Favorite Authors
 

so, ledgies, who are your favorite authors?

my one true literary love is nabokov. his ability to manipulate language is unparalleled. my favorite of his is invitation to a beheading; the descriptions of the gardens in the book are breathtaking; i highly recommend it.

after VN, my favorites are david sedaris, thomas hardy, jk rowling, david crystal, and philip roth ... to name a few.

Alice Hoffman

Sue Monk Kidd

Dave Eggers

Mary Higgins Clark

Richard Russo

JK Rowling :nod:
Adrianna Trigiani
Fannie Flagg
Sue Monk Kidd

Those are the ones that come to mind...

Anthony Trollope has been my number one favourite for 12 years now.
Other than that:
Philip Roth
Erich Maria Remarque
Henry James
George Elliot
William Makepeace Thackeray
Edith Wharton
Evelyn Waugh


I like my fiction 1800-1950 ish :D

I was born a century or so too late.
Sasja

Anne Rice
Toni Morrison
Alice Walker
Eudora Welty
Stephen King (getting his new book "Lisey's Story" soon)
Tom Dolby
Candace Bushnell

Sasja, I love your sig. I had the priveledge (OMG, I forgot how to spell that) to see the Dalai Lama speak here last month. He's an amazing man - and funny too!

Thanks, and yes he is :D
He is just a breath of fresh air for the human spirit :woohoo:
So happy for you that you got to hear him speak!

Sasja

be still my heart!!!!!!!!!! my love for nabokov knows no bounds. i am always amused how the beauty of the english language came to be known at the hands of a russian. :nod: a true linguist, a true genius. . .a tad arrogant, but he more than had the goods to back it up.

invitation to a beheading, ada or ardor, lolita, the defense. . .all brilliant. i also love his translation of lermontov's 'a hero of our time'. his footnotes bring literary snark to a whole new level.

i am also a fan of nikolai gogol, mikhail bulgakov, edith wharton, milan kundera, and e.m. forster.

i forgot to add him to my list. as well as carson mccullers.

Margaret Atwood
Toni Morrison
John Irving
Kate Chopin
John Updike
Joyce Carol Oates

Stephen King. Although pretty much everything after Misery was a real disappointment.

Colleen McCullough. Especially The Thorn Birds. I can't even imagine being able to write something as enduring as that. It's sheer brilliance. She (like SK) has the ability to create such strong, realistic characters. (except for whatsitcalled, uh.. An Indecent Obsession. Seemed kinda rushed)

Nabokov. That reminds me, where's my copy of Lolita?

Frank McCourt. Angela's Ashes is incredible. The story itself can be so depressing, but he manages to weave this subtle, cheeky humour into it, and sometimes you end up laughing at things you think you shouldn't because of the way he describes it.

another nabokov lover! i see you've included gogol and bulgakov - are you a russian lit fan? have you read much dostoevsky? i really enjoyed notes from underground.

i should have included king, although i've only read two of his books, and just started reading him very recently. i really liked carrie and misery, and i should seriously get crackin' on the shining and the gunslinger. lady, read invitation to a beheading!

Im not really a big book reader - I like books for books, I don't really like authors. Although I have to say my favourite author of all time is Enid Blyton :D

Yessum! Get thee to the nearest library and find a McCourt book.
How many books have you recc'd to me now? lol. I need to write them all down.

:laugh: probably dozens.

come over here and help me eat this fresh mozzarella & ricotta i just bought. :laugh: and get yo' azz on MSN!

I've read that his new one is a return to his well-crafted balancing act between the "real" world and the "horror" world. I can't wait to pick it up.

Which one is that? Hopefully not Cell. :lol: That was stupid.

Girl, I could make a lasagna outta the mozz and ricotta. I'm gonna go downstairs and record somethin', since everyone's taking off for awhile.

but making lasagna out of it would spoil the fun of having this round ball of mozzarella!

sweeeeeet.

