Who is your favourite author?

[fiby41]

Doesn't matter if your favourite author writes fiction or non fiction. You can even have two different favourite authors for fiction and non fiction.

[IlliniDave]

Stephen King and J.R.R. Martin are my two favorites to read over the last 15-20 years or so. Don't really have a 'favorite' nonfiction author.

[Bankai]

Science fiction - Stanislaw Lem, Philip K Dick
Fantasy - Raymond E Feist
Other fiction - Raymond Chandler, Jorge Luis Borges
Non-fiction - this is difficult as I usually only read a specific book on a subject that interests me rather than everything an author wrote. If I have to name one person, it's Harry Browne (I only read "How I Found Freedom..." but what a life changing book this was. I still re-read it annually).

[Dragline]

Emerson

[jennypenny]

Are we talking novelist? Then Dostoyevsky. I love Emerson, but he's too straight for me. Whitman is sexier and more to my taste. Kerouac described him as "an old sensuous wolf" which explains exactly why I like him. I guess I'll say Emerson for non-fiction and Whitman for poetry.

Huh, all three are from the same era. I never noticed that before. I wonder why that is?

[Dragline]

The 19th Century was kind of a modern apex for writing generally, at least in developed countries. Celebrated writers and scholars would also tour the country giving lectures, which was one of the most popular entertainments of the day. (This may be the first era where one could make a decent living doing this kind of work.) They became household names this way to anyone who could read. They wrote all kinds of things -- works of fiction, poetry and philosophical and political essays. For popular serials in magazines, people would literally crowd the shipping docks to get the next installments as they came off the boat or train.

From Dickens wikepedia bio:

"Most of Dickens's major novels were first written in monthly or weekly instalments in journals such as Master Humphrey's Clock and Household Words, later reprinted in book form. These instalments made the stories affordable and accessible, and the series of regular cliff-hangers made each new episode widely anticipated. When The Old Curiosity Shop was being serialised, American fans waited at the docks in New York, shouting out to the crew of an incoming ship, "Is little Nell dead?"[132] Part of Dickens's great talent was to incorporate this episodic writing style but still end up with a coherent novel at the end."

With the introduction of mass media in all its forms in the 20th century and the separate of fiction and non-fiction, everything has become more diluted and specialized. Writers just don't "speak to the masses" the way they did in that era. But you will find all kinds of quotes and references in popular works today to 19th Century authors, both in fictional and non-fictional works. Because a lot of what they said is timeless and yet "modern" in the sense that it was post-industrial revolution.

I should have also mentioned Mark Twain.

[jennypenny]

I've always thought of Twain as his era's version George Carlin. I suppose that's backwards and Carlin was our version of Twain. Statements like "Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.” and “It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.” sound like they could have come from either Carlin or Twain.

[calixarene]

Living: George Saunders comes to mind.
Dead: Fitzgerald? Salinger? Gaddis? James? They all wrote some really great stuff and some truly disappointing stuff.
Poet: Eliot
Statistically (author from whom I've read the most books, according to GoodReads): Agatha Christie
Nonfiction: It's hard to compare essayists, so I'm going to take the easy way out and go with Wittgenstein. His style resonates with me.

I'm curious about what book everyone else likes that you don't. (Excluding obvious candidates like 50 Shades of Grey.)

[tylerrr]

Herman Hesse is way up there for me(you might try his incredible book Wandering for it's simplicity theme).....Emerson is gold......Rimbaud for poetry. Tolkien is great, Bill Bryson has made me cry I laughed so hard.....

http://www.amazon.com/Wandering-Notes-S ... =Wandering

[peerifloori]

Fiction: Barbara Kingsolver
Poetry: I really like Daniel Ladinsky's re-imagining of Hafiz

I can't think of a non-fiction author I really like. I usually choose non-fiction reads based on topic rather than author. But I prefer fiction all around and around.

[fiby41]

Philip K Dick for fiction.

[7Wannabe5]

What an impossible question...

Forced to choose, I will go with Grace Paley and Kurt Vonnegut.

[FBeyer]

...
I'm curious about what book everyone else likes that you don't. (Excluding obvious candidates like 50 Shades of Grey.)

Lord of the Rings. One of the few times I thoroughly enjoyed the movie(s) more than the book(s).
BoooooOOO000000ooooring!

[7Wannabe5]

Favorites Poets: Lorine Niedecker and William Carlos Williams

I don't like "Tuesdays with Morrie", anything by Nicholas Sparks,Tom Clancy, Danielle Steele, Rosamunde Pilcher, or the poetry of Jewel.

[IlliniDave]

Hmm. If we get to add a poet mine would be Mary Oliver.

Something everyone else likes that I don't. Can't really narrow it to a particular writer, but the entire genre of science fiction has held at best tepid interest for me.

[Chad]

Fiction:
Orson Scott Card, Frank Herbert
I hate the classics. Twain was about the only one I liked.

Non-Fiction:
Malcom Gladwell
Jared Diamond

@FBeyer
Agreed with Tolkien. He is boring. Builds a cool world, but does it with too much telling and not enough showing in his writing. Though, I love the overall story line.

[enigmaT120]

Non-fiction: Stephen J. Gould. I was sad when he died. He used to write essays in the magazine Natural History, and I've since found several books of his collected essays.

[GandK]

I don't have a favorite author. Different authors have "spoken" to me at different points in my life. My favorite book is Walden.

A few years ago I did a really interesting exercise as part of a fiction writing program. You list your 20 favorite books (fiction), and your 20 favorite movies (also fiction), and then see what common themes and patterns you can identify. The results were surprisingly eye-opening. The point was to identify what sort of book/themes you'd likely be best at writing, but I've used it more to help me pick new material.

[chenda]

Patricia Highsmith.

[zarathustra]

Poetry: I really like Daniel Ladinsky's re-imagining of Hafiz

marry me.

okay, in seriousness:

- Philosophy: Foucault, Nietzsche, & Plato then Hegel for the extremeness of love/hate he creates in me
- Fiction: Orson Scott Card, Herman Hesse, D.H. Lawrence, Dostoevsky, Tom Robbins, Nabokov . . . hmmm
- Poetry: Hafiz is THE BEST, then perhaps Carlos Drummond de Andrade (Don't Kill Yourself), and Jack Gilbert . . . hmmm