Who is your favorite author?

[Polargirl]

My favourite book is Watchers by Dean R Koontz. I follow several authors faithfully. Hard to pick just one. I think I'd have to go with Lawrence Block for his consistently good writing. I like murder mysteries the most.

[Vector]

Oh, phooey.

Elizabeth Hand - Winterlong may be my favorite book...such a crazy strange story.

I'd have to add authors:

Jack Womack- especially Ambient

Graham Joyce- especially the Tooth Fairy

Lucius Sheppard- especially Life During Wartime

I grew up on Moorcock and Philip K. Dick.

[Jashella]

Hmm, for me it would have to be Jules Verne. I still reread his books from time to time, and they never seem to get any less interesting! 
Also have to agree with some posters and say Douglas Adams!

[Dizzy]

Neal Stephenson by far.

Cryptonomicon was amazing, as is most of his other work.

Snow Crash is generally accused of popularizing the term avatar for interactions online.

If you like epic historical fiction that can't be fit into a genre, it's hard to beat The Baroque Cycle.

 

Me toooooo!! Neal Stephenson is by far and away my favourite author too. I love them all. I adore the Baroque Cycle & feel really grateful that I read Crytonomicon after it as I loved the Shaftoes even more since I knew where they'd come from (even though it was the prequel so to speak). Works of genius.

 

Iain M Banks "Culture" novels are a close second for me.

[Kunai]

Agatha Christie

Stephen King

Isaac Asimov

[JasontheKiwi]

My fave author always changes... at the moment I am captivated by Raymond E Feist, am up to a darkness at sethanon... love it.

[joedog]

I'd have to say either Neal Stephenson or Robert Ludlum is my favorite author. I love the Bourne trilogy, and Stephenson's cyberpunk writing. Snow Crash is absolutely amazing, and Cryptonomicon is a book I find fascinating, but never can seem to finish it.

 

That said, none of those books are in my top 2. My favorite book ever is 1984, with Shutter Island coming in a close second. Shutter Island is a seriously disturbing book. Like so many books, it's a million times better than the movie. The movie didn't leave out anything huge, but there were a lot of small things in the book that made everything more intense.

Thanks for the Shutter Island recommendation. I couldn't put it down.

Sent from my ADR6425LVW using Tapatalk 2

[re-animator]

I'm a huge Scott Sigler fan, love the gory horror novels; but I also his abilty to make simple things like a piece of moving newspaper or simple tickle on the skin poop yourself terrifying.

I also love Charlie Huston, his Joe Pitt Casebooks make me happy; vampire novels that have a protagonist who isn't pining over a highschool love and who isn't afriad to rip a throat out if he needs to feed, love them.  

 

I read a lot though, so my loves change a lot. 

[BopGun]

I'm going to buck the trend and go with David Halberstam ("The Reckoning", "Summer of '49" and "The Breaks of the Game") and David McCullough ("Truman", "John Adams" and "1776"...no, not the musical). ESPECIALLY "The Reckoning". Anyone who wants to know how and why the U.S. auto industry lost its hold on the marketplace needs to read that. I really really really should read "The Powers That Be" and "The Best and the Brightest" sometime.

 

...though if you measure it strictly in terms of volumes read, I suppose my favorites would be Ian Fleming and then John Gardner, who took up the mantle of the James Bond novel franchise in 1981 and kept with it through the mid-'90s. Over the years, I've not only read, but owned, all 30ish James Bond novels that those two produced. (I no longer own any of them.)

[paul119]

George Orwell - I've read through 1984 a half-dozen times, and love it more and more after every read. His memoir about fighting in the Spanish Civil War is also excellent, and so are the other novels he's written.

[Max Power]

I'm going to buck the trend and go with David Halberstam ("The Reckoning", "Summer of '49" and "The Breaks of the Game") and David McCullough ("Truman", "John Adams" and "1776"...no, not the musical). ESPECIALLY "The Reckoning". Anyone who wants to know how and why the U.S. auto industry lost its hold on the marketplace needs to read that. I really really really should read "The Powers That Be" and "The Best and the Brightest" sometime.

 

...though if you measure it strictly in terms of volumes read, I suppose my favorites would be Ian Fleming and then John Gardner, who took up the mantle of the James Bond novel franchise in 1981 and kept with it through the mid-'90s. Over the years, I've not only read, but owned, all 30ish James Bond novels that those two produced. (I no longer own any of them.)

 

I like McCullough, H.W. Brands is probably my favorite biographer though.  I've read through all of Ian Fleming's JB books, but never anyone else's.  I picked up Jeffrey Deaver's  "007 Carte Blanche" a few weeks back, but I haven't gotten around to reading it yet.  

[DeathDealer]

Jules Verne's The Time Machine is my favorite author/book combo.

 

The Odyssey by Homer is my favorite book.  Odysseus has been my hero since I was a child.  He tries to out think first, backs it with force when needed, and never gives up or forgets who he is.

[ModernSpartacus]

I'll be honest, after all this time, JK Rowling is still my favorite author of all time. Her books were my childhood and Hogwarts is my home.

[Ananke86]

People I read include Stephen King, Laurell K Hamilton, JR Ward, Phillip Pullman, LA Banks

 

Favourtie book and author are The Godson by Robert G Barrett. It's very ocker, dirty old man kind of book but with guns and an unfortunate pommy that gets subjected to a King's Cross bouncer's hilarity.