"Lisey's Story"

http://www.amazon.com/Liseys-Story-S...e=UTF8&s=books

Who eats cheese balls, srsly? :p

Ohh, okay. I have heard of that one. I'll look for it next time I'm at the libary!

omg, i'm not eating cheese balls! i'm so offended. :laugh: it's just a perfect mozzarella ... curd. :laugh: i'm a freak.

yes i love russian literature. i have read a lot of dostoevsky, but i am not really a fan. they have a saying that the fan of dostoevsky is never one of tolstoy and vice versa. but i never liked tolstoy either, so i guess i am abnormal! :laugh: the one piece of dostoevsky's that i do enjoy though is his novella 'white nights'.

:p Uh, you can have the curds... I'm not hungry.

J.R.R. Tolkien
JK Rowling
Anne Rice
Mary Higgins Clark
Jane Austen
Edgar Allen Poe
Dante Alighieri
Fyodor Dostoevsky
William Shakespeare

OOOh yes yes yes russian literature..... Specially in the wintermonths!!! With snow outside and hot chocolate and a nice warm blanket...

"Oblomov" by Ivan Goncharov is a favorite of mine, and I LOVE anything Pushkin ....

I've not read much of Vladimir Nabokov but this thread is inspiring me to go back to the library tomorrow!! :D

So interesting to read all these... I am writing new names on my library list!

Sasja

Favorite authors...Clive Barker, Tom Robbins, Patrick Suskind, Gregory Maguire, Anne Rice, Mika Waltari, Joan Grant, Italo Calvino, Mary Stewart.... But mostly just Tom and Clive. :nod:

I also really enjoyed Notes from Underground. Maybe I should check out Nabokov since you are such a big advocate!

These days it's all about Paula Vogel, Bev Marshall, and Yusef Komunyakaa for me, though I shouldn't lump all three together because one is playwright, one a novelist, and the other a poet, respectively. I'm really getting into Jose Saramago, too.

I noticed that at least one person mentioned Evelyn Waugh. Maybe he's quite good, it's just that I was forced to read Vile Bodies in one of my undergraduate classes and I thought it was just tripe. Aren't other novels of his considered to be better?

Mary Higgins Clark

Terry Pratchett

JK Rowling

Sophie Kinsella

oh, i forgot to list tolkien and austen! i love them both. i've been meaning to read some anne rice for quite a while now - what would you recommend i start with?

i should pick up white nights - thanks for the recommendation!

definitely check out nabokov. of course everyone knows lolita, but i always recommend invitation to a beheading because a) not everyone knows it and b) it's better prose, IMO. i'll have to check out the authors you listed; you always mention authors/artists i've never heard of before, and that's cool. hey, how was ani the other night?

I love the Authors of a book called: THE BIBLE!

Well isn't this a blast from the past. Where the hell have you been? :p

urm. ok. you do realize you've broken about 12 of the 15 commandments?!

:lol:

Worshiping Satan. All in all not much different than the Ledge. :xoxo:

I love both the Vampire Chronicles and the Mayfair Witches. So if you go with one of those start with Interview With The Vampire or the Witching Hour. If you want just a stand alone novel though, Cry To Heaven is very good.

Oh man! She was astounding! She plays the hell out of that guitar! I was really impressed by her voice, too. I didn't think of her as having much vocal range, generally speaking, but she surprised me. She's a talented vocalist as well as a musician and songwriter. Damn! Thanks for asking. :)

I just read "Can you Keep a Secret" and LOVED it - thought it was very cute and clever...I'm definitely planning to pick up more of her stuff.

god how I lurve The Witching Hour

the Mayfair witches would make a hell of a TV show or movie

Was she showing yet? I can't remember when she's due.

Yes, she definitely was! She was all giggly about it and she said it's a girl. :) She looks to be about six months along, not that I'm a really good judge of that or anything. She has a prominent belly, but she's still a pretty tiny woman.