Favorite Authors

[Dread Scott]

If You Like Pulp Detective Fiction...

http://www.hardcasecrime.com/index.shtml

Old and new hard-boiled fiction with new, but classic-style cover art. The artists are often old hands at the trade, too.

 

[ScionPI2005]

http://www.hardcasecrime.com/index.shtml

Old and new hard-boiled fiction with new, but classic-style cover art. The artists are often old hands at the trade, too.

Looks like an interesting publication; I'll have to check it out. Maybe some summer reading material. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Baron Kurtz]

In this order . . .

Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Charles Dickens

Graham Greene

Italo Calvino

William Shakespeare

 

[DeaconKC]

I like authors who carry on the characters from one book to the next, breathing life into them.
1. Rex Stout, who doesn't love Archie and Nero?
2. Clive Cussler
3. Tom Clancy
4. Louis Lamour
5. Michael Stackpole

 

[Rufus]

Kinky Friedman... A Funny man, also a great musician... Should've been Governor of Texas.


Tim Powers - Wonderfully inconsistent. 'Anubis Gates' is great.

Peter Ackroyd - Novelist, Biographer and Historian par excellence.

Alan C. Martin - Writes Tank Girl... i get to draw his scripts... often makes me spit out tea laughing.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Sinclair Lewis

Willa Cather

John Steinbeck

William Faulkner

Clifford Simak

Ursula Le Guin

Lots of others too, but these authors stand out - I've read nearly everything by each of them.

 

[Abyss]

In no particular order...

Terry Pratchett

Robert Heinlein

Edgar Allen Poe

Joseph Sheridan LeFanu

and Jules Verne

...would have to be my top five favorite authors. Or, at least the top five favorite authors who I remember, I'm really horrible with names!

 

[Maguire]

I don't really read much fiction, mostly history or philosophy,
Right now i'm reading through "Militia of Heaven", a work on the Templars and the Assassins. Thusfar i'm quite pleased, it offers a great background so far on both, and offers more on the esoteric aspects of the secret orders.

Before that i read Mussolini's autobiography (the first one, from 1926) and his Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism. Its exactly what i'd expect from Mussolini- bombastic melodramatic, etc. All around a good read for anyone interested in understanding Mussolini's italy or the rise of ideologies in the 1920s.

After i finish the current book its onto -
Oswald Spengler (Decline of the West Volume 1), and the Qu'ran

As for fiction... I read through Lord of the Rings and i enjoyed McTeague by Frank Norris. Otherwise fiction tends to be something i read more as a child.

 

[JazzBaby]

William Burroughs: just fantastically weird and shocking
J.D. Salinger: Catcher In The Rye was the first 'proper' book I read and loved
Jean Cocteau: sadly I don't have enough French to read the originals, but his storytelling is unparalleled even in translation
Vladmir Nabakov: I still find it hard to believe that English wasn't his first language. His mastery of words and imagery is second to none. His ability to create such grotesque yet likeable characters leaves me in awe.
Edgar Allen Poe: for the same reason I love Tim Burton
Tennessee Williams: I just can't get enough of his plays. He uses such beautiful phrases ("At night he had flying dreams...")
James Joyce: for changing our view of modern literature
Samuel Beckett: for changing our view of modern theatre
Oscar Wilde: for the same reason Lizzie Maine likes him
Jack Kerouac: for making me want to drive around the USA and live life to the fullest

 

[MrNewportCustom]

http://www.hardcasecrime.com/index.shtml

Old and new hard-boiled fiction with new, but classic-style cover art. The artists are often old hands at the trade, too.

I've been a member for over a year now. :eusa_clap

My list:
Kinky Friedman - Very funny and completely anti-politically correct.
Dave Barry - From his column to his novels; a very funny man.
Dashiell Hammett - And everyone else in his genre and time. Can't beat the classics in crime.
Stephen King - A good diversion. His short, Dolan's Cadillac, is my favorite.
Donald E. Westlake - One word: Dortmunder!


Lee
______________________

Bookworm at large.

 

[Burnsie]

Booth Tarkington
John Steinbeck
James Thurber

 

[Dread Scott]

Looks like an interesting publication; I'll have to check it out. Maybe some summer reading material. Thanks for sharing!

Well, they've got enough titles to keep you busy for at least the whole of summer, and then some. You can even subscribe to them in a "book of the month" type way... which has me intrigued.

 

[Spitfire]

In no particular order:
Ernest Hemingway
Joseph Heller (Catch 22)
Hans Christian Andersen
Len Deighton (Goodbye Mickey Mouse)
Derek Robinson (Piece of Cake and Goosehawk Squadron)

 

[Undertow]

After looking through some of these, I better add a rider to my original response:

+Chuck Palahniuk - All materials I've read by him are amazing. He's my second favorite modern writer (just behind...)

+Hunter S Thompson - I know many conservative and baby-boomer folks that really don't care for this man. Fortunately, I came to his literature prior to viewing the movies, and also prior to hearing the stories of drug abuse. I consider HST my greatest influence and one of my most cherished authors. I have NO idea why I left him off.

+Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - I've read all, or most, of the Sherlock stories and I love each and every one.

+Mark Twain - Brilliant and hillarious.

+Joseph Heller - My favorite book written is Catch 22. I haven't read anything else by J. Heller.

 

[Smithy]

James Dickey (his "To the White Sea" is my favourite novel)
Derek Robinson
Barbara Cleverly
Agatha Christie
Rudyard Kipling
Bartle Bull
Knut Hamsun
Kenneth Graham (I still love "Wind in the Willows")
Roald Dahl (absolutely everything he's written)

 

[rmrdaddy]

Great Thread!
I like to think I'm a voracious reader, here are my faves off the top of my head:
Hemingway
Salinger
Scott Fitgerald
Dorothy Parker
Raymond Chandler
Joseph Mitchell
Kerouac
PG Wodehouse

 

[Undertow]

PG Wodehouse always brightens the day
Hemingway specifically his hunting works
Christopher Buckley-Wodehouse with an american political bent
Kurt Vonnegut-Most creative writer of the post WWII era
Ayn Rand-Visionary
John Keegan-Brilliant historian fascinated by his works on leadership
John Boyd-author of the OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loop, arguably the most influential military theorist of the late 20th century.

Could you name one of Hemingway's hunting stories/novels?

I've never cared for Hemingway, although I do admit he has a certain luster I appreciate in a writer. I'm always looking to give him another chance!

 

[davestlouis]

Thomas Lynch, poet and funeral director

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/undertaking/

Lives in Michigan, ruminates on the human condition, alcoholism and other addictions, and that cat Grimalkin

One of these days she will lie there and be dead.
I’ll take her out back in a garbage bag
and bury her among my sons’ canaries,
the ill-fated turtles, a pair of angelfish:
the tragic and mannerly household pests
that had the better sense to take their leaves
before their welcomes and my patience had worn thin.
For twelve long years I’ve suffered this damned cat
while Mike, my darling middle son, himself
twelve years this coming May, has grown into
the tender if quick-tempered manchild
his breeding blessed and cursed him to become.
And only his affection keeps this cat alive
though more than once I’ve threatened violence -
the brick and burlap in the river recompense
for mounds of furballs littering the house,
choking the vacuum cleaner, or what’s worse:
shit in the closets, piss in the planters, mice
that winter indoors safely as she sleeps
curled about a table leg, vigilant
as any knickknack in a partial coma.
But Mike, of course, is blind to all of it -
the gray angora breed of arrogance,
the sluttish roar, the way she disappears for days
sex-desperate once or twice a year,
urgently ripping her way out the screen door
to have her way with anything that moves
while Mike sits up with tuna fish and worry,
crying into the darkness, “Here kitty kitty,”
mindless of her whorish treacheries
or of her crimes against upholsteries -
the sofas, love seats, wingbacks, easy chairs
she’s puked and mauled into dilapidation.
I have this reoccurring dream of driving her
deep into the desert east of town
and dumping her out there with a few days’ feed
and water. In the dream, she’s always found
by kindly tribespeople who eat her kind
on certain holy days as a form of penance.
God knows, I don’t know what he sees in her.
Sometimes he holds her like a child in his arms
rubbing her underside until she sounds
like one of those battery powered vibrators
folks claim to use for the ache in their shoulders.
And under Mike’s protection she will fix her
indolent green-eyed gaze on me as if
to say: Whaddaya gonna do about it, Slick,
the child loves me and you love the child.
Truth told, I really ought to have her fixed
in the old way with an airtight alibi,
a bag of Redi-mix and no eyewitnesses.
But one of these days she will lie there and be dead.
And choking back loud hallelujahs, I’ll pretend
a brief bereavement for my Michael’s sake,
letting him think as he has often said
“Deep down inside you really love her don’t you Dad?”
I’ll even hold some cheerful obsequies
careful to observe God’s never-failing care
for even these, the least of His creatures,
making some mention of a cat-heaven where
cat-ashes to ashes, cat-dust to dust
and the Lord gives and the Lord has taken away.
Thus claiming my innocence to the end,
I’ll turn Mike homeward from that wicked little grave
and if he asks, we’ll get another one because
all boys need practice in the arts of love
and all boys’ aging fathers in the arts of rage.

 

[Viola]

Eclectically, or psychotically, my list shall go: Stephen King, Lucy Maude Montgomery, Gene Logsdon, Robert Heinlein, C.S. Lewis, Mark Twain, and Vita Sackville-West.

 

[Corto]

Edward Abbey- for writing the quintessential novels about the American Western spirit.

John Le Carre- for his cynical spy novels.

George MacDonald Fraser- for his hilarious, living and breathing historical fiction (and fictionalized memoirs).

And then the "one shot wonders" who wrote amazing Naval literature: Nicholas Monsarrat ("The Cruel Sea"), Richard McKenna ("The Sand Pebbles") and Marcus Goodrich ("Delilah").

I could keep going...but off the top of my head those are the guys I think of.