Favorite authors

[rubyblood]

favorite authors/books, any numbers will do.

William Burroughs;
Naked Lunch, Junkie.

Anothony Burgess;
Clockwork Orange, Enderby, The Clockwork Testment or Enderbys End.

Kurt Vonnegut;
Breakfast of Champions, Cats Cradle, Welcome to the Monkey House, Player Paino

[Yoda]

Oh, as if you all don't know...

[rubyblood]

do you mena the reading tab,/
thats like a zillion pages long, i never read it.

[Yoda]

Naw. Those who know me at ALL, though, know that the fellow in my signature in both posts on this thread is far and away my favorite author.

[Herod]

Blood, how can you mention Burgess, and not The wanting Seed ?

Favorite author? Hemingway, but only with his short stories, otherwise... Vonnegut.

[Holden Pike]

Here's ten and four of my favorite books from each...

Kurt Vonnegut
Player Piano, Bluebeard, Slaughterhouse-Five: or The Children's Crusade, Dead-Eye Dick

John Gardner
Grendel, October Light, The Sunlight Dialogues, Nickle Mountain

Philip K. Dick
Valis, Clans of the Alphane Moon, The Man Who Japed, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

Jim Thompson
Pop. 1280, The Killer Inside Me, The Grifters, A Hell of a Woman

Paul Auster
The Music of Chance, The New York Trilogy, Leviathan

David Markson
Reader's Block, This is Not a Novel, Wittgenstein's Mistress

William Wharton
Birdy, Last Lovers, Dad, Scumbler

Thomas Pynchon
Vineland, Gravity's Rainbow, The Crying of Lot 49, V

Julian Barnes
History of the World in 101/2 Chapters, Flaubert's Parrot, Metroland, Love, etc.

Mario Vargas Llosa
Conversation in the Cathedral, The War of the End of the World, The Storyteller, Green House

[LordSlaytan]

Wow Holden, you're as learned of novels as you are knowledgeable of movies...good list. :D

Sry, ima kinda ~hiccup~ drunk....It's my day b4 night off. Er...

[LordSlaytan]

Ok, favorite authors...

Clive Barker
Sidney Sheldon
Stephen King
Stephen R. Donaldson
J.R.R. Tolkien
and...what's his name...;)

[The Silver Bullet]

I'm sort of doing the same as Holden, only I'm choosing one book from each; my favorite. In no particular order, just by the way:

Margaret Atwood
The Blind Assassin

John Irving
The World According to Garp

Alex Garland
The Beach

Roald Dahl
Going Solo

Sue Townsend
The Adrian Mole Series

Jeffery Archer
Kane and Able

George Orwell
Nineteen Eighty-Four

[linespalsy]

here's my top five for now.

mishima yukio:
the sailor who fell from grace with the sea, confessions of a mask, patriotism, temple of the golden pavilion, after the banquet, various short stories

miyazawa kenji:
novel: night on the galactic railroad
short stories: 'earthgod and fox', 'gorsch the cellist', 'the dragon and the poet', 'the spider, the slug, and the racoon', 'the great bear of the crows', 'the bears of nametoko', 'tokobe torako' 'the restaurant of many orders'.....
various poems

vonnegut:
player piano, sirens of titan, deadeye dick, bluebeard, slaughterhouse-five, breakfast of champions, godbless you mr. rosewater, galapagos, cat's cradle.....

samuel beckett:
the lost ones, the unnamable, molloy, mallone dies
various short stories

athol fugard:
novel: tsotsi
plays: the captains tiger, a lesson from alloes, master harold and the boys, sizwe bansi is dead.

a couple other's who i like:

orwell:
down and out in paris and london, 1984, animal farm.

tolkein:
lord of the rings, hobbit, quenta silmarillion, various other unfinished works.

asimov:
the ugly little boy (man, the ending gets me every time), foundation series, asimov on numbers, robot stories, the caves of steel, i asimov, isaac asimov's book of dirty limerics. these are all just fun reading.

phillip gourevitch:
we wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families, a cold case.

urusla leguin:
wizard of earthsea, left hand of darkness, lathe of heaven, the rest of the earthsea trilogy.

kawabata:
thousand cranes, first snow on fuji.
various short stories.

