Favorite authors?

Just thinking about this lately, for those of us who read

There are a lot of books out there, but very few authors. So who are your faves? Why? Have they inspired you in some way? Are any of them me (based on almost a year now of work for various internet sites that I've been on)? :D

Anyway, you know you got a few, and so I'll start the listing (because it is my post, after all):

P.J. O'Rourke (heads above all the current "right-wingers" in that he's funny. Inspired me to start writing)

David Sedaris (makes the personal essay an art form. Great stuff)

Sarah Vowell (funny and profound, a winning combination)

Roy Blount Jr. (The only other Southern Democrat besides me)

Dave Eggers (His memoir is great)

George Plimpton (fantastic sports reporting)

Hunter S. Thompson (all I've read is T%he Great Shark Hunt, but it's awesome)

Jon Savage (I think I understood 75% of England's Dreaming. I think)

John Lydon (you must read his autobiography)

J.D. Salinger (classic) F. Scott Fitzgerald (ditto)

Michael J. Nelson (better known as "MST3K's Mike Nelson)

Alright, now who do you like?

I enjoyed ENGLAND's DREAMING but as yet have not got round to JOHN LYDON.

Sophocles Aristophanes Charles Bukowski James Joyce Ernest Hemingway Kurt Vonnegut Albert Camus Tom Robbins Franz Kafka Oscar Wilde and lately Jeffrey Eugenides

Strangely enough I never found female authors half as interesting as male ones. But maybe that's because their writtinng is so... on the feministic, uninspired and boring side

I'd agree on the Aristophanes front!

More modern favourites would include:

Patricia Cornwell Val McDermid Karin Slaughter Nicci French Mike Gayle

Read Simon Winchester's book "Karakatoa" last week.

Really good, went well with Bill Brysons "A brief History of Everything" which I read the week b4.

Other than that I've read tolkien since it was a spectrum / c64 game(The game "the hobbit" was bundled with the book in the uk))

Have Read all the Ian Rankin books(Edinbugh based crime thrillers) THey are ok if a bit predictable, Ianj seems a nice guy though.

Other than that.. "Calvin & Hobbes" & "Get Fuzzy"!

Taboo # 7, is that really you on the avatar image?

If to speak of the contemporary English literature, I am fond of J. G. Ballard as I believe, his language is perfect and unique in terms of images and structures, not to mention his charmingly ruthless ideas.

Philip K Dick. Or the guys who make up the stories on problem pages in newspapers!

I've read so many books over the last 20 years i don't know where to begin, how about Irvine Welsh for starters.

Originally posted by Taboo # 7

Hunter S. Thompson (all I've read is T%he Great Shark Hunt, but it's awesome)

You have GOT to read The Rum Diary. Probably the best book i've read in the last five years.

If we're talking contemporary writers, then, as mentioned above, Irvine Welsh is sublime. As is John King, author of The Football Factory.

I always found England's Dreaming to be rather straightforward; you should try Greil Marcus's Lipstick Traces, that's one I've never finished.

Read Hunter Thompson's Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas when I was 13, which definitely warped my fragile little mind, I still read Hunter when I can, and he also writes a column for ESPN.com these days.

Loved John Irving's Prayer For Owen Meany, Garp wasn't too bad, but his last couple of books have left me rather unimpressed.

I've always enjoyed P.J. O' Rourke, from his days at National Lampoon, and a couple of Garrison Keillor's books are decent as well.

I absolutely love Margaret Atwood. Some of her work can probably be better appreciated by women (like Cat's Eye and The Edible Woman, both really good books). Her latest, Oryx and Crake, was an incredibly strange science-fiction story, but quite good. And The Handmaid's Tale is classic, IMHO...

Originally posted by feline SophoclesAristophanesCharles BukowskiJames JoyceErnest HemingwayKurt VonnegutAlbert CamusTom RobbinsFranz KafkaOscar Wildeand lately Jeffrey EugenidesStrangely enough I never found female authors half as interesting as male ones. But maybe that's because their writtinng is so... on the feministic, uninspired and boring side

Have I mentioned that Tom Robbins lives in my hometown of La Conner, Washington and that I've met him a few times? In fact, one of my friends lived next door to him so we used to always have to jump his fence to get wayward balls back. I still haven't read any of his books, though (but I was very happy that we both used the term "fascistic" in our respective letters to the local newspaper to describe the local school district's idea to institute school uniforms, though mine appeared a week before his).

Anyway, my faves are:

Albert Camus Hunter S. Thompson Antonin Artaud Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Marquis de Sade Charles Baudelaire Edgar Allan Poe ...and many more that I can't think of right now.

I don't read / I just dance.....

vonnegut and garcia marquez.

I forgot Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, and so many more...that's the bad thing about lists I guess

Taboo #7 - your author list is an NPR hot sheet! - this american life; wait, wait don't tell me! -

authors: Raymond Carver, Barry Yourgrau, Clive Cussler(guilty pleasure), Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, AA Milne, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Dana Stabnow (another guilty pleasure), Jane Austen,...

Graham Greene Robert Graves John McGahern Joseph O'Connor Roddy Doyle Nick Oldham Val McDermid Gwendoline Riley John Connolly Lester Bangs

Sylvia Plath for "The Bell Jar".

The Bronte sister's. Especially Emily.

Arthur C. Clarke Philip K. Dick Gabriel Garcia Marques Paul Auster David Lodge John Le Carré

Tolkien Tom Holt Terry Pratchet I want stuff that takes me away & preferably makes me laugh - y'know, like chick-lit

Already mentioned Graham Greene, Nicci French, John Irving (up to Owen Meany), Hunter S Thompson.F Scott Fitzgerald for the Great Gatsby and Salinger for Catcher in the Rye.Nelson DeMille would probably be my favourite beach book author. One offs, Dispatches-Michael Herr, River of Time -Jon Swain, We Did Nothing- Linda Polman.

There's nobody but Henry James.

Originally posted by Patrick There's nobody but Henry James.

Good choice there, Patrick, "Turn Of The Screw" (filmed as "The Innocents" in 1961) is one of my favorites.

Originally posted by Buffer Low > Originally posted by Patrick> There's nobody but Henry James.

Good choice there, Patrick, "Turn Of The Screw" (filmed as "The Innocents" in 1961) is one of my favorites.

Yes, that's definitely one of his better efforts.

and The Europeans and The Aspern Papers, one of America's great writers in my opinion.

Burgess

Solzhenitsyn

Hardy (when I'm really bored)

whoever writes the stuff on the ticker on ESPN2

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, one of the greatest writers ever, iv'e read most of his works, but the stand outs are

• Crime And Punishment
• The Idiot
• The Brothers Karamazov

It's amazing how mordern these books still are, especially Crime And Punishment, they are 150 years old but they could have been written yesterday.

I very much liked Notes from the Underground from Dostoevsky.