Your Favorite Writer and/or Author and Why?

My favorite writer is Franz Kafka. His work is quite surreal and I enjoy reading about dystopic type scenarios. While he had little in terms of novels, The Castle is my favorite work by him, but his short stories and letters are also a joy for me to read.

I also enjoy the writings of Philip K. Dick, Anthony Burgess, Aldous Huxley, Roald Dahl, George Orwell, and Irvine Welsh.

 

Guys, you'll have to start discussing the writers and their styles, or I'll have to lock this thread.

 

J.R.R. Tolkien: Lord of the Rings is just indescribable as a fantasy series.

Charles Dickens: Tale of Two Cities gives a great description of what happened between the aristocracy and the peasants before and during the French Revolution, as well as telling a great tale about love and sacrifice. A Christmas Carol teaches a great lesson about what is really important in life.

Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre is, in my mind, the classic romance novel.

Michael Crichton: In Case of Need, which he wrote under a pen name, is a chilling story about why doctors were willing to perform illegal abortions before Roe v. Wade, and the methods used to hide such abortions. Jurassic Park teaches a great lesson about what can happen if we take our pursuit of knowledge too far. Timeline shows the consequences of time travel.

Mark Twain: A lot of truths about life, and just plain funny as hell.

 

I'm a very transient reader, so it's rare for me to read more than a few works by a certain author. I adore Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front, which was one of the most moving books I've ever read without being bogged down by superfluous language. A real talented writing style and an excellent visionary are qualities I admire in his writing. Another author that shares those same principles is Haper Lee who wrote one of my favorite novels, To Kill a Mockingbird. Lee, who didn't write many books, was an amazing storyteller and captured a portrait of Southern living perfectly. Lastly, I'll mention Jules Verne who fathered science fiction. At times, his writing is difficult to get past, but in all of Verne's novels he displays such visionary for the future that was scientifically calculated (for his day). For a man to put that much effort into his work, unlike Wells's made up inventions that were not scientifically possible (even for the time), gives me great respect for Verne.

 

My favorite author is George R. R. Martin, for one series and one series only: A Song of Ice and Fire.

It?s dark, dark and disturbing. It?s bright and hopeful. As Mastadge said, 3000 pages of story and he?s yet to put a word in that didn?t directly advance the plot or the characterization. Characters are intelligent, they?re stupid, they miss the evident, they see beyond the obvious. The characterizations in the series are the best I?ve ever read, bar none. The plot is insanely convoluted by times, but it all makes sense as its being slowly revealed. In writing A Song of Ice and Fire, Martin is like Tom Clancy crossed with J.R.R. Tolkien crossed with Steven King.

It can take quite a bit to seriously impress me in regards to fiction. A Song of Ice and Fire blows me away. In my mind, there is no better ongoing series around, fantasy or non fantasy. This includes Star Wars. I like Star Wars enough that I?ve become a Mod on the largest Star Wars message board on the Internet for their spoiler forum. I like A Song of Ice and Fire enough that I won?t go anywhere near one of their message boards for fear of getting spoiled.

 

Yeah, keep dicussing why you like them. I saved Katya_Jade's thread with the same idea, so here goes

This week let's dicuss Charles Dickens and his work.

His works include:

the christmas Story
David Copperfield
Great Expectations

My brain isn't at full power right now, so I know I didn't get them all.

 

JOHN GRISHAM ALL THE WAY.

the partner
the runaway jury
the street lawyer
the testament

those four i have read and loved them all.

 

Tolkien - The Hobbit
Salinger - Catcher in the Rye... Kid was messed up but it was a good story.
Douglas Adams - 42
Jane Austin - I never thought I would say this but I had to read Pride and Prejudice for school and I loved it... mind you it took 2/3 of the book to get good but after all that build up the suspense and angst were intense. Prolly the only straight guy out there that has any respect for Jane Austin. I really did like they way she told her love story... all the misrepresentations and missunderstandings were great and it is a style I use in my own fics occassionally.