[rubyblood]

Originally posted by Herodotus
Blood, how can you mention Burgess, and not The wanting Seed ?

Favorite author? Hemingway, but only with his short stories, otherwise... Vonnegut.
I haven't read that yet.

I forgot one
Hunter S Thompson
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fear and Lothing on the Campaign Trail, Hells Angels

I like George Orwell too.

[Sir Toose]

The short list:

Ray Bradbury
The Illustrated Man, October Country, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Halloween Tree, Dandelion Wine, Farenheit 451... and on and on...

Wilbur Smith
Egypt Series (River God, Seventh Scroll, Warlock), Courtney Series (Birds of Prey, Monsoon etc) ...

Nelson DeMille
Lion's Game, Code of Honor, The Gold Coast, Rivers of Babylon...

John Sandford
ALL the Prey novels kick @ss

Peter Straub
..in particular Ghost Story, Mystery, The Throat, Floating Dragon, Koko, Shadowlands...

David Guterson
Snow Falling on Cedars was one of the best books I've ever read.

John Grisham
...in particular...Painted House, The Runaway Jury, The Chamber

David Baldacci
The Winner, The Simple Truth, Absolute Power

Jeffery Deaver
The Devil's Teardrop, The Bone Collector

Thomas Harris
Silence of the Lambs, Black Sunday

J.D. Salinger
Catcher in the Rye

J.K. Rowling
All the Harry Potter books

Edgar Allan Poe
Cask of Amontillado, Murder in the Rue Morgue... the Raven of course, in fact ALL Poe is fantastic

William Shakespeare
Of course... I love it all. Midsummer Night's Dream cracks me up every time I read it. I think he was and remains unparalled. He wrote of love, kindness, hate, war, murder, comedy, sarcasm, irony, guilt ... all of it with equal enthusiasm. He wrote as if touched by God with precise understanding of the human creature.

Stephen King
Everything before about... Desperation. It's all downhill from there in my humblest of opinions. Some of his early work is the greatest though.

Ok...I could do this all day... gonna stop now.

I leave you with the immortal words of Lewis Carroll:

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

[LordSlaytan]

Originally posted by Toose
Stephen King
Everything before about... Desperation. It's all downhill from there in my humblest of opinions. Some of his early work is the greatest though.


Have you read The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon? That's one of his newer ones, and now one of my favorite books. Not horror, but good nonetheless.

[Monkeypunch]

I am not a very "Literary" cat, but I do read a lot. In no particular order:

Elmore Leonard - Pagan Babies, Out of Sight

Stephen King - The Stand, Pet Sematary

James Ellroy - American Tabloid, L.A. Confidential

Chuck Pahlaniuk - Fight Club, Choke, Survivor

Ken Kesey - One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (My favorite book ever.)


Don't agree on the Stephen King not as good anymore thing. Hearts in Atlantis was a really great novel (but a crappy movie that only adapts the first chapter), and I enjoyed Bag of Bones as well.

[LordSlaytan]

Yeah, I actually like the books he's written after his accident better than most of his old ones. It's not that I think he is the greatest or anything, sometimes I find myself skipping parts because he can be so winded at times. I mean, you don't need 7 pages describing a street sign, or 12 pages of a girl freaking out in her mind about a customer buying a camera. Anyhoo...The Stand and It will always be my favorites. Along with the one I mentioned earlier.

[The Silver Bullet]

I have my very first Ellroy novel The Cold 6000, before you ask] waiting for me on my bookshelf. Purchased it nearly ten weeks ago, but I've had a lot of stuff in the way of getting to that. Such is life. I look forward to getting into it, mind you.

[Sir Toose]

Okay...let me qualify my Stephen King statement.

I have read all of his work. I own every one of his books in hardback (with the exception of "From a Buick 8" cause I haven't been to the bookstore this week. I even have a metropolitan museum copy of "My Pretty Pony," that's worth 2.5k. Anyways, yes, Slaytan I liked Girl who loved Tom Gordon. And Monkey I really dug Bag of Bones... I did not care for Dreamcatcher, Black House, Desperation, The Regulators and Everything's Eventual. Many of those were read by me in that order which in turned spurned my comments.

