Favorite Authors

[justanuthercap]

Let me throw out my "go to" authors. I guess you'd cal their books my comfort books... sort of like comfort food.

1. David Eddings... (everything he wrote WITHOUT his wifes name on the spine, nothing against her, but he took a weird turn when she was his cowriter)
2. Clive Cussler... (I like all his different series for different reasons, and that says something to me)

 

[Justin B]

Gotta agree with you on Cussler. I own every book he's ever put out.

Kevin J. Anderson, an amazing writer and a really great guy too. Had the chance to meet and chat with him not long ago and he couldn't have been nicer.
Tolkien of course, and Frank Herbert. Also getting into George R.R. Martin....pretty good so far.

 

[djd]

William Gibson - always full of great ideas

Larry Niven - only hid earlier stuff. He's been lazy for years like Clancy - lots of co-authors doing the donkey work these days
Agatha Christie - especially Poitot

Dashiel Hammett - my favourite US detective author

Margery Allingham - I think her Campion books are every bit as good as Agatha Christie

 

[Atticus Finch]

Not as much of a reader as I once was. I fear that my attention span has actually decreased with time and age. And I've never been much interested in fiction. But, I've always liked...

Mark Twain, Robert Ruark and Tom Wolfe. Yes, they wrote (write) fiction, but their fiction is so real that I personally know...no kidding, I have actually met... every character in their books.

Michael Shaara...because his fiction wasn't fiction.

Because I love history...Douglas Southall Freeman, James Mc Pherson, Bruce Catton and (to a lesser degree) Shelby Foote.

Oh...and in college (like many folks my age) I went through a Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur Clarke, Ray Bradbury phase which later morphed into a Carlos Castaneda, Robert M. Pirsig, Jack Kerouac, William Least Heat-Moon phase.

Now, sadly, I'm in a case law and records on appeal phase.

AF

 

[shazzabanazza]

Jessica Stirling - Books set in 1900s mainly

Graham Masterton- mainly writes horrors

Paullina Simons

I like books set in the 1800's and books set around the time of WWii

 

[Puzzicato]

This is a tricky one! In no particular order:

Nancy Mitford - for her incisive observations
Terry Pratchett - for his light hand with satire and playfulness with English
Anthony Powell - humour and social commentary
Katharine Kerr - very complete world-building, unusual in fantasy/scifi
MFK Fisher - one of the most perfect writers on food of the 20th century
Elizabeth David - the other one of the most perfect writers on food of the 20th century
Kate Eliot - another complete world builder, wonderful imagination

 

[TCMfan25]

Top Three:
#1.John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
#2.Charles Dickens
#3Edgar Allen Poe

Others I Love:
Andrew Langhorne Clements (Mark Twain)
Stefan Kanfer
H.G. Wells
Oscar Wilde

 

[TCMfan25]

JRR Tolkien - Most people know him for The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings. But where it really gets interesting is when you start reading the stuff that he wrote, but that his son Christopher compiled and edited after his death: The Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales and the multi-volume "History of Middle Earth". Utterly fascinating.


Very Right you are, as much as I love his masterpieces such as "The Hobbit" and "LOTR" his unfinished or unpublished works are marvelous (exluding "Children of Hurin", in my humble opinion).

The most creative and talented author that ever lived!

 

[in/y]

Charles Bukowski - never a dull moment with Hank.

John Kennedy Toole - every couple of years I pull out my battered copy of "Confederacy of Dunces" and enjoy it all over again... tragic that he didn't live to write more after that.

 

[Hawkcigar]

Joseph Mitchell - Former writer for The New Yorker magazine. I think he was with The New Yorker from the late 30s to the early 90s. He wrote a lot of stories about people he met in New York. Many of them were people that he met in the Bowery, in bars, nightclubs, etc. I usually recommend McSorley's Wonderful Saloon to friends.

Charles Dickens- classic and I never tire of this.

William Least Heat Moon - Still have the goal of making a Blue Highways trip someday.

W.P. Kinsella - The Iowa Baseball Confederacy and Shoeless Joe. Growing up I always loved baseball and these books really cemented that for me.

 

[Stray Cat]

Terry Pratchett - for his light hand with satire and playfulness with English

LOVE HIM!

Gods don't like people not doing much work. People who aren't busy all the time might start to think.
Small Gods

Of course, it is very important to be sober when you take an exam. Many worthwhile careers in the street- cleansing, fruit-picking and subway-guitar-playing industries have been founded on a lack of understanding of this simple fact.
Moving pictures

Adventure! People talked about the idea as if it were something worthwhile, rather than a mess of bad food, no sleep and strange people inexplicably trying to stick pointed objects in bits of you.


lol

 

[Stray Cat]

But, also George Orwell
"1984":

We do not destroy the heretic because he resists us: so long as he resists us we never destroy him. We convert him, we capture his inner mind, we reshape him. We burn all evil and all illusion out of him; we bring him over to our side, not in appearance, but genuinely, heart and soul. We make him one of ourselves before we kill him. [...] we make the brain perfect before we blow it out

Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves.

Horrible, cold, paranoid feelings.. that's what dwells in this book.. but I somehow just kept reading on..

 

[Puzzicato]

LOVE HIM!

Isn't he a genius? I'm definitely looking forward to Snuff - the Watch books are my favourites.

 

[Black Dahlia]

Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Margaret Sutton, MR James, Edgar Allan Poe, Edgar Wallace....Kipling....
X
BD

 

[Stray Cat]

Isn't he a genius? I'm definitely looking forward to Snuff - the Watch books are my favourites.

13th October 2011.
??! Too long!
Oh...
I'll get old while waiting for it to come here, get translated, get published...
So annoying!

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Raymond Chandler
James Ellroy
Jonathan Gash
Sue Grafton
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Sinclair Lewis
Frank Norris

 

[Haversack]

In no particular order:

George MacDonald Fraser - especially Mr. American and The Pyrates.

Rudyard Kipling.

"Sinclair Beckstein"

Rex Stout - especially his Nero Wolfe stories.

Poul Anderson.

W. S. Gilbert. - especially his Bab Ballads.

 

[Harp]

John Kennedy Toole - every couple of years I pull out my battered copy of "Confederacy of Dunces" and enjoy it all over again... tragic that he didn't live to write more after that.

Revealed comedic genius and perhaps an author's hidden despondency.
Toole's death cast a pall over Dunces, which I started once but
never finished-Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad; George
Eliot's Daniel Deronda; and A Confederacy of Dunces.
Read an excellent Toole bio a few years back; cannot recall the grapher's
name- a female critic for the New York Times? that focused upon
JKT's conflicted nature as probable cause. A tragedy in American letters.

 

[Corto]

-Edward Abbey: "The Thoreau of the West"
-George MacDonald Fraser: The Flashman novels were a great primer on the British Empire. His "MacAuslan" books were as much about Scotland as they were about "operations other than war".
-John le Carre: Demystified the spy game.
-Ernest Hemingway: Manliness personified.
-Raymond Carver: Great moody short stories loaded with ennui.
-Tobias Wolff: The greatest contemporary American author?
-Kurt Vonnegut: ...what can I say that hasn't already been said...
(Kipling and Orwell too...)

(Edit: I just looked back through this thread and realized I already answered. I guess I can't resist a book thread...)

 

[Formeruser012523]

C. S. Lewis
Ravi Zacharias
Michael Crichton
Fitzgerald
Kenneth Graham
Lewis Carroll
George MacDonald (Phantastes!!)