I love Pat Conroy for many things, but one of the most important is his description of his native South Carolina country. Here’s a sentence from Beach Music that makes me shiver: Because even beauty has its limits, I shall always remain a prisoner of war to this fragrant, voluptuous latitude of the planet, fringed with palms and green marshes running beside rivers for thirty miles at a time, and emptying out on low-lying archipelagoes running north and south along the coast before the Atlantic’s grand appearance.

Or how about this one: As we looked out to the sea a wind lifted off the crests of the incoming waves creating a dialogue between the palms and bearing an iodine taste.

Or this description of a resident: Her senses blazed like five Lenten candles when she stared out into that portion of the ocean that extended beyond their land.