Mine:
-
Mark Helprin (A Soldier of the Great War)
-
John Irving (A Prayer For Owen Meany)
-
Cormac McCarthy (The Road)
mmm
David Brooks (The Social Animal)
Simon Winchester (Pacific Rising)
Gita Mehta (A River Sutra)
Preach it, MMM!
-
Mark Helprin - A Soldier of the Great War
-
Tim O’Brien - Going After Cacciato
-
Matthew Kneale - English Passengers (thanks, twicks!)
Honorable Mentions: Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash) and Pat Barker (Regeneration Trilogy)
Colson Whitehead, Sag Harbor
Tana French, In the Woods
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
I’m with you, mmm
P.T. Deutermann Official Privilege
http://www.ptdeutermann.com/book-officialprivilege.html
Beverly Connor The Night Killer
David Hagberg The Kill Zone
John Sandford Shadow Prey
Depends on the genre, but I rarely get tired of Augusten Burroughs.
I also love Ann-Marie MacDonald, a Canadian author who didn’t write enough [novels] and should write more.
And Barbara Kingsolver. Love. That. Woman. That woman taught me how to write, and I don’t know how to write yet.
Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign.
Terry Pratchett, Lords and Ladies.
Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point.
John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor
Samuel R. Delany, Dhalgren
Thomas Pychon, Gravity’s Rainbow
Dean Koontz is my favorite author currently. I’d say my most favorite book by him is probably From the Corner of His Eye. That was quite an excellent book. Close seconds are Lightning, Strangers, and One Door Away From Heaven.
Stephen King has been a long favorite of mine and my favorite book by him (and favorite book of all time) is Needful Things. There’s about 10 others tied for second place.
Either Jeffery Deaver or Michael Connelly would be third.
Both write a series of books with the same characters, so it’s hard to pick one favorite over the other. I like the series books as a whole.
Criteria is that I’ve read at least three of their books and liked all of them:
George R. R. Martin – Fevre Dream
David Mitchell – Cloud Atlas
Stewart O’Nan – A Prayer for the Dying – the cover of which creeped me out so bad that I gave the book away, just to get it out of the house
Too bad the OP said “present day”, because Don Robertson would be #1 on the list.
Stephen King, Terry Pratchett, and Neil Gaiman.
The first two each had/have a series that probably win. The Dark Tower and Discworld. I think I could get away with saying the first one, but the second is too long. Honestly my favorite is Good Omens which was Pratchett and Gaiman so I’m not sure it it counts. If just picking his I’m going to go with Small Gods, but that’s an instinctual pick, actual thought of all the Discworld books makes a favorite pretty much impossible. Gaiman’s is Neverwhere.
Stephen King (I don’t now how to even begin to choose a favorite, but The Stand, The Long Walk, Misery and The Dark Tower series are all at the top)
Richard Adams (Watership Down)
Robert Charles Wilson (Spin) is fast becoming one of my favorite SF writers today.
Stephen King, It
J. K. Rowling, the *Harry Potter *series
Graham Masterton (British horror author), The Manitou (but it’s hard to pick–I also like Mirror, Ritual, The Doorkeepers, and many others)
I don’t have highbrow tastes in literature, and I’m not ashamed to admit it 
I’m also a big Augusten Burroughs fan. If I had to pick a favorite I guess it would be his memoir Dry.
Curtis Sittenfeld- American Wife.
Bret Easton Ellis- Less Than Zero.
Michael Chabon - The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
Larry McMurtry - Lonesome Dove
Ray Bradbury - The Martian Chronicles (Yes, he’s still alive - he’s never going to die, apparently - something about a circus magician…)
Iain M Banks - Player of Games
China Mieville - The City and the City
Terry Pratchett - Night Watch
Guy Gavriel Kay - Under Heaven
Caleb Carr - The Alienist
Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere
Iain Banks “Use of Weapons”
John Crowley “Little, Big”
Tim Powers “Declare”
Well, based on your first two choices, I’m going to go look up Robert Charles Wilson.
Stephen King’s my main man, my favorite of his is The Shining (and a bunch of other ones).
Watership Down is one of my top three favorite books, but I hesitate to choose Adams as a favorite author because I read another book of his (Girl in a Swing) and frankly hated it.
My second favorite author…I’ll say Joe R. Lansdale. He writes very dependably, although I can’t easily pick a favorite work. However, I remember well the first time I took notice of him. It was after reading his short story Night They Missed the Horror Show. Warning: not for the faint of heart. Lansdale also writes the Hap & Leonard series, which is funny and not as harsh as the linked story. He even writes YA books now.
I want to deliberate on my third choice a bit more.