Gotta mention some poets too:
Edgar Allen Poe - Everything
Robert Browning - This guys head is screwed up... but the poems are always shocking and I like the way you learn about the main character through their own soliloquies. Porypheria's Lover and The Laboratory are some of the best.

 

Dicuss why you like that author. Don't just post a list here and think that does it. Why do you like them? Why do you like their style of writing? What makes their books so good to read? these are all questions to answer

 

This week let's dicuss Charles Dickens and his work.

Well, I guess somebody should discuss Charles Dickens, since the request was made.

My favorite Dickens novel is Martin Chuzzelwitt, a great comedy centered around the pursuit of an old man's money. There are two characters in the book that go by the name Martin Chuzzelwitt, one is the aforementioned old man, who is adamant that his extended family only values him for the money they expect to inherit from him (he happens to be right). The other is his grandson, so eager to prove himself that he travels to America to make his own fortune (bad idea).

The insanely convoluted plot is difficult to follow at times, but the incredibly vibrant and quirky characters make it worth your while. There's Seth Pecksnif, a man so determined to get into Old Martin's good graces that he is blind to the fact that the old man is using him to test Young Martin's worthiness. Then there's Jonas Chuzzelwitt, Old Martin's nephew, who marries Pecksnif's daughter Merry and eventually resorts to murder in the pursuit of money. You have Montague Tig (AKA Tig Montague), local ruffian-turned chairman of the Anglo-Bengalese Disinterested Loan And Life Insurance Company, a scam that eventually engulfs both Pecksnif and Jonas. All of these characters and many more populate one of Dickens' funniest tales, bringing to vibrant life an elegant satire on the pursuit of greed.

It's been a couple of years since I read it, so I might be off on some of the spelling of names and other small details, but I think I got the jist of it right.

 

smauldookie, my mother is obssessed with grisham...every year, we go to cape cod in this little cottage and one year my mother found a copy of the pelican brief and she accidentally brought it home and "forgot to bring it back". ever since then, she started buying every book by him. i got her the newest one.

 

Fair point, Iwishiwasjedi, so I'll elaborate on why I like the books of Ramsey Campbell.
I'm a fan of Campbell's work because he is quite simply a wonderful horror writer. He is capable of producing truly disturbing books without the usual recourse to gratuitous violence. His best works, The House on Nazareth hill, The Face must die, Incarnate, all have a weird dream like quality about them. Incarnate is THE most impressive horror story I've ever read, it's like one long surreal nightmare.
However there is more to Campbell than this. He is capable, in all of his books of a very wry humour, and The Count of Eleven, is the funniest and darkest comedy I've ever read. Any book that can make you empathasise with a serial killer, and chuckle along the way has to be a rarity!
In Campbell's books, you always care for the characters and despair as their lives fall apart, they're not the simple monster fodder of so many hack writers.
There is also a disarming honesty in Campbell's writing, he is quite open about the fact that many oh his darkest stories come from his own nightmares, and in the introduction to one of his novels he offers up an utterly frank anecdote, which explains his fascination with his recurrent themes.
Anyway I'll finish up by saying don't believe me, don't believe the hype, go to your local library/book shop and ask for something by Ramsey Campbell.

 

RussianCliche: Grisham's books can be interesting--the only thing that bothers me is that it seems like at the ending of every one of them, with the exception of maybe The Client, somebody ends up living anonymously on some remote island in the Caribbean. Once would have been OK--repeating that theme was too much, though.

 

i'm cliche's sock.


anakin_girl: i'm not the one who likes his books, i haven't read any yet.

 

Favorite Authors/books:

Willa Cather: O! Pioneers and My Antonnia wonderfully portray life on the prairie for women in the 1900's. Her prose is refreshingly straightforward.

Jane Austin: Ok I mostly only love Pride and Prejudice, that book gets me everytime I read it. It makes me laugh outright, it's witty and hillarious.

