I am going to shamefully use this forum to plug my favorite author. He goes by the name “Boston T. Party.” (I have mentioned him in other forums.) I believe his “real” name is Kenneth W. Royce.
Boston has written seven books thus far. Each of his books is a basically a “practical, informational guide” on a subject related to liberty. I find his style and attitude to be almost addictive.
Isaac Asimov. Both the non-fiction and fiction.
G.K. Chesterton.
I like the cheesy pulp paperback thriller stuff. While identification of my favorite author changes on a whim, right now I’d go with Nelson DeMille.
Although I found out in a previous thread, I’m just about his only fan.
Robert E. Howard
Definately Mercedes Lackey, although right now I am thinking her older stuff is better then some of her new stuff. If anyone is looking for a good book to read Arrows of the Queen rocks.
George Orwell
From,
Anake
I’ll go with Richard Russo.
Another author that comes to mind is Ray Bradbury. We had to read “The Illustrated Man” in High School. A great book.
CS Lewis
Brian Jacques
Lillian Braun
Lewis Carroll
Douglas Adams
I’m sure I could think of some others, since I’m a bookworm.
Welfy, honey!
[hijack]I love CS Lewis, and Lewis Carroll, too. Never let it be said that we are not psychically connected.[/hijack]
I have too many to name, but I guess if I was marooned on a desert island, I would want the collected works of Jane Austen.
Or Sharyn McCrumb.
Or Rex Stout.
Oh, can I have them ALL?
Scotti
Joseph Heller.
Oh my, I couldn’t pick just one:
Fiction:
James Michener
Peter Carey
Voltaire
William Shakespeare
Alexandre Dumas père
Beatrix Potter
Margaret Wise Brown
Edward Gorey
Non-fiction:
Tim Pat Coogan
Nancy Mitford
William L. Shirer
James Michener
Lillian Hellman (although her non-fiction is in all likelihood not “non” after all)
Joseph Barry
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
John Howard Griffin
Favorite living author: Russell Hoban.
[ul]“Russell Hoban is an original, imaginative and inventive. Though some of his work has been compared with that of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, he is his own man, working his own vein of magical fantasy.”
–The (London) Times
“Russell Hoban is our ur-novelist, a maverick voice that is like no other. He can take themes that seem too devastating for contemplation and turn them into allegories in which wry, sad humour is married to quite extraordinary powers of imagery and linguistic fertility that makes each book a linguistic departure.” --Sunday Telegraph
“The marvellous energy of Mr. Hoban’s writing, simultaneously dry and passionate, justifies everything he does.”
–Times Educational Supplement
“Mr. Hoban is unclassifiable, thank goodness. His narrative is so minutely and compellingly realistic that after a time you cease to notice that he has stood reality on its head.”
–The Sunday Times (London)
“No matter how far Hoban’s imagination goes, his books are always convincing, beautifully written and charged with narrative momentum.”
–The Observer[/ul]
Favorites overall:
[ul][li]William Shakespeare[/li][li]Samuel Beckett[/li][li]James Joyce[/li][li]Halldor Laxness[/li][li]Knut Hamsun[/ul][/li]
Some of my favorite Hoban quotes:
[ul]Each of us is the forward point of a procession stretching back into the darkness. And even within oneself, every moment is a self that dies: the road to each day’s midnight is littered with corpses and all of them whispering.
–Fremder
‘You don’t know what you’re looking for,’ said the head. ‘Alone and blind and endlessly voyaging I think constantly of fidelity. Fidelity is a matter of perception; nobody is unfaithful to the sea or to mountains or to death: once recognized they fill the heart. In love or in terror or in loathing one responds to them with the true self; fidelity is not an act of will: the soul is compelled by recognitions. Anyone who loves, anyone who perceives the other person fully can only be faithful, can never be unfaithful to the sea and the mountains and the death in that person, so pitiful and heroic is it to be a human being.’
–The Medusa Frequency
There is a mystery that even God cannot fathom, nor can he give the law of it on two stone tablets. He cannot speak what there are no words for; he needs divers to dive into it; he needs wrestlers to wrestle with it, singers to sing it, lovers to love it. He cannot deal with it alone, he must find helpers, and for this does he blind some and maim others.
–Pilgermann
I exist, said the mirror.
What about me? said Kleinzeit.
Not my problem, said the mirror.
–Kleinzeit[/ul]
By all objective evidence, it’s gotta be Heinlein. By my count I have now read 35 of his books. I doubt any other author comes close.
I have to second Anake for citing George Orwell, but I have only read three of his books (the famous two and The Road to Wigan Pier). I have read and enjoyed quite a large number of his essays also, however. “Politics and the English Language” is one of my favorites, although a little outdated now. Orwell is my model because he looks unpleasant realities in the face.
[hijack, once again]
lissener! We missed you at the Bellingham Dopefest, and we hope to have you at the next PNW one, tentatively the weekend of President’s Day at JayLa’s house. She has a new house, and I have another (unwanted) birthday. You up for that?[/hijack]
Scotti
Tom Robbins.
George MacDonald Fraser.
Kurt Vonnegut.
Oh baby.
Robert Jordan
Anne Mcaffery
Yay!