Pages

June 4, 2009

Authors That Stick

From Booking Through Thursday: “This can be a quick one. Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.”

How about authors instead?

1. Shakespeare, especially Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Midsummer Nights Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Richard III, and, well, ok all of them.

2. Dan Simmons, especially the science fiction.

3. Harlan Ellison, loved the stories, cracked up at the essays.

4. Garcia Marquez, like Poe, slipped right into my subconscious.

5. Carl Sagan, has always been a light in the darkness for me.

6. Kurt Vonnegut. I still haven't gotten over missing him when he came to my town due to a prior commitment. Sigh.

7. Lewis Carroll, obviously.

8. Mark Twain, and I find my self going back to his essays now.

9. E. B. White. I'll read anything he writes. It doesn't matter. It's all good.

10. Stephen King. Not all of it, but much of it is better than you remember. The opposite of Poe, brought everything into the real world.

11. Ray Bradbury. Sometimes his purplish prose stifled, but generally I loved him--especially October Country and Something Wicked This Way Comes. And 451, of course.

12. Some of John Irving, especially Cider House Rules.

13. Paul Fleishman, another amazing children's novelist.

14. Most of Richard Dawkins. So smart and so well written.

15. Toni Morrison. Beloved was one of the few books I turned right back to page one and started again. Sula is probably my favorite, though. Song of Solomon was my first and I immediately connected her to Garcia Marquez and Faulkner.

I could go on, but 15 is a good place to quit. Can't wait to hear yours.