Favourite top 10 authors

[Khorum]

Originally Posted by Ham n Cheese

I wish people would list their favorite books by said authors

There, fixed mine. I didn't plug any 'classics' like someone mentioned earlier, except for Dostoevsky, all mine are from within the last century. The Brothers Karamazov is older but is prolly the most timely and relevant book in my list---especially with the poisonous religious fundamentalism that we live with today, which is just as odious and oppressive as the christianity that dostoevsky was warning about in The Cathedral part of that book.

1. Vladimir Nabokov -- Lolita
2. Phillip K. Dick -- A Scanner Darkly
3. Dostoevsky -- The Brothers Karamazov
4. Thomas Pynchon -- Gravity's Rainbow
5. Charles Bukowski -- Factotum
6. Neal Stephenson -- The Baroque Cycle
7. Robert Anton Wilson -- The Illuminati Trilogy
8. J.R.R. Tolkien -- duh
9. William Gibson -- Neuromancer
10. Kurt Vonnegut -- Slaughterhouse Five

[Tea on tuesday]

My revised list including my favorite books. You guys really really like fantasy.

1) Nabokov - Pnin or Pale Fire. Both Amazing. Though, Pnin is the more accessible of the two...along with Lolita of course. Nabokov is the greatest writer of prose to have ever lived. <----period

2) Marquez - 100 Years of Solitude

3) Sterne - The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

4) Melville - Moby Dick

5) Saul Bellow - Herzog

6) Octavio Paz - Uhh, he mostly writes essays, short stories, and poetry, and often they are included in anthologies, but trnaslations of whole work can be hard to track down for some reason. Anyway my favorite short story is My Life With the Wave

7) Raymond Chandler - The Big Sleep

8) Hemingway - The Sun Also Rises, but I think he was a better short story writer.

9) Henry Miller - Tropic of Cancer

10) L. Ron Hubbard - lol

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Originally Posted by Nebuchadnezzar

Not going to put any of the classics into it, I prefer not to try to claim that Tenneyson was better than Keats, etc.

So for modern writers....all spec fic...

1. George RR Martin ---I think you know this one.
2. Steven Erikson (in the middle of the third book, he might flip to the top once I get further into the series) ---Malazan Book of the Fallen
3. Lois McMaster Bujold ---Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls(Hugo Winner), the Hallowed Hunt
4. Terry Pratchett ---All of Discworld, later stuff is better
5. Robin Hobb ---Assassin Trilogy, Tawny Man Trilogy, actually liked the latter better
6. Frank Herbert
7. Robert Jordan
8. David B. Coe ---Winds of the Forelands, not uber amazing but I like it
9. Neal Stephenson ---Barouqe Cycle
10. Brandon Sanderson (who just cracked into it on his first novel "Elantris". Still haven't go to Mistborn yet).

There ya go. I seriously point out Elantris and Bujold's three books for those that want single contained novels. And if you love fantasy and haven't read Erikson...makes Martin look soft.

[Ham n Cheese]

Tea on Tuesday are you like 85 years old?

[Tirinal]

Anyone who truly loves Hemingway is always over 30. Always.

I cast no judgment on the timbre of the man's work. I just call them as I see them.

[Tea on tuesday]

Originally Posted by Ham n Cheese

Tea on Tuesday are you like 85 years old?

I just happen to like a lot of the literary movements from the early 20th centruy. Minimalism/modernism/magic realism/hard-boiled.

Alright, Hard-boiled wasn't really a literary movement but Chandler, Cain, and Hammet were all very good writers.

[Utne^_^]

Jan Sonnergaard - Jeg er stadig bange for Casper Michael Petersen (short stories)

Henrik Pontoppidan (various short stories)

Bent Vinn Nielsen - En skidt knægt

Douglas Adams - "The [first, second, third, fourth] in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's trilogy."

Johannes V. Jensen

[Raytes]

I'm 25 and I love Hemingway. Tea on tuesday you have good taste in literature. I used to read mostly fantasy and sci-fi stuff but as I read more and more of the "greats" I suddenly lost interest in all that other stuff because it didn't stimulate me intellectually; it didn't challenge my expectations or views of the world around me; it didn't offer me a different perspective on life. I liken it to going from a $5/bottle wine to $100/bottle wine; your opinions and tastes are forever altered; so much so that its extremely difficult to go back and enjoy that inferior product (whether that be literature or wine).

[Nendyen]

1. Agatha Christie
2. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
3. Janet Evanovich (just her Stephanie Plum novels, great stuff)
4. Martha Grimes
5. Sue Grafton
6. Laurie R. King
7. Raymond Chandler
8. Caroline Graham
9. Stuart Woods
10. David Baldacci

[Dom Devore]

I'm not the type of reader that strays too much, so I only really have a few authors that I would consider "favorites".

The top of my short list would definitely be Raymond Feist. (Riftwar Saga, Serpent War) While he has a tendency to repeat character types, I just find his pacing and unique plot twists really refreshing.

Robert Jordan (excluding a few of his books) is another author I enjoy.
Tolkein of course is another of my favorites.

And while most would not consider this one a valid choice, I'm a huge fan of Chris Claremont's work on X-men comics.

[Braen]

Wow... Only one person has mentioned H.P. Lovecraft... for shame.

Guillermo del Toro said he has been working on a film version screenplay of "At the Mountains of Madness" for a few years and hopes to start filming on it after Hellboy 2 is done.

That is not dead that can eternal lie, and through strange Eons even death may die.

[stehle]

In no particular order (fiction):

William Gibson
RA Salvatore (original two trilogies were fantastic)
Weis and Hickman (original Dragonlance trilogy was "teh win")
Alistair Reynolds (one of the best hard sci fi writers I have ever read)
Orson Scott Card (<3 laser tag in space)
Michael Stackpole (great author with a number of great standalone books and trilogies)
Ayn Rand

This is all I could come up with off the top of my head for fiction authors. I'm sure I'm forgetting people, but I'm at work and can't refer to my collection.

[Non-Fiction]
Malcolm Gladwell- "Blink" and "Tipping Point" (blink is just fascinating)
Jared Diamond- "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies"
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner- "Freakanomics" (awesome book)
Ian Bremmer- "The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall"
Richard Feynman- Whole host of books about his life / science
Richard Rhodes- "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" (staggering read about the atomic bomb program in the US-- inspiring and terrifying at the same time)

There is a handful of other authors who primarily write about science that I enjoy quite a bit-- Hawkings,

[Khorum]

Yeah, I couldn't cram Alastair Reynolds into my list but he's easily one of my favorites.

The Revelation space series is truly great, almost lovecraftian terror mingled with real hard sci-fi (Reynolds is a practicing Physicist) and a brutal take on the post-singularity technology.

Sadly, Pushing Ice and Century Rain were stilted and disappointing, but Revelation Space to Redemption Ark were all great.

[Porky]

Daniel Quinn - Ishmael, The Story of B obviously the 2 best books of all time.

[Fammaden]

Can't believe I left out Lovecraft too.