[LordSlaytan]

I haven't read Everything's Eventual. Bag of Bones and The Regulators were good, Dreamcatcher... :sick: I wish TGWLTG was bieng made instead of that snoozer.

[Sir Toose]

That would be a great film.

Dreamcatcher may be a better film than it was a book. The whole 'worm' idea etc is just so 'been there, done that.' Traditional horror just doesn't faze me like it used to.

[Gracie]

J.K. Rowling
All the Harry Potter books.

Funny. Toose, I didn't take you as a Rowling fan. Are you one of those people who pronounces "Hermione" Her-my-nee, or Her-mone-ee, 'cuz the first one's right, according to Rowling. Who here knows Rowling's full name?

[The Silver Bullet]

Joanne Kathleen or something Rowling?
I always pronounced it Her-my-oh-knee. I guess I was the wrongest. Earlier on I pronounced it Her-mee-own.

[Mary Loquacious]

Well, they say Her-my-oh-nee in the film, and Ms. Rowling had the reins for it all, so I think you were right the first time, Matt.

Some favorite authors o' mine:

Michael Chabon
Richard Russo
Jane Austen
Brady Udall
Kurt Vonnegut
Barry Hannah
Terry Pratchett
Neil Gaiman
Larry McMurtry
Warren Ellis
Margaret Atwood
Russell Hoban
Jennifer Crusie
George Orwell

In no particular order of preference. I dig 'em any way I can get 'em. I'll probably come back and add in my favorite books later.

[Yoda]

It's positively unreal how much fiction ya'll read. :D

[Mary Loquacious]

I like-a the fiction. It's amazing how fictitious it can be, when it's all fictional.

And stuff.

[Yoda]

Me too...but the thing is...hmmm...how shall I put this?

When I read, I tend to think of it as work. Most reading gives off a workish-like vibe. It takes something really good to let me enjoy it the way I would, say, a movie. It takes a really good book to truly RELAX me...if it's not good enough, it tires me out the way work would. So, as a result, I stick to fiction I really, really enjoy, or I just figure that, if it's going to feel like work anyway, I might as well go with something educational.

Hence: lots of biographies, lots of philosophy, lots of theology. Good for showing off, at least. :D

It's either great fiction or good non-fiction for me, as a result. I hope I articulated my thoughts well on this one...it's a tad difficult to put into words.

[Mary Loquacious]

So, what, you're saying fiction sucks?






Yes, I'm kidding. It's all about the kidding.

[Yoda]

So, what, you're saying fiction sucks?
Only when it's...ya' know...written. :D

Question: is there ANYONE here who doesn't like Stephen King?

[The Silver Bullet]

Personally, I think that what Yoda reads is boring as watching paint dry. I could have easily gone to sleep in that thing he posted on morality. Yaw-awn.

[Mary Loquacious]

Chris, I hate to say it, but I have to concur with my learned colleague Mattly on this one. Not a big fan of the whole C.S. Lewis bag, unless he's writing about lions and witches and crap like that. ;)

And you know, I've always thought watching paint dry might be a worthwhile experience, if one had the patience for such things...

[Yoda]

Hmm, in all fairness, Gummly, I don't think you've given theology or philosophy enough of a chance to have a basis for declaring it as being boring...but whatever man. Your loss. :)

Not to get off on a tangent, but I've found that, the more pieces of life's puzzle you have in place, the easier the rest of life is. It's like building a house. Most people lay down a brick. And then another...and then another. It's more sensible to build a bricklaying machine. :D When you have the wrong ideas about base issues in life (God, morality, history, human nature, and other such things), your brain has to compensate for this by finding a "detour" to make your other ideals still "fit."

Things run a lot smoother in your noggin if you sit down and really dedicate time and thought to these things. I've seen and felt it firsthand, and it really does wonders for mental clarity.

Okay, speech over. I know Mattly's not gonna read the piece on morality anyway, even though I read his stuff whenever he asks. :p

[The Silver Bullet]

I read your stuff too; when you write it yourself...

:D

[Yoda]

Oh, come off it. Lewis writes far better than I ever could, anyway.
































He writes far better than you, too.

:D

[The Silver Bullet]

Yeah, if you're looking for an alternative to sleeping pills....

