Sometime I can start wonder how many authors you can find in the world… and at the same time I wonder if anyone of them is best. Who have written the best books in the world. Who is your favourite author?
If you ask me Åsne Seierstad is a very good one. I also like Isabel Allende and Jostein Gaarder. At the same time I love Philip Pullman’s books…
Probably my favorite author is John Steinbeck. I’ve read about twelve of his books and I’ve liked every one…
Other favorites are Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell.
However, I don’t have much worldly experience with literature. Most of the books I read are by either American or British writers, which cuts out a lot of foreign authors unfortunately.
Moderator’s Note: Moving thread to Cafe Society (our forum for art, drama, literature, movies, and music).
My favorites, in no particular order:
Russell Hoban
Halldor Laxness
James Joyce
Par Lagerkvist
Samuel Beckett
Sigrid Undsett
Alexander McCall Smith
Knut Hamsun
Gabriel Garcia-Marquez. By far the best in the world! (imho 
)
My favourite author is hands down Harry Harrison, closely followed by Michael Stackpole.
Are we restricted to modern writers of prose fiction? Otherwise I’d cite Homer.
Haafez, Mowlaanaa, Tagore, Joyce, Orwell
No particular order.
Graham Greene
RK Narayan
Salman Rushdie
George MacDonald Fraser (esp the Flashman series)
P. G. Wodehouse
Vladimir Nabokov
Antony Burgess gets an honourable mention for A Clockwork Orange
Somerset Maugham’
James Wright (poet)
Pat Barker
Alexander McCall Smith
Mark Helprin
Erich Maria Remarque
J.R.R. Tolkien
William Trevor, one of Ireland’s finest living novelists. His style of writing is blissfully unpretentious – precise and unadorned, but capable of narrating the most ingeniously moving stories. (I like to call him the novelist’s version of film director John Sayles.)
My favourite book of his is The Story of Lucy Gault, whose plot should be discovered first-hand rather than summarized, but put briefly, is about a family whose idyllic country-side existence comes apart due to a series of extremely unfortunate and tragic events.
I also loved Trevor’s Felicia’s Journey (which was turned into a wonderful film by Atom Egoyan, featuring Bob Hoskins), about a young girl who travels to England to find the father of her unborn child, and who is helped along the way by an elderly man whose intentions are rather less than noble.
I would also like to mention Rohinton Mistry, and specifically his novel A Fine Balance. A friend of mine who had traveled in India recommended this book to me, and being interested in exotic parts of the world, I was easily sold. This remains one of my favourite novels, about two tailors who leave their village in India to seek employment with an elderly lady in Bombay, during a period when India was suffering under the corrupt rule of Indira Gandhi.
While the narrative is intensely character-driven (and what characters! I was one page three when I felt I already knew and loved these people), it also subtly manages to feel panoramic, about something on a larger scale. It weaves in subplots about history and politics (but never reads like a history lesson); for example, it brilliantly depicts how political corruption trickles down through the social strata, hitting the poor the hardest. It also occasionally jumps back and forth in time to add background, which is so effective that when the narrative cuts back to present time, you suddenly see certain characters in a new light, with newfound respect.
Some people might think that this – India, poverty-stricken Indians, tailors! – sounds boring. I hope they can transcend their prejudices. By the end of the book you’ll be missing the characters, and you’ll be crying for their pain.
In fact, I’ve spent many an hour being angry with Mistry for creating such incredible characters and then hurling all sorts of misery at them. At times Mistry seems overly harsh; but when reading up on the history of India, it turns out the reality of what he depicts was, at times, much worse.
Mistry has written several stunning novels. I also recommend Such a Long Journey (which was made into a fine film).
Since you seem to like South-American magical realism, let me also recommend Juan Rulfo’s Pedro Paramo, the novel which pretty much started the genre. Note that it’s also a rather difficult novel – simply written, but rather confusing, to the extent that you will probably find yourself starting at the beginning again when you’re done – but all the more rewarding.
And Jorge Luis Borges, the amazing Argentinian short-story writer. While the Collected Fictions (which collects all his short stories) gives the best value for money, Labyrinths is probably the best way to get started.
Scott Adams.
Berk Breathed.
Gary Larson.
Seen and loved all over the world, baby.
And, without needing cliff’s notes.
Love in the time of cholera, indeed.
I’m a healthy blend of Tolkien, Iain M. Banks, and Hunter S. Thompson… that’s how you make the SPOOFE Smoothie.
Ooh, thanks for the reminder, Roberta; add Maughm to my list. And Waugh.
Well, those are two different things. But the authors whom I always enjoy are:
Charles Dickens (except Pickwick Papers, which I could not slog through)
Jane Austen (she pretty much wrote the same book over and over again, but they were all good!)
Now-forgotten novelists Olive Higgins Prouty, Christopher Morley, Booth Tarkington, J.P. McEvoy . . .
Historian Stanley Loomis
Travel writer/historian Jan Morris
There are several on here I’d second (particularly Borges & Loomis), but for some new ones:
Novelists ] [living- dead is too long a list to go into]
Nick Hornsby
Anne Tyler
Kurt Vonnegut
Alice Walker (when she’s not being too loopy)
Non-fiction/essayists [living and dead]
Gore Vidal (though I can’t usually get into his fiction)
Carl Sagan
Stephen Jay Gould
Truman Capote
Shelby Foote
Barbara Tuchman
Brian Greene
David Sedaris (humor writing is a majorly underrated field)
I devour EVERYTHING Neil Asher Silberman and Israel Finkelstein write.
Ross Kraemer kicks ass as well ( Ross is a SHE writing about ancient women)
Vern Bullough
Ross King
Fiction:
I really enjoyed Rick Copp’s first book. Read it in just under 24 hrs, work kept getting in the way or it wouldn’t have been that long.
Margaret Maron writes highly readable whodunnits that don’t take a lot of time to read.
Marcia Muller is consistently good.
And Ellis Peter’s MAKES me believe I am living in 12th century England.
Amy Tan makes me ache deep inside.
Best is subjective obviously, depends on what you like and what you want to read. I enjoy highly researched, in depth books about history or prehistory, but others prefer a book thats easier to read.
I have had several people recommend Orson Scott Card to me and frankly I think he sucks. Bottom line he’s pretenious and boring. But of course that’s just ME, your opinion may differ and in all honesty that’s fine with me.