Your Favorite Author
Do you have a favorite author? Perhaps you have many, or maybe you’ve never thought about it. What would the world be like if no one had ever chosen to write? Without authors there would be no Bible, no Magna Carta, no Declaration of Independence or Constitution of the United States, no IRS Code (yuck!) … Well, you get it…and we haven’t even mentioned any of the ancient classics like Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad, Plato’s Republic, or Virgil’s Aeneid. Jumping ahead a couple of millennia, without authors there would be no Don Quixote, Macbeth, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Moby Dick, or hundreds and hundreds of other perennial favorites.
Fortunately that did not happen and there are myriads of authors to choose from. So, here’s your opportunity to decide on your favorite author (if you haven’t already) and tell others which one you like best and why the person is your favorite. If you wish, please feel free to include which books of your favorite author you love best.
Mine are—based on number of their books I’ve read and re-read—Anthony Trollope (Dr. Thorne) and Wilkie Collins (The Woman in White). Why? I’m just a sucker for a well-written romance. Btw, Wilkie and I both adored TWIW (see photo of his gravestone in London—click it to enlarge).
I can’t wait to find out what you all come up with!
Frank DiBianca's Writing Website 
It’s hard to think of just one author. I like Jane Austen, Beryl Markham, and Victor Frankl, all for different reasons. I was recently introduced to mysteries by Dorothy Sayers and I love her writing too.
LikeLike
Thanks, Kay, for testing my website while informing us of your favorite authors, all of them highly acclaimed! For example: Doesn’t “everybody” love Austen’s psychological romances? Didn’t Hemingway rave about Markham? Didn’t Frankl teach us how to bear the unbearable?
LikeLike
I can’t begin to pick just one! I love a lot of current Christian authors’ books–especially series. For historical fiction, I especially like Karen Witemeyer and Roseanna White. For contemporary fiction, I like Melissa Tagg, Colleen Coble, Karen Kingsbury–and so many others. I have stacks and stacks of books–stacks that have overflowed from bookcases. I’m sort of a lending library–ha!
Barbara
LikeLike
Barbara, I’m not surprised that, as a freelance editor, you have multiple favorite authors. Sounds like you read a lot of contemporary fiction and that’s wonderful. Thanks so much for your comments and your choices!
LikeLike
Two authors I enjoy are Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy. Both writers in many of their stories or novels show a great faith and hope in humanity which they tell us can be found when and where we least expect, even in the midst of tragedy or suffering.
LikeLike
Isn’t it wonderful when stories inspire faith and hope unexpectedly (without sounding “preachy”)? Insightful! I appreciate your comments, Vince.
LikeLike
I vote for you and Erin Hunter.
Nina
LikeLike
Nina, I love your enthusiasm, but shouldn’t we wait and see how my book does first? 🙂
I didn’t realize that Erin Hunter was a pseudonym used by several writers of animal adventures for youngsters.
Thanks for commenting on my blog!
LikeLike
My favorite authors are from different parts of the world: Jane Austen and Charles Dickens from the United Kingdom, Nikolai Gogol from Russia, Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo from France, Oscar Wilde from Ireland, Miguel De Cervantes from Spain, Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino and Luigi Pirandello from Italy, Isabel Allende from Chile. Willa Cather and Edith Wharton from the United States. From the ancient world Homer, Virgil, Ovid and Aesop will always have a special place in my heart and on my bookshelves.
LikeLike
Angela, who would not be impressed by your encyclopedic knowledge of many of the great names in literature! Thanks so much for sharing your love of reading.
LikeLike
Stephen Hawking, a tough read for me but inevitably scrambles my brain waves. Like his book titles – “A Brief History of Time”, “The Universe in a Nutshell”, “The Theory of Everything”. Funny! I like the theoretical physicist and my physicist bro’ is a romanticist. Who would’uv thunk? Also like some contemporary mystery writers like – Grisham, Patterson and Cornwell. Not reading much these days (maybe Kay and Frank will re-ignite things).
LikeLike
Hi, Vincent. Hawking, eh? That is a surprise. You’re not reading as much these days, and I’m not doing much physics or biomedical engineering now; however—I still love physics toys and games. If you get a chance, go to youtube.com and search on “wave pendulum,” “coupled pendulums,” “Newton’s cradle,” and “magnetic balls.” You’ll see some amazing videos!
LikeLike
Maria T. sends us the following comment.
My favorite writer is: Gabriel Garcia Marquez. He’s amazing and his imagination is limitless.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Maria, I hope your computer is more manageable now. Thanks for telling us about your favorite author. I haven’t read much of the writings of G. G. Marquez, but I guess I should, since he won a Nobel Prize in Literature. Wasn’t his praise of the government in Colombia similar to Solzhenitsyn’s in the Soviet Union?
LikeLike
Zane Grey, Louis l’Amour, also OR Adams and M Horace Hayes. The first two authors are western fiction writers And the last two are writers of equine medical books.
LikeLike
I like fictional characters as an escape from reality.
LikeLike
A man who loves logic and numbers writing a story about matters of the heart. Looking forward to the marriage of mind and heart.
LikeLike
William, several people were surprised about my literary interests. According to what you said, you will like the part where Lana’s “rescue team” couples deduce things the experts missed.
Thanks for dropping in!
