Most of Steinbeck is similarly approachable.

When someone ask for my favourite author my answer is Hemingway. Want to write better? Try to write like Hemingway.

That said, people who read less tend to believe that more and bigger words equal better writting. My (usually scientific) texts are described as "telegraphic", and heavily expanded without adding any real content. E.g. "the house was white" gets transformed to "the paint that covered the beautiful house was pure white".

I've never enjoyed Hemingway; his short sentences feel unnatural to me. I end up feeling like the narrative is trying, hard, to manipulate my feelings, to the degree that sense of being manipulated ends up being the loudest voice in my head as I try to read Hemingway. I've finished his books with only a memory of arguing with the prose the entire time.