FAVORITE AUTHORS
If I like an author, I tend to be a completist about reading all the books that author has written. Bibliographies appeal to me the same way lists of prize winners and "must reads" do. And there is nothing I find more aesthetically pleasing than a matching set of an author's books, like the set of Charles Dickens books in the picture above. Hubby gave those to me for Christmas one year -- he knows what I like!
I go back and forth between whether it would be more enjoyable to read all the way through one author's body of work or to mix things up. So far, I've never read more than two or three books by the same author in a row.
Sometimes I try to limit my reading goals to a particular series, or only the novels, or only the fiction, but in general I plan to read all the books. I use Rose City Reader to keep track of the books of my favorite authors, those I've read, those sitting on my TBR shelves, and those I need to track down.
The following is my list of some of my favorite authors. Several of my favorites are missing, like Graham Greene, Muriel Spark, and Barbara Pym. I intend to add them. This list keeps growing.
The links go to my blog pages for each author, with bibliographies and links to reviews.
FAVORITE AUTHORS - GENERAL
- Kingsley Amis
- Kate Atkinson
- Saul Bellow
- Maeve Binchy
- William Boyd
- A. J. Cronin
- M. F. K. Fisher
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Penelope Fitzgerald
- Richard Ford
- Jim Harrison
- Nick Hornby
- Susan Howatch
- Elinor Lipman
- David Lodge
- Ian McEwan
- Iris Murdoch
- Jack Ohman
- Anthony Powell
- Philip Roth
- C. P. Snow
- William Styron
- Anne Tyler
- John Updike
- Simon Winchester
- P. G. Wodehouse
FAVORITE AUTHORS - MYSTERY
- Kate Atkinson
- Benjamin Black
- Cara Black
- James Lee Burke
- Lee Child
- Dick Francis
- Tana French
- P. D. James
- Donna Leon
- John Lescroart
- Helen MacInnes
- Ngaio Marsh
- Ellis Peters
- Ian Rankin
- Dorothy L. Sayers
- Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö
- Martin Cruz Smith
- Julia Spencer Fleming
