Any critic who acclaims Hemingway is a critic that I know I can safely ignore.
And Martini Enfield, not only have I never read nor owned any Danielle Steel book, I would be very surprised to meet any man who has. For that matter, I’m not sure I know very many women who have, either.
Yeah, Hemingway sucked. Good grief.
“Big Two-Hearted River” is better than anything Tolkien ever could have dreamed of writing.
I read one at the request of an insistent co-worker. It was awful, and yet not as awful as I was prepared for…at least it had some sense of plotting. Compare that to Twilight, which I read 20+ years later at the request of a different but equally insistent co-worker, and that was far more awful than my already low expectations.
Yes, I saw that this morning. It’s ridiculous. Whatever one thinks of Bob Dylan, and of the literary merit of his lyrics, song lyrics are outside the scope of consideration for the Nobel in literature. It’s just a different thing.
And, in any case, right off the top of my head, I could name a half-dozen (at least) songwriters who were better lyricists than Dylan.
OP here. This is exactly right - when I said “highly regarded” I meant some widely shared critical praise, not just good reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. So J.K. Rowling is not the most highly regarded living author, even though millions of people agree that her books are quite enjoyable, because they’re not classic masterworks that will enter the pantheon for ages.
As some have noticed, most of the people mentioned so far are novelists. I’ll submit one non-fiction name for contention in the “most highly regarded” category: David McCullough. Seems like every one of his books has been a massive critical success.
Not bad, but since he writes mostly about American history, I wonder if he’s read much outside the U.S.
Pratchett is very likely my favorite living author, and one of my favorite authors overall. Which of his books have you tried to read? His earlier Discworld books were ‘only’ satires and parodies of fantasy books; I consider the Discworld books from, say, the first few on to be much better.
Edit: I have a very vague impression that Rowling is much more famous than King in China. This is based on my interactions with my relatives, and so is very anecdotal.
I know two people who are Terry Pratchett fans in real life (I’m not one of them - I’ve tried getting into his stuff and although I love quirky, it just hasn’t appealed) but otherwise this has been my experience too - lots of people on the internet love him but that appeal doesn’t seem to extend to the wider “general readers”.
I’d never even heard of him until this thread, and I have a big interest in (admittedely British/Empore) history, so I think it’s an excellent illustration of the point I was making earlier regarding non-fiction authors - ie, they could be extremely well known in their field and largely unknown outside it.
Thomas Pynchon and Umberto Eco are highly respected, if terribly difficult to read.
Joseph Wambaugh.
Both of them feel a little bit like period fads, though from different eras. Someone up thread called out JM Coetzee; among critics at least he may be hard to beat. Ian McEwan is worth some consideration, though he’s been uneven imo.
Dunno about Pynchon but Eco is sometimes very accessible, although admittedly not all that often. The Name of the Rose was wonderful.
In your opinion, maybe. But as a songwriter, I believe Dylan is a unequalled genius.
Isn’t the most well known children’s author J.K. Rowling?
I think Ann Rule rules the true crime genre.
It occurs to me: I assume the OP is asking the best-known or best-regarded for being an author. Because there are celebrities—presidents, popes, actors—who have written books—in some cases even “real” books that they really wrote themselves.
Teaching English as a Foreign Language, I occasionally have to think of people that everyone in the class will know. JK Rowling is definitely the only living author you could have any hope of a group of well-educated 20-somethings from 12 different countries and four continents knowing; many of them will all not only know her name but be able to tell you something about her other than what she wrote. The older students all will too. Nobody else comes close.
Taking that into consideration, she’s also the best regarded, since you can’t like someone’s work without knowing what they wrote.
OP didn’t specify, so I was going to come in and say something similar. Surely the best known authors at the moment are people known for something else who then get authorship credits for books. Think of an autobiography by someone like Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, or Ronaldo. I also assume the OP means someone who is known primarily for being an author and would list “author” first under occupation.
I’ll throw Larry McMurtry into the conversation.
Best-regarded: An acknowledged Master of the craft of Writing, regardless of their background.
I’m surprised to hear that Dylan’s mastery is questioned - as a lyricist, he may not be your cuppa tea, but to deny the high-regard in which he is held by fellow artists, critics,etc., seems a bit short-sighted. You’re better off just saying he’s not for you.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a beloved book - it is a personal favorite - but it doesn’t lead to conversations about Harper Lee as the best author ever.
Someone like Vladimir Nabokov tends to stop writers in their tracks, shaking their heads at the craft of the sentences. I cited JM Coetzee because I have read that other writers cite him regularly as one of the best around, and because I read Disgrace and regularly pulled back and thought about the craft that went into what I was reading and what an accomplishment it was…and he won the Nobel, although I don’t know how much that buys you these days…
No you couldn’t. :rolleyes:
I think Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a decent choice for both categories, but really it depends on how you define your terms. Are we talking about polling all six billion people on Earth and asking them to name an author? Or are we limiting it to literate people? Or educated people?
Each one is likely to yield a different answer. Most of the answers to the thread so far have been American authors little known outside the U.S.
I’d also throw out Paulo Coehlo as one of the most widely known, but not respected.