[Yoda]

Originally posted by The Silver Bullet
Yeah, if you're looking for an alternative to sleeping pills....
If you're such a fiction whore, you need look no further than The Chronicles of Narnia or his Space Trilogy to watch him mop the floor with ya'. :D

[The Silver Bullet]

Fiction whore? Who am I, Holden?

[Mary Loquacious]

I'm a fiction whore. I plan to sleep my way to the top of the bestseller list.

Sure, it'll take some time, but when the royalties come a'rollin' in, it'll all be worth it...

[Holden Pike]

I find Stephen King's books duller than dishwater.

[The Silver Bullet]

Mm. I only enjoyed [and I use the term loosely] Apt Pupil. Oh, and The Green Mile. But that novella, Apt Pupil. I say enjoy, but I hated it. It worked. I literally woke up in a cold sweat as a result of that book ['twas the summer of 1999/2000, for the record].

I'm not a giant King fan otherwise.

[Gracie]

I know this is a little late, but you like-a the fiction, eh? Fiction good, eh? Anyway, SB was right! Da-da-DAA! It's Joanne Kathleen Rowling.

[The Silver Bullet]

Send me money. I wants it.

[Gracie]

But it's my birthday. And I wants it!

[LordSlaytan]

I like about 6 SK novels, sometimes his writing style drives me nuts.

Has anybody ever read The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson before? It rivals LotR's.

[Herod]

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. is quite easily my favorite author (Thomas Harris is close, though). I'm only re-stating this because of a renewed passion for his work after readin Hocus Pocus, but if you're looking for more, simply bear witness to his wonderful appearance in, I believe it was called, Back To School.
A terrible movie save his cameo, so I'll give you a summary to save ya' some time: Rodney Dangerfield is a millionaire who decides to complete college with his son, in order to motivate the child to finish. Really, really dumb, but I couldn't help bursting into laughter when we discover Rodney has hired Kurt Vonnegut to do a book report on one of his own books, and he gets a "D".

[Steve]

My favorites are James Joyce, Jean Genet, Walt Whitman, William Blake, Ginsberg, Fitzgerald (who doesn't like him?), William F. Buckley Jr. (putting aside his politics, is there anyone even half as fun to read?), Aldous Huxley, Toni Morrison, Salinger (again, I ask: who doesn't like him?), Flanery O'Connor, John Steinbeck, and Chinua Achebe. There's countless other ones I really love to read, but those are what stick out in my mind right now.

Only C.S. Lewis books I've read are the Narnia Chronicles and That Hideous Strength. Anyone got a recommendation for me?

[Yoda]

Originally posted by Steve
Only C.S. Lewis books I've read are the Narnia Chronicles and That Hideous Strength. Anyone got a recommendation for me?
Eek; just That Hideous Strength? It's the third in a series...you didn't read the other two, first? :eek:

If you want the best of Lewis, go with The Screwtape Letters (correspondence from a Senior Devil to a Junior Tempter), Mere Christianity (the most plainly written, direct argument for Christianity I've ever read. Simple and to the point), and The Great Divorce (a hypothetical book written in the first person about what the afterlife may be like).

[Steve]

Originally posted by Yoda
Eek; just That Hideous Strength? It's the third in a series...you didn't read the other two, first? :eek:

If you want the best of Lewis, go with The Screwtape Letters (correspondence from a Senior Devil to a Junior Tempter), Mere Christianity (the most plainly written, direct argument for Christianity I've ever read. Simple and to the point), and The Great Divorce (a hypothetical book written in the first person about what the afterlife may be like).

Probably explains a bit about why I didn't know what the hell was going on in That Hideous Strength. :)

Thanks for the recommendations.

[Yoda]

Originally posted by Steve
Probably explains a bit about why I didn't know what the hell was going on in That Hideous Strength. :)
:laugh: Yep. Frankly, that book's pretty friggin' confusing even if you've read the other two. The first two are far better, IMO.

[Gracie]

I absolutely love the following:
CS Lewis (;))
JRR Tolkien
JK Rowling
Edgar Alan Poe
Richard Scarry
Aesop (Animals kick-be-ehind, baby!)
Jack Handey (You know, Deep Thoughts on SNL? :laugh:!)