William Gibson - Otherwise unexceptional person X with one unique and extremely narrowly-focused talent gets caught up in global power-play between shadowy organizations.
John Sandford: Super smart and uber rich detective prays he’ll find psychopathic serial killers in Minneapolis during Winter.
Chuck Palahniuk - You’ll never believe the shit that’s going through my head.
Sinclair Lewis: Jiminy Christmas, old hoss, it’s a gen-you-wine sockdolager of a cracklin’ good read when jes’ plain “fokes” like me-uns and you-uns take a gander at the threescore-and-ten of their day-to-day, and the straight dope shakes a leg into their noggin that it doesn’t cut the mustard.
T.S. Eliot - Feline zeitgeist.
Brett Easton Ellis
Bored indifferent, amoral, rich superficial protagonist does drugs and has sex with other bored, amoral, indifferent, superficial rich people. Somebody gets murdered. Protagonist continues to do drugs and be indifferent.
Neal Stephenson:
I have a well written adventure story, but allow me to digress…
Amy Tan: Chinese-American woman has difficulty with her culturally foreign mother
P. G. Wodehouse:
What ho, as I am often wont to say, there appears to be the inevitable Young Duffer: a Bean, a Crumpet, a Wooster, a Fink-Nottle, you know the sort, and when I say you know the sort I’m assuming you know the sort that, though he has tasked himself with spreading the good word that all’s right with the world (and there was something else supporting that proposition, some lark on the wing, and I believe there was a snail as well, though what a snail would have to do with the whole mess is more than I can be relied on to explain), this duffer is constantly finding himself Up Against It and when I say It that’s only because that’s really the only word for It, coming as It does from a variety of sources: an unnecessarily competitive clambake organized by an overzealous Dowager Aunt, a completely innocent misunderstanding regarding the juxtaposition of the old Upper Lip and the cheek of a Previous Paramour in the presence of her Newly Betrothed Rugby Halfback and her Chief Constable Father, or perchance one of those what do they call them these days ah, yes, the Jumble Fair complete with minstrels in blackface wherein our youthful zealot must avoid the vengeful Lord Cobblepot or whoever is after him in the completely misplaced belief that our young Odysseus has enough rascality to have pinched an antique cow creamer and I do realize that it doesn’t sound much, put that way, but you may well gather from the lengthy account that it’s practically equivalent to one of those Russian Classics what with all the class conflict and so on but Not To Worry or Raise The Old B.P., the aforementioned rightness of the world is restored by tome’s end through a judicious application of the old oh, what is the word I’m casting about for now, perhaps the old… elbow grease, no, and not bootstraps, I do know that much, well, remember that lark that was on the wing, ah, assuming for a moment that the entire middle two-thirds of the adventure had said bird somewhere besides the wing, perhaps gagged in an opium den in Manchester perhaps, but suddenly, three pages from the end when you’re sure that the old scrivener has dropped the cake in the sink so to speak this time you suddenly catch a glimpse of a wing and say Ho, there seems to be a lark upon it, and there in the grass is that snail on… a thistle, or wherever a snail might be content and all is indeed right with the world and our Young Duffer is again free to spread a modicum of sweetness and light.
Alice Waters: Grow it, eat it.
Ferran Adrià: Foam it, eat it.
Paula Wolfert: Tagine it, eat it.
Paula Dean: Fry it, eat it.
Julia Child: Love it, eat it.
Thomas Keller: Perfect it, eat it.
Martha Stewart: Plagiarize it, eat it.
John Steinbeck - Times were tough for us dust bowl itinerants, but our hearts were in the right place, so it was all we could do not to blame God for the way everything just fell apart.
Jorge Luis Borges - Fuck that Llama.
Anne Rice: an omnisexual European aristocrat becomes immortal, comes to America, and spends the next few centuries whining about being immortal.
John Jakes: stock character gains the confidence of and interacts with every famous person of their time period when not having sex with a duplicitous partner.
Flannery O’Connor: hypocritical unlikable southerner has a life changing event that makes them understand the concept of divine grace but are unable to cope.
Andrew Vachss - Hardened criminals visit some old-fashioned vigilante justice upon those pedophiles.
Oh! A COUNT…
Never mind.
John Norman: I, a man of planet Earth, find myself on the planet Gor, and am repulsed by the sexual repression and slavery that oppresses the females of this planet on a regular basis, yet am strangely drawn to the wisdom and innate correctness of it all, and eventually learn to embrace it in yet another different culture which is a thinly veiled analog of a culture from Earth history.
Erle Stanley Gardner: Person who generally deserves it gets killed, police invariably charge innocent person, lawyer Perry Mason, with aid of private detective and loyal secretary, unmasks real killer during trial of innocent client, with loose ends tied up during collegial exposition in Mason’s office afterward.
John Sandford (nee Camp): Tall, smart, brilliant, good-looking, independently wealty and ruthlessly badass detective Lucas Davenport sets his sights on serial killer and, after interesting police work by his associates and himself, identifies the murderer and then either kills them himself (usual) or leads them into a situation where for one reason or another they end up dead anyhow, often in a most unpleasant manner.
Ian Fleming: Kiss kiss bang bang.
John Grisham: What cricetus said.
Then going back a way…
Anais Nin: Thinks about, analyzes and writes about herself and her life in excruciating detail.
Henry Miller: Writes about himself, his experiences and sex in crude but colorful and delightfully engaging prose.
John Richardson: Descriptions and anecdotes based upon firsthand experience with virtually every important artist and art collector of the last century.
AHHHH Ha Ha Ha Ha ha…
Kinky Friedman–Hardboiled amateur detective and mangy crerw throw out hilarious one-liners while solving crimes in NYC.
Beverly Cleary–Adorable chldren get into mischief, but nothing too serious or unforgivable.
Jane Austen: young woman must find right husband, let’s organise a dance!, expository dialogue ad nauseam, setback, let’s think about it, hurrah… a wedding!
Joseph Heller: people are crazy, life is crazy, war is hell and crazy, but it can be funny too.
Enid Blyton: perfect children in a perfect world solve minor crime and drink lemonade to celebrate.
Ian Fleming: Bond 1, Villain 0.
Douglas Adams: 42.