Favorite Authors

[Benzadmiral]

I love Chandler, as I've likely made clear in other posts here in the Lounge, and I love THE LONG GOODBYE (and PLAYBACK's worth reading, though it definitely falls short of his other novels).

TLG has a elegiac quality that I think works quite well, so you might give it another try one of these days.

Have you read the short stories, Widebrim?

Especially try "Red Wind," which begins with that most famous of all Chandler paragraphs, "There was a wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down out of the mountain passes and make your hair curl and your skin itch. . . ."

 

[Benzadmiral]

Well I have been hanging around in the hat section for a few years , so here is my first post in the reading section. Defining a favourite is difficult, but an author who has special meaning to me is John D. MacDonald. I have read all of the Travis McGee series he wrote as well as many of his other older pieces.

My grandfather used to lend them to me 30 years ago and when he passed 14 years ago I went to a local book shop and bought the entire Travis McGee series and waited 2 months for them to be delivered. I have reread a number of them as sort of a small tribute and rememberence to a nice old man that treated me well and shared what he could. Thanks Pops!

Seeing as most of the books were set back almost 50 years ago I think they fit nicely into The Lounge environment.

Anything by John D. is worth reading, and probably re-reading. He was called the John O'Hara of crime fiction for a good reason. He wrote stand-alone crime stories like the novel that became "Cape Fear," big multi-character epics like "Condominium," and several science-fiction tales in the 1950s, as well as the McGee novels.

Anytime you're in a used book store and see one of his titles, grab it.

 

[michaelwaughan]

As I am a regular book reader these are all my favorite Authors : Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky , Middlemarch by George Eliot , Ulysses by James Joyce, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy and Of a Fire on the Moon by Norman Mailer , The Widow's Children by Paula Fox.

 

[jenicamalaya]

My favourite author is Rhonda Byrne, she was born on 12th March, 1951 and she is Australian writer and producer. I like her The Secret book. The Magic, El Poder, The Power etc are her famous books.

 

[Razzman]

Robert B. Parker Spencer Series
William G. Tapply
Stuart Kaminsky Inspector Rostnikov Series
James Lee Burke
Lawrence Block
Philip Craig

 

[Chaps]

Dashiell Hammett

 

[JennieWren]

Sarah Waters - because every single one of her books has had me spellbound and left me stunned.
Niel Gaiman - wonderful storyteller whose sense of the bizarre and outré appeal to my gothic sensibilities.
Richard Adams - for his depictions of and obvious love and respect for animals.
Charlie Huston - best written pulpy noir vampire books, ever. Vampires have been perverted into stupid sparkly teen romances of late. This is what vampires are supposed to be about, gritty, nasty, bloody and dark.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - for a London that never really was, but I sure wish it had been.

 

[Touchofevil]

Sarah Waters - because every single one of her books has had me spellbound and left me stunned.
Niel Gaiman - wonderful storyteller whose sense of the bizarre and outré appeal to my gothic sensibilities.
Richard Adams - for his depictions of and obvious love and respect for animals.
Charlie Huston - best written pulpy noir vampire books, ever. Vampires have been perverted into stupid sparkly teen romances of late. This is what vampires are supposed to be about, gritty, nasty, bloody and dark.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - for a London that never really was, but I sure wish it had been.

Yes. Charlie Huston is very underrated.

 

[Trixie]

F. Scott Fitzgerald is my very favorite with THE GREAT GATSBY being my favorite book ever. I also really enjoy Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald and find I can read them over and over and never get bored.

 

[Touchofevil]

F. Scott Fitzgerald is my very favorite with THE GREAT GATSBY being my favorite book ever. I also really enjoy Raymond Chandler and Ross Macdonald and find I can read them over and over and never get bored.

Ross MacDonald is so underrated.

 

[Trixie]

Ross MacDonald is so underrated.

Absolutely!

 

[J.W.]

Okay, my list, in no particular order:

Jack Kerouac (nice to see him mentioned so often)
Agatha Christie
J.R.R. Tolkien (I never got through the Silmarillion, but I love the Hobbit and LOTR)
Jasper Fforde
Ann Granger
A.C. Doyle (hope to buy the books I don't have yet this summer on my trip to Cornwall)
...and Stephen Clarke (just for the fun of it)

 

[Noirblack]

I've seen lots of great authors in this thread. One I would add is Jim Thompson, especially if you enjoy crime fiction.

 

[St. Valentine]

I found Christopher Brookmyre very entertaining. Also he gives some interesting insight of the scottish society.

http://www.brookmyre.co.uk/

 

[Touchofevil]

I've seen lots of great authors in this thread. One I would add is Jim Thompson, especially if you enjoy crime fiction.

Great choice! Fortunately, Vintage Crime/Black Lizard has reprinted his work multiple times during the past twenty years.

 

[Johnny de-Lux]

Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius leaves de-Sade at home with the dirty washing...hahaHa
tell ya the truth, the good Marquis was a little on the 'poncey' side of things..in other words the man was a effeminate prat ~

 

[penates]

Haruki Murakami and Hans Hellmut Kirst.

 

[DameWhoDrinks]

1) William Goldman (he wrote Princess Bride...he is very satirical, but its a loving satirical and I love it)
2) Nick Hornby- Laugh out loud funny
3) anyone with an interesting autobiography
4) Rob Sheffield- embarrassing laugh out loud
5)and on the dramatic scale, love me some Emile Zola.

 

[Flicka]

Off the top of my head: Jane Austen, A.S. Byatt, Dorothy Sayers, Dorothy Dunnett, Carina Burman, Will Self, Edith Nesbitt, Susan Isaacs, Stig Dagerman, P.G. Wodehouse and Oscar Wilde. Writers I've read too little of to include but who've still written some of my favourite books would be Iain Pears and Stella Gibbons – both An Instance of the Fingerpost and Cold Comfort Farm are absolutely unmissable reads (in very different ways).

 

[C44Antelope]

Just saw this thread. I have several favorite authors, but I can't put them in any kind of "top-ten" kind of order.

Rex Stout (I like reading the books, enjoyed the A&E treatment on most of the stories they attempted, and think Michael Prichart's audio versions are fantastic). Long Live Nero Wolfe.
I also enjoy Donald Miller "Blue Like Jazz",
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,
Dick Francis,
Louis L'Amour,
Larry McMurtry (the Lonesome Dove books).
Jonathon Gash
I saw some of you like John LeClare'. I read one of his mysteries "A murder of quality". Any suggestions as to what of his to hit next?
And have any of you read Spencer Quinn's Chet and Bernie books? I love the concept, but haven't broke down and picked up any of them.