Robert Silverberg, Keith Laumer, Charles Fort.
That is a really difficult question! I'm an avid reader, always have been. When I find someone I really like, I'll read everything by them I can get my hands on. For example, recently I discovered the Chinese writer Ha Jin, and something about his simple, direct style and the humanity of his characters just touched me, so I check out every single volume of his at the local library and read through them with joy. Another writer like this was Isaac Bashevis Singer, who was introduced to me by a rabbi friend--I absolutely fell in love with his short stories and bought up every book of them and his novels I could find. I've read his works over and over through the years, never tiring of their colorful characters, ethnic flavor and vivid stories. Another is Pearl S. Buck, whom I discovered at age 12 through her award-winning novel, "The Good Earth"--I was absolutely astonished at how deep a chord her writing, her world, her characters, struck in my heart. I've read a large number of her vast works, and favor her "Chinese novels". Others include both the Brőnte sisters, Jane Austin, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Somerset Maugham, T.H. Lawrence, Herman Melville, Herman Hesse, O. Henry, Joseph Conrad, Jack London, Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, Dickens, Richard Matheson, Maupassant, Douglas Adams, Amy Tan, E.M. Foster, Lewis Carroll, and so many more. Books like "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", "The Good Earth", "Watership Down" and the whole Tolkien series as well as "Dune", are things I read over and over. I will also catch anything by Michuo Kaku, Stephen Hawking, or Stephen J. Gould. And all this is really just a partial list!   | | |
Walter Mosley, Maya Angelou, Terry McMillan, Sidney Sheldon, Jacquline Suzanne, President Barack Obama, James Baldwin, Perry Thomas
Beth Moore, Benny Hinn, Kay Author, Oral Roberts, Rhinehard Bonnkke, Jentzen Franklin, Charles Stanley.
There are so many! But I love Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Stephen King, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Toni Morrison and a few other contemporary writers.
J.K. Rowling, Author of the Harry Potter books, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, authors of the Dragon Lance Chronicals, and later Dragon Lance Legends, just to name a few.
Stephen King, Chuck Palahniuk, Alice Sebold, Elie Wiesel and Victor Frankl
In the non-fiction category, there are many history writers I greatly admire. Off the top of my head, I'd proclaim David Halberstam as a favorite. There are many others, but they're not accessible at this time. Chalk it up to the aging process.
Fiction-wise, I would offer the late Kurt Vonnegut as an example of someone I have almost always found fresh and exciting. George Orwell is a personal hero. And then there's Ray Bradbury. The man was a guiding influence in my early years.
Already a fan of his work, I met him at a gathering when I was 12. The great author was kind enough to read, then place a few well-chosen comments on a short story I'd written. When he handed it back, finding his brief critique and encouraging words on the first page convinced me I just might make a go of this writing-thing.
I don't read enough to have a particular favorite, but Dean Koontz and Stephen King are about my two most read.
Ayne Rand; Michael E. Gerber; Kurt Vonnegut; Lewis Lamour; Whitley Strieber; Wayne & Judith Rolfs; Mickey Zucker Reichert; Kristine Kathryn Rusch; R. Davis; Gary A. Braunbeck; Bradley H. Sinor; Peter Crowther; Ester M. Friesner; Tanya Huff; Tim Waggoner; Nina Kiriki Hoffman; Michelle West; Charles de Lint; Robert (Bob) Sandidge; Anne Ward; .... This list could get longer and longer and longer. There are so many great writers who I enjoy reading...
I admire the intellect of Charles Olson, the humanity of Kurt Vonnegut and the humor of Twain.
Dan Brown
Ernest Hemingway
Pynchon, Beckett, Duras.
My favourite author is actually Mark Anthony Jarman, but strangely enough he is not that well known an author. He's had some success, but when it comes to prominent Canadian authors, his name does not come up, which is ludicrous. Most of my favourite authors like Jude Macdonald, Elyse Friedman and Kenneth Harvey are small press and Canadian, so their names will not be read from the monuments of global literary fame, but I love them nonetheless. But as far as well-known authors, I would say my favourite might be Michael Ondaatje. His writing is so exquisite and ambient to me- I'm always transcended when I read him. I like all the Beats, but especially Kerouac, whom I equate with literary LSD. I've been starting to turn on (finally) to some American writers too, like Don DeLillo, Dave Eggers and Mary Gaitskill. Gaitskill actually wrote a short story called The Little Boy that has wedged itself into my foundation, I was so moved by it. So as you can see, my authors are an eccentric, eclectic bunch. If you put them all in a room together they would probably not even talk to each other, but they all have that common thread of innovation to me, which draws me to them and has me reading them again and again. | | |
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