I’ll third the Stephen King thing. Ever since I joined that book club…
All my books are packed, but I can guess… After SK, I’d have to say Michael Crichton (including his non-fiction and pseudonym works), Guy Gavriel Kay, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Anne Rice is probably up there too. Most of my stuff is in categories, rather than authors: religion, parapsychology (I have a shelf just for the journals), classics, horror, anthropology/sociology/psychology, etc. Four bookcases full, plus Mr. Kitty’s three and our one communal case.
John Steinbeck is the author I have the most of, but most of his books are small so in space taken he is 2nd behind…
Stephen King ( I think I have more King than Steinbeck but most of my King is in boxes)
Cecil Adams
Mic Foley (stop laughing)
then several authors I only have one book by
My SO takes up a bit more space but it looks to be mostly Anne Rice
You cant even see most of my bookcase as its behind an endtable and lamp.
dead0man
[ul]
[li]John Ralston Saul (humanist philosopher)[/li][li]Douglas Coupland (everything except All Families are Psychotic)[/li][li]Carl Jung (Swiss pioneer of psychology)[/li][li]Linda McQuaig (Non-fiction, mostly about economics)[/li][li]Margaret Atwood (Handmaid’s Tale, Surfacing, Alias Grace) [/li][li]Poppy Z. Brite (nothing like a little sick and twisted Goth lit :D)[/li][/ul]
Most of my library is one book, one author.
Unless you count manga and graphic novels, that is, in which case you can add **Neil Gaiman, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Saki Hiwatari, ** and Naoko Takeuchi
Marion Chesney (15+) actually my wife’s, but I’ve read some of her romances
Donald Westlake (12+)
Oxford Guides (10+) to Classical History, to Literature, to British History, to Irish History, etc. All review copies, thank god, else this would have bankrupted me.
George Macdonald Fraser (8+) Flashman series, although I’ve read some of his other books and would love to collect them.
Kinky Friedman (8+)
In terms of subject matter, the Civil War would easily vault to the top. I must have 40-50 books, although I’d be a piker compared to those who are really into the subject.
I’m with some others here. I started collecting Stephen King about the time The Stand came out and never looked back. The odd thing is that, although he takes up the most space, he’s the one author I read the least. I generally read each book once and rarely go back to them.
Second place goes to the 16 volume “People’s History of America” by Page Smith or the 11 volume “History of Civilization” by Will and Ariel Durant.
Leifsmama, read LeGuin because she creates some of the most fully realized worlds in all of fantasy or science fiction. I prefer her Earthsea books (there are now 6 of them, including one of short stories), but her Hanish books (Left Hand of Darknessis the only title I remember right now) have a large following. And her forays into contemporary fiction (Coming Home) are likewise very good. She allows her characters to grow and change–and you understand why they make the choices they make, because you know their history. Just as important, her worlds make sense–magic or space travel, it has definite rules, and she doesn’t set the rules aside just to add a thrill. These are personality driven books, action happens, you may be caught up for several pages with storms and flights and even battles, but it comes down to caring for the characters, identifying with them. She does this even in her short stories. She can be a bit odd, her intent, especially in short stories, is not always obvious, but she usually delivers. Does that give you an idea on why you should read her?
Happy Reading.
Oh, and booklover I, too, am non-Disney Pooh oriented, and I’ve been maning to re-read Madeleine L’Engle.
Hmmm, this is hard since I have a lot of writers with both paperback and hardback.
Isaac Asimov
Robert Heinlein
Steven Brust
David Weber
Ed McBain (Just the 87th, I have not really enjoyed the Hope books I have tried.)
Harry Turtledove
Mike Resnick
George R. R. Martin (Game of Swords and the Wild Card books.)
Raymond E. Feist
Joel Rosenberg
Katharine Kerr
Kate Elliott (mostly because of Big Fat Fantasy Novels)
Katherine Kurtz
Dick Francis
I guess I better stop there. Asimov and Heinlein are the shorter ones, since they have stopped writing. (Okay, if I had everything Asimov did, he would win, but I would need a much bigger place to live.)
My word, this is difficult. I have a lot of different authors. Hmm, by space though…
Heinlein (I was really into him when I was younger. Now they’re a pleasant I-just-want-to-pick-up-a-book read. No criticism intended.)
Madeleine L’Engle- especially her Crosswicks books
Laura Ingalls Wilder
Tad Williams
C.S. Lewis
I guess everything else goes under “assorted”. I wish I could say Tolkien, but I’ve only good The Hobbit, LOTR, and Leaf By Niggle.
I would have lots of Robert Jordan, but I threw them out last year. I started them, but I have decided I hate practically all the characters. Ah, well.
[list=1]
[li]Robert Anton Wilson[/li][li]Gene Wolfe[/li][li]L. Ron Hubbard (I own the entire Mission Earth series) :smack:[/li][li]Stephen R. Donaldson[/li][li]Robert Jordan[/li][li]Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman[/li][li]Terry Brooks[/li][li]David Eddings[/li][/list=1]
Moving gets harder every time. Nowadays, I look for a place that can take care of my bookshelves. I sorted out all comics, reference, non-fiction and stuff, and it’s in the den. That still leaves me with about 125’ of shelfspace to set up in the living room.
The ones taking up most space are:
Pratchett (All of Discworld and started collecting the illustrated things, maps, cookbooks ASF. Should it be with the fiction or in the den?)
Heinlein (complete, but I need to get a few, that I only have in Swedish)
Stephen King. (I really enjoy him, and, apart from dreamcatcher, which I found to be boring, think that he’s gotten better these past few years)
Ross Thomas (complete and out of print. Great suspense writer of pulpish whodounnits and detective yarns).
John Irving (complete)
I’m gonna start filling out gaps in the works by Norman Mailer and James Ellroy.
Twice a years it’s my weekend of putting new purchases in the shelf. My whole life is a mess those days, since all books need to be moved around. They get sorted by author, and then title in publishing order. If I have two or more language editions (as with Marquez 100 years of…), the original language goes first.
This is so funny that you’d start this thread right now. Yesterday my 5 year old was gazing at my bookshelf and asked me why all of my books say “King” on the side!
Most of my books are Stephen King, followed by Elizabeth George, John Grisham, and Bentley Little. I also have a few anthology horror books.
Okay, I just wrote a much more clever post that didn’t, so this is the more succint one. Um, even though it’s not technically with the rest of my books (it has a place of honor in my apartment, on the mantlepiece), the most shelf space I have is taken up by my complete twenty volume set of The Oxford English Dictionary. Um, on the fictiony, non-reference shelves, Terry Pratchett must be the dominant one. It’s not that he’s my favorite author, though he’s certainly one of my favorite modern authors, but he’s just so damn prolific. Most of my actual favorite authors, though, tend to be old enough that I have collected or complete editions of their prose or poetry. That’s great to have, but that means they don’t take up much actual shelf space. So, after Terry, and in roughly descending order, my shelves are populated by William Faulkner, Neil Gaiman, Jonathan Carroll, Vladimir Nabokov, and Thomas Pynchon.
