# Writers



## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Who are the writers you keep reading, and re-reading? Those writers whom you think are truly great; or just your favorites. The writers whose books resonate so strongly with you, it's almost like you are a character in them, or wish you were.

My list:

Ernest Hemingway
William Faulkner
Jack Kerouac
Cormac McCarthy
Raymond Carver

Make a list ...


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

Thomas Pynchon
William Faulkner
Émile Zola

I don't know if I'd want to be a character in any of their novels, things don't tend to go too well for anyone in them...


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

That would be a long list for me. But it would include:

Dickens
Pynchon
Chekhov (plays and stories)
Pinter
Proust
Garcia Marquez


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

As I grow older, I find I have less and less interest to read. Part of this is because I need reading glasses (which are different from my computer glasses, which I can also use for sudokus), and I don't like them. I quickly get tired when I read with them.

That said, my favourite author is Terry Pratchett, who was on a winning streak with his Discworld novels for a long time (after a slightly shaky start and before an even shakier finish (early-onset Alzheimer's disease being a mitigating factor).


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Art Rock said:


> As I grow older, I find I have less and less interest to read. Part of this is because I need reading glasses (which are different from my computer glasses, which I can also use for sudokus), and I don't like them. I quickly get tired when I read with them.
> 
> That said, my favourite author is Terry Pratchett, who was on a winning streak with his Discworld novels for a long time (after a slightly shaky start and before an even shakier finish (early-onset Alzheimer's disease being a mitigating factor).


I'm right there with you. A superb writer and an astute observer of human nature. 
I'm also a fan of Christopher Brookmyre. He does murder plots with wit and relish.
Oh, and Kathleen Jamie. Elegant, evocative essays.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Jane Austen
Enid Blyton
D. K. Broster
Arthur Conan Doyle
Mary Renault
Robert Louis Stevenson
Rosemary Sutcliffe
Laura Ingalls Wilder


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I don't read much fiction so it would have to be Barbara Tuchman, Bertrand Russell, Camus, Walter Kaufmann, Orwell, and James Baldwin's non fiction writings. But mostly I'm not big on favorites. I enjoy all kinds of writing on science and anthropology.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

A writer I forgot to include on my list that should be there is *J.D. Salinger*.

I've enjoyed reading the replies, some names new to me, so that's good.


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## Highwayman (Jul 16, 2018)

Jane Austen
Edgar Allan Poe
James Joyce
Agatha Christie
Doris Lessing
Kazuo Ishiguro


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

Ray Bradbury (my avatar)--by far my favorite writer. met him twice while he was alive, he signed several of my books. had my picture with him. attended his speeches.--all while I lived in LA.

Ursula K. Le Guin
Edgar Allan Poe
Kurt Vonnegut
H.P. Lovecraft
Lord Dunsany
John Steinbeck
Thomas Ligotti
Tanith Lee
Ramsey Campbell
Clive Barker (also met him and he has signed several books and I have my photo with him. He is an extremely, extremely nice man).

I also like Salinger and Kerouac as the OP does.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

> Kurt Vonnegut


I love Vonnegut even though the only thing I've read is Galapagos. I derived great pleasure just listening to him talk. Seems we've lost most of the interesting characters in the world who used humor to deal with the absurdities of existence.


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## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

starthrower said:


> I love Vonnegut even though the only thing I've read is Galapagos. I derived great pleasure just listening to him talk. Seems we've lost most of the interesting characters in the world who used humor to deal with the absurdities of existence.


I agree. His speeches and interviews are funny and entertaining. He was a very compassionate and loving man. I think that was also a major theme in his novels, in addition to the absurdity of existence you mentioned. Compassion. Which is extremely important since life is absurd for us all. I love when satire and comedy is used as a device to emphasis the *seriousness* of the subject matter. Because when you see past the surface quality of the comedic aspects of it, you realize what the message and morals of what he is saying is "as serious as cancer" so to speak.

It's interesting that you chose Galapagos of all the books to read. That's a bit unusual. Most start with Slaughterhouse Five or Cat's Cradle. A really good gem is Mother Night, the message being "we are who we pretend to be, so we must be careful who we pretend to be." A unique story and message.

Vonnegut was also a great lover of music, including classical. It was one of the only things that could take him out of his depressed episodes and being an atheist, he often said music was the only proof of god (LOL).


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

> It's interesting that you chose Galapagos of all the books to read. That's a bit unusual. Most start with Slaughterhouse Five or Cat's Cradle.