Shakespear: Hamlet. My favorite of all of his plays. I read it in high school, we were watching a PBS production of it and were supposed to read each section the night before. Apparently I was the only one to do my homework, would watch it and laugh whenever Hamlet was being dry and witty. Actually I love most of Shakespears plays. No wonder I was considered a major geek in high school

Finally:

Stephen Lawhead: The Song of Albion series, and Pendragon series.
If you've never read this author, and love fantasy, he's amazing. He lives in England and does massive research at Oxford. His books are rich w/ historical details, Celtic life, life during the crusades, and medieval England. The Song of Albion books are magical to read, they are mythic, Celtic, wonderful fantasy books. I once wrote him a letter in college c/o his publishing company and he actually responded back to me.

 

C.S. Lewis ~~ brilliant man. He brought magic to my childhood with "The Chronicles of Narnia."

Douglas Adams ~~ (God rest his soul). Funny as hell with a style matched by no one. Totally inventive.... 42

J.R.R. Tolkien ~~ he created this amazing world, with cultures and languages... just overwheliming genius.

Frank Herbert ~~ Arrakis...Dune... what an adventure. Just a huge amount of work, it's a world within each story...

Any of the Classic Ancient Authors ~~ Ovid, Homer, Virgil... the original geniuses of humanity.


~~~Aanix

 

James Clavell -You don't know Characterisation till you have read his Asian Saga.

JRR Tolkien -Brilliant, so much detail and made so much up and the story's own History, a labour of love.

Robin Jarvis -The master of plot twists and good Plots and an overall great fantasy writer.

 

i'm surprised that nobody said Jack Kerouac. his poetic prose keeps me reading from book to book. he delves into the spiritual without being preachy, or forcing his beliefs upon the reader. he wrote about his real life experiences, which were numerous and important, getting in touch with nature, driving and smoking with fellow writers, and his dialogue, though not so frequent, is very human.

second runner up: Douglas Adams (only hitchhikers guide series) - 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, but no one knows the question. his depiction of "the way things really are" is witty, yet laced with delicate and easy to swallow doses of truth. nobody writes crazier sci-fi. AND WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FRIGGEN MOVIE?! oops, sorry - this is the reading thread.

 

Brian Jacques: Redwall

 

my favorite writer is Isaac Asimov. He wrote great sci-fi stories both short and long.

Foundation Series
Rest of the Robots

Also love Kurt Vonnegut, black comedy (dark humor) at it's best.

Breakfast of Champions
Cat's Cradle

Those are my favorites but I alos like

William Gibson, Commander X, and Alan Dean Foster

 

I'll second the vote for Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 5, Player Piano, Hocus Pocus, and Cat's Cradle, are all fine books, full of his trademark dark humour.
I've only recently discovered Roddy Doyle, and I would highly recommend this talented Irish author.
Probably his best known work is The Commitments, which was made into a movie by Alan Parker. It is part of his Barrytown trilogy, The Commitments, The Snapper, and The Van, each story centring around different members of the one working class Dublin family, the Rabbitte's.
His books are exceptionally funny, although it takes a while to adjust to the dialogue, which is written in Irish dialect, full of slang terms which many won't be familiar with, but the effort is definitely worth while.

 

Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte. Two of the most insprational female writer's of the centry. They gave female writers a voice and lead to more women being published in their future.

 

At the moment my favourite is Terry Pratchett and Laurell K Hamilton

Terry Pratchett because he is hilarious

Laurell K Hamilton because she got lots of element in her book.

 

J.R.R. Tolkien: He persevered through two world wars. Started thinking about his epic when he was in WW1, which has affected his writings greatly (though he denied it).

 

J.R.R. Tolkien: LOTR was a magnificent epic of fantasy, one of my enduring favorites.

Mercedes Lackey: her books were my first introduction to fantasy and i felt they were great ones to start with.