Favorite Authors

[Undertow]

It doesn't matter what period you prefer, it doesn't matter what subject grabs your interest; you're probably fond of reading (I mean honestly, you're on a text-rich message board).

So who are your favorite authors? Try to list at least two and no more than five (yeah, I know, you'll have to eliminate a few). Also, it would be nice to have a brief explanation as to why they are your favorites.

 

[Undertow]

I have three favorites (off the top of my head):
1. Washington Irving
2. Edgar Allen Poe
3. Marquis de Sade

I think the first two are awesome at telling stories and using description to paint a scene. Both of them make me want to read all through the night.

Sade is awesome not only for his humor, which is abundant throughout his work, but also for his interesting philisophical perspective and grotesque boundary breaking.

 

[Darhling]

Swedish author Camila Läckberg
Agatha Christie
Stephen King
Umberto Eco
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

 

[Dragon Soldier]

Margaret Atwood
Bill Bryson
Tom Clancy
Henry Rollins

.... Bit of an eclectic selection.

 

[sixsexsix]

Ernest Hemingway
Sinclair Lewis
Chuck Palahniuk

 

[LadyStardust]

Great Topic.

1. Gerald Durrell
2. Charlotte & Emily Bronte (tied)
3. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
4. Ayn Rand
5. Jean Webster

 

[Paisley]

Tom Clancy
Alexander Dumas

And today I read about an author, Sabatini, who is supposed to be similar to Dumas.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Charles Dickens -- There are authors you read in school because you have to. But if you're lucky, they become authors you read because you *want* to.

Mark Twain -- Ditto.

Oscar Wilde -- The ultimate triumph of style over substance.

P. G. Wodehouse -- The only fiction worth reading when I'm depressed.

E. C. Segar -- A brilliant comedic novelist disguised as a cartoonist.

 

[KY Gentleman]

Joe R Lansdale

Hunter S Thompson

Jon Krakauer

 

[Polka Dot]

I have three favorites (off the top of my head):
1. Washington Irving
2. Edgar Allen Poe
3. Marquis de Sade

I like your taste for the macabre and grotesque, Undertow.

My favorites:

Emile Zola - He really tortured his characters. Not that I'm into torture, but it makes for a fascinating read.
Colette - Her prose is just genius -- lyrical and heartwrenching.
Michael Chabon - Excellent storyteller, and my favorite contemporary author.
Henry James - I'm just echoing what others have said about him, but he was a master of the novel. He really set the stage for post-modern fiction.

 

[alexandra]

Rainer Maria Rilke is my favourite author.

 

[Warbaby]

Edward Whittemore

R.A. Lafferty

Lawrence Durrell

Robert Anton Wilson

Mark Helprin

 

[HadleyH]

These 2 first...

1) Scott Fitzgerald... 'because his books epitomised everything that was beautiful and damned about the Jazz Age'.

2)Ernest Hemingway...'because he produced some of the most memorable fiction of last century....his haunted life...his unforgettable death, in all his bloody ghastliness... Intense and visually magnificent, he was a writer of genious'.

 

[CeceliaRose]

Margaret Atwood - "The Handmaid's Tale" and "Oryx and Crake" are wonderfully creepy but totally believable at the same time... I can read these over and over again.

Orson Scott Card - The "Ender" series is wonderful science fiction, and then he turns aroud and tells the same story from another character's perspective in the "Ender's Shadow" series... just wonderful.

Diana Gabaldon - historical fiction mixed with time travel, and all of her novels are in excess of 1000 pages... she really knows how to make a reader fall in love with and care about what happens to her characters.

WEB Griffin - "The Corps" series is what got me interested in the Pacific Theater of WWII. I was previously strictly a European Theater researcher, but his detail and characters make the War in the Pacific live again for his readers.

Bodie Thoene - the author responsible for my interest in WWII, and Israel's struggle for independence. I read her "Zion Covenant" and "Zion Legacy" series in high school, and it all took off from there.

 

[Lulu-in-Ny]

Okay...
Dead
-Thomas Hardy
-E.M. Forster
-Mervyn Peake
-T.S Eliot
Living
-Neil Gaiman
-Caleb Carr
-Arturo Perez-Reverte
-China Mieville

 

[Bourbon Guy]

Hemingway - for the bood-in-the-sand rawness of his writing; no varnish, no decoration.

John le Carre' - generally credited as the most accurate in describing the cold war espionage business.

Raymond Chandler - straight whiskey to Dashiell Hammett's lite beer.

Every author I have ever read which was reprinted in the Lakeside Press series. All first-hand accounts of life in the West and on the prairie. Myth-busters without intending to be.

 

[Foofoogal]

John Steinbeck hands down.

As a kid anything by this author but especially this book. lol
http://www.amazon.com/Betsy-Mr-Kilpatrick-Carolyn-Haywood/dp/0688310850

 

[59Lark]

favourite author one that fits this forum.

An author that art deco period lovers would love is edward wright, clea.s moon was the first one and he has two more with this same character. His stories are set just after the second world. His hero is a anti hero, isnt that real , a real gray character no white horse or white hat. But the music and the cars and clothing and period are pure forties. And all the bad stuff, that was. Enjoy, 59Lark.

 

[WH1]

PG Wodehouse always brightens the day
Hemingway specifically his hunting works
Christopher Buckley-Wodehouse with an american political bent
Kurt Vonnegut-Most creative writer of the post WWII era
Ayn Rand-Visionary
John Keegan-Brilliant historian fascinated by his works on leadership
John Boyd-author of the OODA (observe, orient, decide, act) loop, arguably the most influential military theorist of the late 20th century.

 

[Custom79]

Detective & Adventure Novels

Robert B. Parker writes the Spenser detective novels and Clive Cussler pens the adventures of Dirk Pitt.

My favorites by far.

Cheers.

C79