Favorite Authors
 

I think it would be cool to discuss each other's favorite authors and books and such. Like the book club forum, but not a club where we all read one book and stuff.

My favorite author is Anne Rice

Anyone here an Anne Rice fan? She's very popular for her Vampire books, which include Interview with the Vampire, Queen of the Damned, and is also the author of several other horror/occult books. Wonderful, often controversial author, writes beautifully and very descriptively, and will make you fall in love with New Orleans, her home city and setting for almost every book.

Of her aprox. 25 bestselling books, I've read:

Books 1-4 of the Vampire Chronicles:

Interview with the Vampire
The Vampire Lestat
The Queen of the Damned
The Tale of the Body Thief

I've also read The Witching Hour, Lasher, and am currently reading Taltos. These three are from her series "The Lives of the Mayfair Witches." which is excellent and involves 13 generations of the Mayfair family and a mysterious ghost that haunts them.

If you're not a fan yet of Anne Rice and would like to check her out, I suggest reading Interview With the Vampire first as it is her very first book. The Witching Hour is also excellent and is the book where I really fell in love with her writing. You may find her writing challenging at first because her writing style is like no other in that it is so descriptive, but stick with it and you won't be dissapointed.

I've read a couple of Anne Rice's books.. Interview with a Vampire and one other (can't recall the name, but it was the sequel to Interview with a Vampire).

My favorites are detective series:

James Patterson with his Alex Cross detective series books, Kiss the Girls, Along Came a Spider, etc. I just bought the one he wrote before his first Alex Cross (but has just released). He has done two books now about kids who can fly and I read the first one and couldn't get into it. He also started a series about 4 women who solve crimes together, but he seems to have dropped it.

Patricia Cornwell with her Kay Scarpetta series. I love all of those. I haven't liked some of her books that aren't Kay Scarpetta books.

John Sandford's "Prey" series.. amazing, can't wait until there's a new one of those for me to read!

Tami Hoag writes good crime/mystery books as well. Still Waters, Lucky's Lady, all good!

I tend to go with an author for a period of time, read everything I can find of theirs, in the order written, then find a new one. Especially with the Alex Cross, Kay Scarpetta and Lucas Davenport books, I get attached to the characters.

Dee

My taste in authors is quite varied. My all time favorite author is F. Scott Fitzgerald followed closely by John Steinbeck.

I also love Anne Rice (The Witching Hour is my favorite, then Queen of the Damned)

Pike1483, have you read Christopher Rice's (Anne's son) book, "A Density of Souls"? If not, I recommend it. It is an absorbing story and he writes very well! I was pleasantly surprised.

Alexandra Ripley is another favorite and I'll admit to a certain fondness for Danielle Steel and Judith Krantz :)

I love Diana Gabaldon right now. I'm reading her 5th book, The Fiery Cross, and I don't want to finish it since the next book in the series isn't out yet.

JK Rowling is wonderful too. :)

I love Anne Rice books! She can give me such a case of the willies while reading her vampire lore.

I'm also a fan of John Grisham, Tom Clancy (thanks, Daddy), Helen Fielding (the Bridget Jones author), Frances Hodgson Burnett (The Secret Garden and A Little Princess), Henry Miller, George Orwell, the Bronte sisters, and Aldous Huxley.

KillarneyRose,

Nope, I have not read any of Christopher Rice's works yet, but I'd like too. I've heard good things. I'm currently in the middle of Taltos , the last in the Mayfair Witches Saga.

AGDee,
I'm a big fan of James Patterson, too. If any of you haven't read him yet, you should really check him out. His books go by at rocket-pace and keep you guessing 'till the end. Excellent suspense, short chapters, the pages will keep on turning. He's almost as good as Thomas Harris (The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal, Red Dragon), and he writes far more books.

My favorite author:
Alexandra Robbins






























just kidding

The usual suspects...

W.E.B Griffin, author of military fiction (The Corps, Brotherhood of War)

Tom Clancy (I like his early novels, but lately he's not as good as he once was.)

Harry Turtledove, author of sci-fi alternate history (his American Empire series is really good)

Ian Fleming, author of the original James Bond novels.

For Your Consideration:
 

Paul Beatty

http://aalbc.com/authors/images/paulbeatty.jpg

Author of The White Boy Shuffle. From Amazon.com: This is a laugh-out-loud first novel, but be forewarned: Paul Beatty's humor is literate, but in- your-face outrageous. The faint of heart (or politically correct) should stay away. The White Boy Shuffle is a gleefully satiric gloss on black history and culture, featuring a main character named Gunnar (as in Myrdal) Kaufman, descendant of Euripides Kaufman, who stood aside and let Crispus Attucks get shot during the Boston Massacre, and Swen Kaufman, who--in an unfortunate reversal-- escaped south from freedom into slavery. Elsewhere, it features a character who attends Dred Scott High School, and another who works for the Department of Visual Segregation in Nashville, Tennessee, painting "Whites Only" and "Colored Only" signs.

Second Novel was Tuff. From Amazon.com: Weighing in at 320 pounds, Winston “Tuffy” Foshay, is an East Harlem denizen who breaks jaws and shoots dogs and dreams of millions from his idea Cap’n Crunch: The Movie, starring Danny DeVito. His best friend is a disabled Muslim who wants to rob banks, his guiding light is an ex-hippie Asian woman who worked for Malcolm X, and his wife, Yolanda, he married from jail over the phone. Shrewdly comical as this dazzling novel is, it turns acerbically sublime when the frustrated Tuffy agrees to run for City Council. Smartly irreverent and edgily fierce, Tuff is a bona fide original.

My absolute favorite author is Maeve Binchy. I got hooked on her books in college, and I've read every one so far. I think Oprah likes her, too.

Dave Eggers, JD Salinger, Barbara Kingsolver and Jack Kerouac.

We are talking mind candy, aren't we?
 

Maeve Binchy has NO bad books! If she had been born 200 years ago, she would have been the Village Story Teller - she has that natural storytelling gene that is lacking from most other authors.

I also like Lillian Jackson Braun ("The Cat Who", Thomas Gifford ("The Assassini"), Sue Grafton (The alphabet murders, ie "I is for Innocent"), Greg Iles "Dead Sleep", Ann Rule "The Stranger Beside Me"), and so many more deserving authors.

Oh, one surprise is Fanny Flagg. She's best known for "Fried Green Tomatoes" but her other books are good, too!

Obviously, I love to read, and have some sort of book with me at all times.

I don't really have a favourite author. I usually read whatever strikes my fancy at the time.

However I really do enjoy Dan Brown and J.K Rowling (I'm a huge Harry Potter Fan) and Margaret Atwood.

My favorites:

JK Rowling
Danielle Steel (yes I am a major fan!)
John Grisham
Terry McMillan
E. Lynn Harris

What??? She's not your favourite? I thought she was everyone's favourite. I am mad at myself for leaving her off my list :D