If I remember correctly, Galapagos was a favorite of an old friend of mine and he recommended it. I ought to pick up those other two classics you mentioned.


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## calvinpv (Apr 20, 2015)

Being a pretty slow reader, I can't claim to have read the complete works of any of my favorite writers (with the exception of Kafka, but he wrote so little). Actually, for most authors I've read, regardless of whether I liked them or not, 2-3 works max is about all I can claim to have read. So this is really a list of books that have left their mark on me, less so a list of authors:

Herman Melville (_Moby-Dick_)
Ivan Goncharov (_Oblomov_)
Leo Tolstoy (_War and Peace_)
Franz Kafka (everything, but especially _The Castle_)
William Faulkner (_The Sound and the Fury_, _As I Lay Dying_)
James M. Cain (_The Postman Always Rings Twice_, _Mildred Pierce_)
Raymond Chandler (_The Big Sleep_)
Mikhail Bulgakov (_The Master and Margarita_)
Kurt Vonnegut (_The Sirens of Titan_, _Cat's Cradle_)
Kenzaburō Ōe (_The Silent Cry_)
Kōbō Abe (_The Woman in the Dunes_)
John Fowles (_The Collector_)
Marilynne Robinson (_Gilead_)


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

A few I don’t see mentioned above:

William T Vollmann
WG Sebald
Stanislaw Lem
John Dos Passos
Alistair Reynolds


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Ingélou said:


> Jane Austen
> Enid Blyton
> D. K. Broster
> Arthur Conan Doyle
> ...


I grew up with the Enid Blyton Adventure series books. They aren't well known in the US, but we had the whole set in my original Canadian home.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

No votes for Shakespeare?


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## Chilham (Jun 18, 2020)

I am not as well-read as I would like to be. A Sci-Fi fan in my teens, I read and loved all of John Wyndham's books. Mario Puzo's The Godfather is the only novel I've read twice.

I've now made a list of what I think I've missed out on or would like to revisit and plan to read one book a month from July. The first twelve:

A Passage to India: EM Forster
Brave New World: Aldous Huxley 
Catcher in the Rye: J.D. Salinger 
Cider with Rosie: Lawrie Lee
Don Quixote: Miguel De Cervantes
Lolita: Vladimir Nabokov 
One Hundred Years of Solitude: Gabriel García Márquez 
The Grapes of Wrath: John Steinbeck
To Kill A Mockingbird: Harper Lee
David Copperfield: Charles Dickens
Midnight's Children: Salman Rushdie
Nineteen Eighty-Four: George Orwell


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

jegreenwood said:


> No votes for Shakespeare?


Haven't read any since high school when I certainly didn't appreciate it.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

jegreenwood said:


> No votes for Shakespeare?


Shakespeare is the thought to be a consensual entry of the whole list for everyone so it is left out for convenience.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I read books from a variety of authors. Though I have read and enjoyed reading multiple works by Charles Dickens and Ernest Hemmingway.

I have recently read three books by Stephen Fry, all very entertaining and easy to read: Mythos, Heroes, and Troy. All stories of Greek mythology.

I have recently read two books by Matt Haig, both of which were good: The Midnight Library and How to Stop Time.

I read three plays of Shakespeare last year (Hamlet, Othello, and Midsummer Night's Dream) and I plan on reading three more this year. In high school, Shakespeare was bewildering and boring. Now I find reading it easier and more enjoyable. 

I have reread only a small number of books (1984, Brave New World, and Lord of the Rings). I don't want to reread much as there is too much to read for the first time. There are about 100 books on my Goodreads "to-read" list!


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

senza sordino said:


> I read books from a variety of authors. Though I have read and enjoyed reading multiple works by Charles Dickens and Ernest Hemmingway.
> 
> I have recently read three books by Stephen Fry, all very entertaining and easy to read: Mythos, Heroes, and Troy. All stories of Greek mythology.
> 
> ...


"Curiously enough, one cannot read a book; one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, and active and creative reader is a rereader." - Vladimir Nabokov.

Of course I've never reread any of his work. _Lolita_ is on my list, though.

In fact I don't reread very often. My best rereading experience was last year, when I read a different translation of _The Magic Mountain_. Simply a revelation.


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

Ernest K. Gann
Anne McCaffrey
Bruce Bretthauer
Tom Clancy
Clive Cussler
Nevil Shute
Jean M Auel
Wes Boyd


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Oh yes, thinking of novelists, that Ian Rankin is consistently good.


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