Who are your favorite authors

[ToledoDoug]

Clive Cussler; especially his later Dirk Pitt stories; Harry Turtledove for his alternate histories not the fantasy stuff; Phillip Jose Farmer for his Riverworld series; Mark Twain; Peter Jenkins for his Aztec and the Journeyer historical novels; many of James Michener's works; and Herman Wouk; to name a few.

[Crys]

No apology necessary. This is the catch-all category.

I would have to say that my favorite author is me.

...

No, no, I'm just kidding! Though I've actually had a couple people say that I'm their favorite author, which is a really very cool experience.

I like Charles Dickens. He's verbose because he was getting paid by the word, but his works are fairly fast-paced in spite of it and his characters have a depth that alot of authors lack.

I've been pretty lucky to find decent translations of Victor Hugo. From what I understand, there are alot of really boring translations, but what I've read has been excellent.

Recently I've added Rich Baker to my short list of favorite authors. He's doing fantasy work for Wizards of the Coast, but he's also got some depth to his characters that alot of authors lack.

[JamieLynn]

My Favorite authors are

Miranda Seymour - Author of the Goddess
Margaret George - Author of Memoirs of Cleopatra
Euripedes- Original Author of Medea
Pablo Neruda - Poet
Rumi - Poet
Shakespeare
Homer
Jennifer Wilde
Piers Anthony

[Rob1981]

I have two favorite authors, Michael Crichton and Dean Koontz.

[Crys]

JamieLynn-

Homer is great! (Or maybe I should say "are", since it's not really one person...) I really regret not being able to fit the class in college into my schedule where they were reading Homer in the original greek dialect (I focussed more on the Hellenistic Age in Alexandria). I've got a Homeric Greek textbook, but I really don't have the time to devote to learning it well enough to read the Odyssey.

You've got Homer and Euripedes both on your list -- do you read greek? Or do you have a favorite English translation?

[JamieLynn]

Crys-

No I don't read Greek, but I enjoy Greek and Roman Mythology. I don't have a favorite translation though.


Jamie Lynn

[keith]

Daniel Boorstin is number one ~ probably one of the smartest people who ever lived. All non-fiction, this Chief Librarian of the Library of Congress wrote one of my favorite books, The Discovers. Stronly recommended tome on the major voyages of discovery, from the technology to the politics to the human triumph that went into them...interwoven precedents over hundreds or thousands of years leading to four major human achievements.

Hesse - German philosopher/writer does great stuff. Loved a book of poetry with English/German versions on facing pages. Uber die feldern wandert meine Mutters verlorenes kind. Over the fields wanders my mother's lost child. Also wrote Siddhartha, arguably the best treatment of the life of the prophet and sage.

Kurt Vonnegut - Kept me going while doing 'tower rat' duty at a nuclear missile site in Germany thirty years ago. I've read everything he'd done to about 20 years ago, at least a couple / few dozen books.

Alvin Toffler - the most prescient futurist of the last century IMHO (in my humble opinion). Anyone interested in futurism today should read Future Shock and The Third Wave. Business people today should follow that with Being Digital by Nicholas Negroponte - the number one primer on the fundamental differences between brick and mortar and digital business. Ray Kurzweil and Lawrence Lessig are also important for business owners and anyone else interested in the future.

Isaac Asimov and others not only write the genre well. They just plain write well. Been over 30 years since I got into science fiction. It is important for people to read at some point, preferably while young, IMHO.

For youngsters, Shel Silverstein - The Giving Tree. Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time and the rest of hers...you can't go wrong turning kids onto Newberry Medal winners like hers. My absolute favorite as a kid, The Spaceship Under the Apple Tree by Louis Slobodkin. The rest of his books are excellent, too. Real young boy drama and adventure, friendship, ethics... All of these are the kinds of books one can read, enjoy, learn from and use to form strong convictions to serve them well in life. To these I would add the Boy Scout Handbook ~ (sooner or later I'm hoping they'll pull their head out of the sand regarding gay leaders and take a lead in confronting the world the way they did long ago with youth protection).

Also believe Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People should be on every youth and adult reading list. I've read it three times, early teens, early twenties, mid-thirties.

JRR Tolkein, of course.

Douglas Adams was absolutely brilliant and hysterically funny!

I read a ton of self-help, marketing and sales books and the like. And I've listened to many on tape dozens of times each. I like Brian Tracy and Zig Ziglar a lot. Tony Robbins kind of grew on me. Wayne Dyer and others are good. Phone Power and Power Talking are excellent. I've taught courses based on those until I actually spoke with the author, George Walther, who I found to be a jerk. Nevertheless, the books are still good.

Hoping to have my own book on the streets soon, WebForging, A Practical Guide to the Art of Forging Your Web Presence.

Many other great books out there. For fun I mostly read presidential biographies. The best so far, 'Plain Speaking' by Merle Miller, about Harry Truman.

I'm looking forward to retirement started by a speed-reading course.

Cheers!

Regards,
Keith

[Crys]

It's not a presidential biography, but if you read bios for fun, you may want to check out "Thomas Paine and the Promise of America" by Harvey J. Kaye. Excellent book (I'm reading it right now)

[naturalearthessentials]

Marion Zimmer-Bradley "Mists of Avalon"
Jean Auel "Clan of the Cave Bear" (the whole series)

[pk]

Jean Auel "Clan of the Cave Bear" (the whole series)

I also enjoyed this series. I did miss the last one and ran across a new hard copy of it at a goodwill store just last week! yeah! Can't wait to read it but will wait until after the holiday season.

pk

[andy]

Mark Z. Danielewski - House of Leaves (This is one of the greatest books I have ever read. I had a bunch of people from work read it and some of them even finished it.)

Terry Pratchett - Discworld Series (Humor / Satire book series)

Philip Pullman - His Dark Materials

Neil Gaiman - American Gods, Neverwhere, Stardust

Guilty pleasures: Raymond E. Feist & George R. R. Martin - fantasy authors

[Kris10]

Laura Ingalls Wilder is my all-time favorite author. My other regulars include Douglas Coupland, Henry Rollins and David Sedaris.

I've also enjoyed every Neil Gaiman book I've read on Andy's recommendation.

[andy]

Originally Posted by Kris10

Laura Ingalls Wilder is my all-time favorite author. My other regulars include Douglas Coupland, Henry Rollins and David Sedaris.

I've also enjoyed every Neil Gaiman book I've read on Andy's recommendation.

You should take my advice and read Pratchett too.

[MrKhay]

John Grisham is one of my favorite authors. I like the way he take those that would fit into the "Elitists" category, and fits them with the "regular folk". But he isn't from Wisconsin.
I'm looking to pick up Linda Godfrey's books on various Wisconsin anomalies of the 'Spooky" kind.
Linda hails from Milton Wisconsin.

[pk]

John Grisham

I've always enjoyed Grisham's books except the Painted House. Thought that was not up to his skills. I found it very (yawning) boring.

pk

[pk]

I suppose someone will say that the Painted House had some deep meaning to it so before they do let me say in my defense that I'm sure I would have noticed it but I was (snoring), ummmm I mean sleeping through most of it so I did not get the deep meaning to the book.

pk