read.

I judge every book by its cover, and I’m not ashamed. If someone I trust recommends a book to me and the cover is awful, I’ll read it because I trust the person—but I won’t ever choose to read a book with an awful cover of my own accord.

Anna Karenina is like the Hobbit and W&P is the Silmarillion. Start with the Hobbit and if you like it take the deep dive.

The writing does improve for sure, but if you don’t like his style in general I would warn you against Dresden Files. He gets better but it’s still very much the same style of writing.