You **must** read Nabokov, Richard, especially if you are interested in that area between fiction, art, science and biography. The novels are shot through with details of VN’s life as an émigreé (not a million miles from Sebald, I guess, and VN does pop-up in The Emigrants), _and_ he was a renowned lepidoterist.

Beyond that I can’t think of a better writer of English prose. Try _Pnin_ or _Pale Fire_ first: you’ll love them!