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Stocka

Stocka

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What authors do people like? What books by those authors would you rate highly?

Some of my favourites would include:

Hunter S. Thompson (The Rum Diaries)
Charles Dickens (Hard Times)
George Orwell (1984)
Peter Carey (Bliss)
John Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men)

I've read a number of books by these authors, and tend to enjoy their writing style. I'm also hoping to read more widely amongst these authors.

There are many other great books, and great authors who I have found entertaining or good reading, as well. Likewise, there are many more who I hope to experience at some stage.

I am still yet to discover Franz Kafka, although, I've read small excerpts of his work, and heard much about him.

I have also tried reading Joseph Conrad, however, for some reason found it heavy going, and could not "get into" his particular style of prose (I'll try again, sometime!).
 
Don't really have many favourite authors, although when an author writes more than one book that I've enjoyed I guess they qualify. That would be: -

Margaret Atwood (especially A Handmaid's Tail)
Jo K Rowling (The Harry Potter Series. Heh!)
Isabel Allende
John Irving (particularly A Prayer For Owen Meany)
JD Salinger (The Catcher in the Rye, and Franny and Zooey.)
Nick Hornby
 
Can't be arsed going into the details, but these authors and books are all wonderful

Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray, his short stories and plays - all essential reading)
Hunter S. Thompson (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hells Angels, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail)
Evelyn Waugh (Scoop, Black Mischief, Decline and Fall, Vile Bodies, Put Out More Flags - oddly enough, I've never read his most famous book, "Brideshead Revisited)
Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being, The Book of Laughter And Forgetting, The Farewell Party, the Joke, Life Is Elsewhere)
Jean Paul Sartre (Nausea, The Age of Reason, The Reprieve, Iron In the Soul)
Jay McInerney (Bright Lights Big City, Story Of My Life, Brightness Falls, Model Behavious, Bacchus And Me)
Truman Capote (Breakfast At Tiffany's)
Choderlos de Laclos (Les Liaisons de Dangerouses)
Anais Nin (Delta of Venus, Henry and June)
Dorothy Parker (Collected Works)
Gabriel Garcia Marques (Love In the Time of Cholera)
Woody Allen (Without Feathers, Getting Even, Side Effects)
 

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I like action/adventure stuff. I don't read for intellectual stimulation, just for entertainment.

I also like stories to move at a rapid pace, like watching a movie. I'll usually read a 400-500 page novel in less than a week.

Tom Clancy Patriot Games, The Hunt For Red October, Clear and Present Danger, Rainbow Six
Dale Brown Flight of the Old Dog, SkyMasters, Hammerheads
Clive Cussler Raise the Titanic, Sahara, Valhalla Rising

and a young author from Sydney, Matthew Reilly, Ice Station, Temple, Area 7.
 
I collect my two favourite authors being:

David Eddings
R A Salvatore


I own almost every book realeased by the above authors
both fantasy genre
 
Can't go past Hitch hikers guide to the galaxy.

They were great to read. Douglas Addams was a very clever man....
 
Some of my favorite authors....

Colleen McCollough - First Man in Rome series is excellent.
George R.R. Martin - A Song of Ice and Fire series
J.R.R. Tolkien - Lord of the Rings - The Hobbit - The Silmarillion
Gary Jennings - Aztec - Raptor
Margaret George
Sharon Kay Penman
George Orwell
Bernard Cornwell
Katherine Kurtz
Helen Hollick
Alan Gold
Stephen Grundy
Ken Follett
Dorothy Dunnett

...and on a lighter note
Clive Cussler
 
Bernard Cornwell is my favourite.

Also love the Colleen McCullough Rome series, Michale Dobbs (House of Cards and the Goodfellowe MP books) and early Tom Clancy and Dale Brown.

My rule of thumb is to never read anything that has won an award - it usually means inpenetrable self indulgent rubbish.
 
I'm reading George Orwell's "Coming Up for Air" at the moment and of what I've read so far, it's becoming one of my favourites. Orwell has this way of describing things so clearly and simply that you'd almost swear you were there, inside his character's head. no fluff, no superfluous words. simply a brilliant writer of english.

I've heard that Coming Up for Air is actually better than his more well-known novels, like 1984 and Animal Farm. I've read Animal Farm but not 1984 so I can't really comment, but I'd like to read ALL his novels. friends also recommend Homage to Catalonia, which is his memoir of the time he fought in the Spanish Civil War.
 

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Raymond Chandler's work is all good-edgy, suspensfull(?) and humorous.

Hunter S. Thompson-Funny as...well you know

Simon Scharma-Love History books

David Day-Great Biographer

Lee Falk-The Phantom is the best super hero.

Peter Carey-Although he has got a bit long winded.

Albert Camus-Reading 'The Outsider' changed my life.

Joseph Conrad-'Heart of Darkness' is the best book I have ever read.
 
Originally posted by localyokel
Albert Camus-Reading 'The Outsider' changed my life.
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When did you read it? I only read it last year and it disappointed me. If you read it when you were younger, then maybe that's why it was so influential in your life.

If there was one book that changed my outlook on life, it was Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" which I read when I was about 17 or 18.
 
Originally posted by localyokel

Hunter S. Thompson-Funny as...well you know
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The Rum Diaries would have to be my favourite book. It's certainly the funniest I've read.

Originally posted by localyokel
Joseph Conrad-'Heart of Darkness' is the best book I have ever read.
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Did you find it tough reading, to begin with? I found it fairly verbose, and put it away for another time. I wasn't sure whether or not it just happened to be the way in which I encountered the novel, or if it was something about Conrad's style.

Have you read 'Nostromo'? That made quite a good mini-series.
 
Originally posted by Stocka




Did you find it tough reading, to begin with? I found it fairly verbose, and put it away for another time. I wasn't sure whether or not it just happened to be the way in which I encountered the novel, or if it was something about Conrad's style.

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Had to read it for a course I was doing a couple of years ago. I founf it hard going for the first ten or fifteen pages as it is just mundane details of Marlowe's preparations for the journey. But the whole tone changes when he arrives for work.


My advice is to plow through the beginning and read it. Apocalypse Now is great but the book is on another level.
 
Just read a book called 'Gould's book of fish' by a guy called Richard Flanagan, brother of well known journo Martin.


What a great book. The best book I have ever read. Anyone else read it?
 
Originally posted by Shinboners


I started reading "On The Road" but found it disappointing. Put it down about two thirds of my way through it and haven't picked it up since.
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Had the same problem with On The Road only I don't think I got that far through it. It just seemed so very bland.



A new favourite of mine is John Updike.
 
Originally posted by aggels


Had the same problem with On The Road only I don't think I got that far through it. It just seemed so very bland.
Click to expand...

Ah, nice to know that I'm not the only one.

new favourite of mine is John Updike.
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My new favourite is Bill Granger - he writes cook books. Excellent recipes.
 

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