LikeLike
Joseph,
I don’t know much about Adams or Hayes except that they were the names of Presidents, but Zane Grey and Louis L’Amour are top names in western fiction—very popular writers. I read a little on them and found out that Larry McMurtry is often ranked in their group. Here’s what Wikipedia says about him:
“Larry Jeff McMurtry is an American novelist, essayist, bookseller, and screenwriter whose work is predominantly set in either the Old West or in contemporary Texas. His novels include Horseman, Pass By, The Last Picture Show, and Terms of Endearment, which were adapted into films earning 26 Academy Award nominations.”
Pretty impressive!
Thanks for your comment.
LikeLike
The following are two of my favorite writers: Mario Vargas Llosa, who won a Novel Prize, and Julio Cortazar who really deserved one.
The first a great novel writer, and the second, one of the best writer of short stories.
LikeLike
Claudio, thanks so much for your well-considered remarks about two outstanding writers. It’s interesting that you chose novels and short stories as your favorite types of literary fiction; they are are mine, too, along with poetry. I found a charming 2018 article by Llosa entitled: CITY OF EXILES: WHEN MARIO VARGAS LLOSA MET JULIO CORTÁZAR IN PARIS. Are you familiar with it?
LikeLike
No, I knew they spent some time together in Paris, but I have not seen that particle article. I would love to read it
LikeLike
Claudio,
Thanks for your reply. You and anyone else who is interested can go to lithub.com, then go to the search box and type in llosa. I forgot to check if it is in English or Spanish (my bad 🙂 ).
LikeLike
Well, I may be a little biased but my favorite book is “Loudly They Speak” written by Joseph V. DiBianca.
LikeLike
Toni, you like his book about horses, eh? Good choice! Kay and I recently went to the Germantown Horse Show and saw the horse with the flying tail (every time s/he jumped a fence).
LikeLike
I don’t do much reading but I like faith and inspirational books. I have read some books by Max Lucado and found them to be helpful in faith building.
LikeLike
Michael, I haven’t read much of his writing, but I know Lucado is famous for his inspirational Christian books. If you get a chance, you might like “The Harbinger” by Jonathan Cahn. It’s pegged as a mystery/thriller, but it has a deep spiritual foundation. Made a huge impression on me.
LikeLike
One of my favorite books is #GIRLBOSS by Sofia Amoruso, because I found it to be very encouraging!
LikeLike
Hi, Shell063098,
Sounds like a good read, and I’m glad you found it encouraging. Also sounds like Ms. Amoruso has built quite a business empire along the way. Thanks so much for commenting about your favorite author.
LikeLike
Can we only have one? That’s so limiting…when I was a little kid, nobody liked to read except me. I mean it–I was the only kid in my neighborhood who liked books. I was hooked in Walter Farley’s “Black Stallion” novels when I was 8 or 9, and my mom and stepfather had to pull me away from my books and force me to go out to play. I read “The Three Musketeers” (yes, unabridged) when I was 11 and loved it, although I could not pronounce half the names in the book…who the heck was that youngster Dee-art Gannon anyway…When I was 16 I discovered Sherlock Holmes (from him I got my “Trout in the Milk” nom, which is still the name I go by) and Arthur Conan Doyle. Not long after I got to Germany a guy loaned me a book that I came to adore–“The Princess Bride.” Now William Goldman gets the credit for writing it, but of course he always said it was written by “S. Morgenstern.” In my mid-20s I latched onto Tolkien, and started reading him to my kids. My oldest son Jere took my enjoyment of Tolkien a step further–he practically memorized the entire Lord of the Rings saga. (When the movies came out he called me and corrected each one in several hours’ worth of phone calls.) In the early 1990s an actor named Jeremy Brett introduced me to the magic of Shakespeare; through Brett I also discovered Daphne DuMaurier, and wrote an essay about “Rebecca” that won me a trip to England.
Much, much later i discovered two of the greatest writers ever–CS Lewis and Dorothy L. Sayers. I love them to this day. Well, I guess the trouble is that I never throw anything away, so these are all writers I still love to this day, and I’d have a darned hard time picking just one out of them all. My husband likes to say our house looks like there used to be a Blockbuster Video on one side of the house and a library on the other; a bomb went off, and our house was left with all the “detritus.”
LikeLike
Wow, Mel, that was a beautiful and informative piece you wrote! Could it be part of the prologue of a future novel about a youngster who grows up to become a famous writer or other literary figure of note? Only time will tell… Btw, most people, including yours truly, listed more than one author, so you’re fine on that score :). Thanks for the thoughtful response.
LikeLike
Reilly brown and Fabian nicieza they are co creators of a few Deadpool comics and are starting a small series called outrage they are an action comedy comic books (which I am addicted to) I just enjoy escaping reality to enjoy a good humorous read
LikeLike
I completely understand your love of comic books, Nicholas. When I was (ahem) a few years younger, I kept checking the neighborhood cigar store for the next issues of Captain Marvel, Wonder Woman, and Superman, to name just a few—don’t know the authors. Thanks for posting!
LikeLike
I like Sue Grafton for Murder mysteries. She wrote the alphabet murder series. She died 2 letters short of the whole alphabet.
I also enjoy a local author Carolyn Custis James, who is a pastor’s wife who is a Christian writer.
LikeLike
Hi, Sarina. I haven’t read any of Grafton’s books, but I read that her character, Kinsey Millhone, had a rough childhood. At the age of five, she was trapped with her dying parents in a car wreck for several hours and remembers her mother weeping softly. Wow!
Thanks so much for posting!
LikeLike