Who is your favorite author?

In My Humble Opinion
41

There’re several writers whose books I always buy when I notice something new – mostly science-related stuff these days (William Calvin, Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley, Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Dennett, Jared Diamond, Richard Dawkins, Donald Norman) as well as a handful of poets (Seamus Heaney, Derek Walcott, Dana Gioia, Derek Mahon, Geoffrey Hill, Thomas Lynch). And anything by Roger Angell on baseball.

But as a “favorite author” in the sense most people seem to mean it, I’d have to say Patrick O’Brian.

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Seamus Heaney is one of the truly good poets of contemporary literature.

43

Eve – I wasn’t kidding about the book. Please email me!

:slight_smile: Ellen

44

Alexander Dumas…I’ve loved since I was 12.

Edgar Allen Poe…same

Charles Dickens…A Tale of Two Cities, is there anything more romantic.

Thomas Tryon…The Other was my first modern horror novel.

Robert R. McCammon…great characters and imagination, wonderful twists on old horror themes.

John Irving…who doesn’t like T.S. Garp, what a guy.

Ken Kesey…Sometimes I live in the city, sometimes I live in the town, sometimes I get a great notion to jump in the river and drown!

Tony Hillerman…fun little short mysteries, set on a Navaho reservation.

Ann Rule…I’m a little on the grizzly side, love true crime.

Clive Barker…I’ll put him here because sometimes I have to look up the words. Short stories are his best effort though in my estimation.

King and Koontz…I’ll put them together because for a time they intersted me. And you can’t read horror without reading them.

William Faulkner…he’s Southern like me.

Leon Uris…finishing Exodus or Trinity is an accomplishment.

Ken Follett…I like his women.

There are more but I’m starting to be a bore here.

Need2know

45

Nonfiction: Simon Schama
Fiction: Don DeLillo (though this one changes wildly day to day – I almost said Kazuo Ishiguro)
Dead: Anthony Trollope
Mystery: Lawrence Block
Fantasy: Terry Pratchett/George R.R. Martin
SF: Greg Egan
Funny: S.J. Perelman/P.G. Wodehouse (oops, they’re both dead)
Journalism: P.J. O’Rourke

and I’ve now run out of categories, so those must be my favorites.

Of course, that’s my favorite authors as writers list, the list of favorite authors as people would be very different.

46

Whoever writes a good book about Wally’s life will be on the top of my list.

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  1. Seth/Jane Roberts
  2. Louis L’Amour
  3. Catherine Cookson
  4. James Herriot
  5. Georgette Heyer
  6. Gary Jennings
  7. Larry McMurtry
48

L. Manning Vines. Or Hines.

:slight_smile:

49

I haven’t read a book in years, but J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Hobbit” and “Lord of the Rings” hold a special place in my life.

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Larry McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy

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Orson Scott Card (Wyrms, everyone should read Wyrms. And his short story Homeless in Hell)

Kipling. (Read “Without Benefit of Clergy” if you can possibly get your hands on it, best beloved.)

52

Needs2Know – neat that you mention Follett. I just read Lie Down With Lions not long ago. Have you read that one? I was totally impressed with an accurate childbirth scene and a nursing mother as a main character! Plus all the other little mama/baby details. I’m convinced his wife had a baby while he was writing that book. :smiley:

53

“Why, Medea’s Child, do you like Kipling?”

[standing back, waiting for punchline to come in for a landing]

54

Impossible thread!

For book I can read again and again? The not-very-well-known Ferrol Sams.

For pure feel-good schmaltz: Maeve Binchy

I know some people think Stephen King is lowbrow, but damn I enjoy him. Musta read The Stand a dozen times.

Jane Austen just blew me away, the fact that I could enjoy classics without having to read them for a grade.

Annie Lamott is pretty good, but I’ve really only read 1 1/2 of her books. But the one (Operating Instructions), I’ve read three times.

Others whose writing amazes me: Robert Jordan, Nicholson Baker (“The Mezzanine” is extraordinary).

Will someone start a “favorite books” thread? That seems to be where I am headed with this… then I’d add Randy Shilts’ And The Band Played On.

55

Lewis Carroll by far

then maybe Anne Rice

56

Dave Barry and Scott Adams for humor.
Robert Sheckley and Isaac Asimov for S.F.
Raymond Smullyan and Martin Gardner for math and philosophy.

57

I started the Book Nook a while ago but it kind of faded away. Maybe we could revive it?? :slight_smile:

58

Hmmm… I hadn’t thought of categorizing them so thoroughly. I’m inspired (and somewhat liberated, since now I don’t have to pick just one.

Nonfiction: Cecil Adams (but of course)
Fiction: John Steinbeck (also dead, but DAMN, is he good)
Dead: James Joyce (with more than a little patience)
Mystery: James Ellroy (the LA Quartet is absolutely gripping)
Fantasy: Hmm…not a huge fan, but I suppose it’s Piers Anthony (I’ve only read the Incarnations series)
SF: Douglas Adams (when’s he coming out with a new one?)
Funny: John Kennedy Toole (Confederation of Dunces is the single funniest thing I’ve ever read) or Paul Fussell (I learned more from Class than in all of my Sociology classes
Journalism: Joe Bob Briggs (I worked for him for a while…don’t ask)

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…to name a few…

John Irving
Wally Lamb (new…but good)
Stephen King
AA Milne (I love Pooh)
Dean Koontz (False Memory was great)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (a nod to my junior highschool English teacher)
Dr. Seuss (I bow to Seuss)
Roald Dahl (A genius)
DH Lawrence
Jane Austin (hey…I’m a chick)

and Tom Wolfe

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For accuracy’s sake: A Confederacy of Dunces.