Apart for Terry who do you consider the best writers?

[fuzzleg]

Of Authors I have a few favourite staples. Those ones you keep comming back to and re-reading.

Pratchett
Christopher Fowler. Esp. his Bryant and May novels.
Robert Rankin
Jasper FForde
And for real fantasy, Clive Cussler. I reckon Dirk Pitt could take Chuck Norris easy.

I work in the mining industry, and I work two weeks on/two off. This trip I have bought out-

John Wyndam
Bill Bryson
Christopher Fowler
John Kennith Galbraith
Tim Dorsey
And a book of essays by an Australian Journo/politician Bob Ellis.

 

[polythenegirl]

Hmmm... authors for me would have to be Terry Pratchett obviously... then after that:

John Grisham
Stephen King
Dan Brown
James Patterson

God, how cliche am I? I think I might need to start reading more and broadening my horizons a little!

 

[snowballs]

L.E.Modesitt,jr
Raymond E Fiest
Arthur C Clarke
Christian Jacq
Jack Higgins

 

[Broccolee]

Phew, you guys all outbook me.I have a pretty eclectic attempt to reading,plus I only get about an hour a day to do it,mostly interrupted at minute interval.First,of course,Pterry.Then...
Do I get walloped if I admit to reading Diana Gabaldon?A lot?And enjoying it?
I like Rita Mae Browns books,too,I never cared for the US but the way she describes Virginia I really started to like it and now I´d like to see the Blue Ridge Mountains,too.

I also read Dan Brown,although after rereading all of the watch books I must admit that I keep on imagining Fred or Nobbs in the weirdest situations and start grinning.People watching me read Dan must think I´m really weird.Well,I am,but not that weird.
I like the Chocolat books,the first and the second,by Joanne Harris.Makes the little witch in me come out and wink.. Plus I love chocolate-a lot...

I like J.K.Rowlings Books a lot,but I also admire Jenny Nimmo´s work.
I actually read Shakespeare,believe it or not,and relish it.It´s fun reading and especially if one imagines when he wrote it.He must have been such a scandal sometimes...!

Of course Kipling,the Cat of the Just-so-stories is best,thats me from beginning to end.
Dickens,Tolkien,and the two Lewises:Lewis Carrol and C.S.Lewis.
A.A.Milne,of course-here´s to you,Pooh!
Jostein Gaarder,another of the great ones.
Alexandre Dumas,when I feel I need some swashbuckling.
Jane Austen,definitly.
My kids like Roald Dahl,so I get to read those too...And B. Potters´ books,same reason.
Just got a Gaiman in the sales,am looking forward to him but can´t really form an opinion yet...
And Douglas Adams is always good for a laugh but Pterrys books are rounder,somehow.
As I said,you all outbook me by miles...

 

[snowballs]

I dont think you are outbooked, your choice of reading is interesting as you are what they call in sweden an all eater, it means you read a wide spectrum of types of books in this case.

The only one there that I know I dont like is Dan Brown, I think he overexplains. Otherwise some authours I have never read or even heard of that you have.

I liked the first and next last harry potter books, the others felt forced to me.

 

[Broccolee]

Hey Snowballs,
yeah,definitly alleater...
I just don´t like to read just one sort of book,it makes me feel stagnant.
Which Authors haven´t you heard of?

 

[snowballs]

Jostein Gaarder, A.A.Milne are the two I dont know at all.
A.A.Milne sounds familiar but I dont think I've read anything.

I've just been given a box of English books to go through so I probably will find some weird and wonderfull reads there.

 

[Tonyblack]

Jostein Gaarder, A.A.Milne are the two I dont know at all.
A.A.Milne sounds familiar but I dont think I've read anything.

I've just been given a box of English books to go through so I probably will find some weird and wonderfull reads there.

A A Milne is the guy who wrote the Winnie The Pooh books.

 

[snowballs]

Jostein Gaarder, A.A.Milne are the two I dont know at all.
A.A.Milne sounds familiar but I dont think I've read anything.

I've just been given a box of English books to go through so I probably will find some weird and wonderfull reads there.

A A Milne is the guy who wrote the Winnie The Pooh books.

Is it?, stupid me, but never read the pooh books, in the films its on tigger and the donkey that I can stand.