[Grayfang]

I keep wanting to claim these well-respected authors like tolkien or orwell, or GRRM, or JKR (all of which I've enjoyed) but honestly that'd be a lie.

 

My favorite author is Anne Bishop. Her books are not masterpieces of literature (probably closer to smut and fluff), just dark fantasy, but they've been my companions since I was 16 (10 years). I've literally reread Queen of Darkness so many times that my copy split in two. *sigh* guess I'm just not cultured enough... (lol!)

[Raikas]

We're talking fiction?

 

I love Robin Hobb's High Fantasy (favourite: The Liveship Traders series) and CS Friedman's SciFi (favourite: This Alien Shore).  For non-genre, I've loved all of Pat Barker's WWI-centred books (the Regeneration Trilogy, Life Class, Toby's Room).  My favourite novel in general is The Quiet Violence of Dreams (K Sello Duiker's death was such a loss - he'd only written 3 books). 

 

 

 

 Cryptonomicon is a book I find fascinating, but never can seem to finish it.

 

 

Heh, I loved Cryptonomicon, but my god - that book seriously needed an extra round of editing.

[Tarmac]

My favorite author is probably a tie. I can't decide between Jonathan Carroll - From the Teeth of Angels is one of my favorite books of all time - but  I also love Neil Gaiman (and American Gods).

 

Ohhhh, conundrums...

[Crooked]

So so so many good ideas for summer reading in this thread. I have to go with Haruki Murakami, though Margaret Atwood is also way up there. And Dickens, mostly for A Tale of Two Cities.

[direrael]

Tolkien, all the way. His books, and the movies, changed my life. I remember walking into Fellowship when I was 11, and walking out with a completely different look on life. I had never experienced something that pulled you completely, 100% into another world, and I realized the power that storytelling and the arts can hold. I ended up wanting to do something visual - media, movies, etc, and later chose a college and majors based on that. Now I get to work in one of the fields I majored in, and have other things I can't wait to pursue in my life.

 

tl;dr - Tolkien's books unlocked something in me that led me to where I am today. Plus, the dude was amazing in real life. Fought in WWI, had a voice like an Ent, and he wrote this amazing letter to an anti-semitic publisher during WWII that I can read over and over.

[level250geek]

My immediate answer is Neil Gaiman, with American Gods being my favorite book. However, the expanded list includes Tolkien, Robert E. Howard's Conan stories, H.P. Lovecraft, Stephen King (especially The Shining), Poe, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock stories, and Joe Hill (can't WAIT to read his new book).

 

I'm a librarian, so of course I love to read, and I've read lots of great stuff over the years. I dabble in a bit of everything. I'm a big fan of fantasy, horror, sci-fi, westerns, and detective/mystery stories. 

[Incantor]

I LOVE Neal Stephenson.  The man is a nerd demi-god.  I've read everything he ever published, multiple times, and never get tired of it.  I especially like Cryptonomicon/The Baroque Cycle and Anathem.  When I read Reamde I was amazed at the total change in mood and pacing and just the extreme silliness of it - MMORPGs, Chinese hackers, Russian mobsters, Islamic terrorists, whaaaaat???  Very fun, a nice change from the previous works which had grown ever more complicated and cerebral.

 

I also enjoy Lovecraft, Herbert, Martin, Gaiman, Barker, and Constantine - off the top of my head.

[level250geek]

I LOVE Neal Stephenson.  The man is a nerd demi-god.  I've read everything he ever published, multiple times, and never get tired of it.  I especially like Cryptonomicon/The Baroque Cycle and Anathem.  When I read Reamde I was amazed at the total change in mood and pacing and just the extreme silliness of it - MMORPGs, Chinese hackers, Russian mobsters, Islamic terrorists, whaaaaat???  Very fun, a nice change from the previous works which had grown ever more complicated and cerebral.

 

I also enjoy Lovecraft, Herbert, Martin, Gaiman, Barker, and Constantine - off the top of my head.

What's a good starter book for Neal Stephenson? He's been on my to-read list for awhile.

[Incantor]

If you are into sci-fi, start with Snow Crash (virtual reality) or Diamond Age (nano technology). If you like historical fiction, try Cryptonomicon (a dual story, WW2 era and a 90's timeline, interleaved). For a fast paced thriller, try the newest book, Reamde. As with all Stephenson books, the themes are only jumping off points and there are lots of little digressions on various subjects like Cryptonomicon's famous interlude on the best way to eat Cap'n Crunch.

I don't recommend that you start with my favorite, Anathem, or the Baroque Cycle (7 books, 3 volumes). The Baroque Cycle is very slow and can be hard too get into. It is fascinating, but I think it helps to be accustomed to Stephenson's voice before attempting it. Anathem is very weird and lots of people give up on it before they get to the action. Again I think it's better to get used to his unique style before tackling it.

[direrael]

 

I also enjoy Lovecraft, Herbert, Martin, Gaiman, Barker, and Constantine - off the top of my head.

 

+1 for Lovecraft! Some of his stories give me chills, like the one about the hill-dwellers in Appalachia.

[Incantor]

My favorite Lovecraft is Dreams in the Witchhouse, very creepy.  I also really enjoyed At the Mountains of Madness.