 

[Broccolee]

Hold the phone,snowy,where were you living again?Go to your next bookshop,tell them you don´t know Gaarder and they will probably say,oh well, you just moved here two weeks ago,right?
Jostein Gaarder is the skandinavian Philosoph who wrote Sophies World and many others,some directed more to children,others intended for grownups,although my eldest has been reading one of the grownup ones and loves it and I love the childrens ones,too.We always read the "Christmas Secret"in the weeks before Christmas,and have collected wooden figures of everybody who joins the story every day,and they start a procession on our dresser,to finally reach the crib at Christmas eve.They love it.
Gaarder can really flip over everything you always thought as a given worth of "normal",he gets you thinking about everyday things upsidedown.I like that cause it keeps me existing in the real world.Read Sofies World and you´ll know what I mean..
Hey,lucky you,you might even be able to read them in swedish!

 

[deldaisy]

The wisdom of Winnie The Pooh....
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/winnie_the_pooh/

http://www.just-pooh.com/pooh.html

Actually I love the very first line of the book Winnie the Pooh....

Winnie the Pooh lives by himself in a tree in Hundred Acre Wood under the name of Sanders. "It means he had the name over the door in gold letters, and lived under it

... thats the promise of the book.... and what is to come.... stuff and nonsense.

 

[Portia]

I'm throwing Evelyn Waugh, F. Scott Fizgerald, Nabokov, Ian McEwan, Zadie Smith and Donna Tartt out there too!

I was first introduced to Waugh when I was 15 years old, via Stephen Fry's adaptation of Vile Bodies. When I read the book I was struck by how amazingly funny the dialogue was. I loved his sparse, modernist writing style and silly characters like Miles Malpractice. Later at university I took a brilliant course on imperial fiction and discovered Decline and Fall and Black Mischief - which are both deeply Conservative in nature yet hilarious commentary on education, class and Empire.

Like Waugh, Ian McEwan and Nabokov chronicle 'doomed romances' incredibly well. In the popular imagination, I think 'sleazy' is often used to describe Humbert's confessions in Lolita but actually he is very funny and touching. Meanwhile Ian McEwan's novella On Chesil Beach is a very poignant tale of a wedding night that goes horribly wrong.

I read Donna Tartt's The Secret History in my first year of university and could relate to her eager-to-please West Coast protagonist who has just started reading Classics at an East Coast liberal arts college. Her observations on the East Coast/West Coast divide and 'professor worship' are very good indeed.

 

[BaldFriede]

"The Secret History" was a very enjoyable read indeed. Unusual construction of the book too. It starts with the murder, then recalls the events that led to it, then in the middle of the book the murder happens "again", only this time we know why it happens, and what follows is the aftermath of the murder. And while everything before the murder is a build-up, everything afterwards is a sort of decay.

 

[nickinwestwales]

Delighted to have a pocket summary of `Secret History`-been packing and posting copies for years without ever having time to even look at the cover and read the synopsis-such is life-one day.............
ATB
Nick

 

[nickinwestwales]

Ghormenghast

Now then,since we are all assembled :- Would be interested to take your views on the Ghormenghast Trilogy -much as I love the works of Yer Man Pratchett,The imagined world of Titus Groan and his singular environment captured my imagination like no other-I will concede that the third volume broke the spell (the characters were as well drawn ,but somehow never drew me in in the same way )-but the first two :- from first word until last, I was a slave to Swelter ,the appalling chef,Flay-`Masters chief servant`-the keeper of the bright carvings,locked in his gallery and the twins-desperate in their lust for power-the doctor and his awful sister,The masters of the college,The Earl,maddened by Owls-the Countess ,with her train of white cats ,the almost beautiful Fuschia,Nanny Slagg-nursemaid to generations of Groans,and at the heart Titus & Steerpike-The chosen one and the kitchen boy who will climb across the heron haunted flagstones of the castle roof to fight a duel to the death in the Ivy choked facade of the great castle

ATB

Nick

 

[chris.ph]

Delighted to have a pocket summary of `Secret History`-been packing and posting copies for years without ever having time to even look at the cover and read the synopsis-such is life-one day.............
ATB
Nick

dont tell me you work in macmillans in pontarddulais

 

[rockershovel]

another vote for Evelyn Waugh

Lewis Carroll

Herman Melville

Nicholas Monsarratt

 

[BaldFriede]

Robert Anton Wilson is an excellent author too. I especially loved "Masks of the Illuminati", a book in which Albert Einstein and James Joyce meet in Zürich at the beginning of the 20th century and together solve a series of mysterious suicides.

 

[captainmeme]

I've got to say either John Bunyan or H.G. Wells (A bit old-fashoined, but they're brilliant).

 

[TheTurtleMoves]

Neal Stephenson
Stephen Fry
Bo Fowler
Peter F. Hamilton
Jaqueline Wilson (I don't care that she's a kids author, I think a lot of the things she has written are awesome)
Beatrix Potter