What authors do you read?

[Guest Youth N Asia]

I'm pretty much just into horror...Bentley Little is the only one I read religiously...King, Koontz, and Saul have slacked off.

 

I'm not big into older books but I like what Steinbeck I've read.

 

you?

[Guest goodhelmet]

not really much into fiction but I really like Ernest Hemingway, Tom Wolfe, Hunter S. Thompson. One of the most provacative books I've ever read is The Labrynth of Solitude by Octavio Paz. Good read.

[Guest Kinetic]

Anything and everything by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

[Guest]

Micheal Chrichton. Jurrasic Park, Andromeda Strain, Congo, Lost World, Eaters of the Dead, and Sphere were all great books. Too bad half of his books were turned into crappy movies.

[Guest treble charged]

Anything and everything by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

My biology teacher talks about that guy all the time.  He always seems to use an idea from his book into one of the discussions we have in our class.

[Guest]

I noticed long ago that Kinetic was the coolest guy here, and now he's transcended awesomeness by posting what I was going to say.

 

Oh, and Treble Charged, your Biology teacher is the coolest mustard on the block by bringing the Undisputed Master of Literary Brilliance into discussions. When I teach history, I'll probably do that too.

 

Hell, I do it already when I talk to people.

[Guest treble charged]

I'll tell him that he's "cool mustard", I'm sure he'll appreciate that.

[Guest]

Aha, make sure to clarify that not only is he cool mustard, but the coolest on the block.

 

I'd appreciate it if someone told me that.

[Guest AlwaysPissedOff]

Eh, I read whatever strikes my fancy. I like Don Pendelton's Mack Bolan, SuperBolan(bigger books around 300-400 pages), and Stony Man. Also, I like fantasy like the LOTR series and comic book hardbacks. As far as horror goes, Dean Kootz rocks it along with MC's older stuff like Sphere(a GREAT book with a shitty movie. PG-13? WTF?), Jurassic Park, and Congo.

[Guest bps "The Truth" 21]

Lovecraft

[Guest Flyboy]

I really tend to Dean Kootz... he's the man.

[Guest]

Horror, scary. No, really. I don't do scary stuff, period. Especially books, things I read before I sleep.

 

I'm not big on the middle ages fantasy-type stuff either, and I don't really know why. I try to read it, but I can never get into it.

 

That and Science Fiction. I can kinda get into that, but it reaches a point where I either can't follow it anymore or even the author's overbearing descriptions of movements and settings and such can't keep me interested.

 

I just like general fiction, no particular genre. That and history books, obviously, since history rocks the party that rocks not only the body, but each cell of said body.

 

And yay, I'm Metal now. I'm on TV!

[Guest Kinetic]

The last great non-Vonnegut novel I read was F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is The Night.  Really good stuff, though it starts out a little slow.  Also, I really love Anne Tyler.  Her books are very PG-13, but they're brilliantly written and usually very touching.  And, of course, no music fanatic should be without his or her very own copy of Nick Hornby's High Fidelity.  I mostly read non-fiction, though.  I need to get a job where I can read more often.

[Guest cobainwasmurdered]

i'm a fantasy sci-fi freak: J.r.r. tolkien,robert jordan, stephan lawhead, micheal chricton(sp?), micheal A. Stackpole,

[Guest LooseCannon]

I read a lot.  Around 300 pgs a night, which usually breaks down to about 6-8 books a week.  I enjoy talking about books with people, but it's really really hard to find people who read much and then when I do they usually don't read the same type of stuff I do.  Though I'll read just about anything, (but not Oprah book club stuff nor most other popular genre type books), I mostly read non-fiction political science stuff, and fiction.  

Recently I've read Fight Club and Survivor by Chuck Palahnuik, In Search of Deep Throat by Leonard Garment, Less Than Zero by Brett Easton Ellis (have now read all of his works), re-read the Sound and the Fury by Faulkner (one of the few books I'll read over and over and over again), Barry Goldwater's Autobiography, and have been working on Tolstoy's War and Peace intermittently.  

Other authors I love are Vonnegut (though Player Piano was pretty weak), Gunther Grass, Martin Amis, Will Self, Hemingway, Checkov, Lu Xun, Victor Pelevin,  Nathaneal West, Albert Camus, Jaroslav Hasek, and probably a few others I can't think of right now.  Vonnegut, Grass, and Faulkner are my absolute favorites though, and I think the world would be a better place if everyone read Cat's Cradle by Vonnegut, the Tin Drum by Grass, and The Sound and the Fury by Faulkner.

[Guest phoenixrising]

I also read a lot, but when I do want to talk books with people I usually get "Oh, I don't read" or a laugh or something.  Of course I'm just graduating from college and textbooks have a way of turning readers off...funny thing I could never do the assigned reading yet always found time to polish off books I was reading on my own.

My favorite authors are Tom Clancy, Dale Brown, Harold Coyle (I am addicted to techno-thrillers - especially military ones), James Ellroy, and Mick Foley (yes I can say that with a straight face).

[Guest Mystery Eskimo]

IMO, you can't go wrong with the following...

 

Don DeLillo, C.P. Snow, Primo Levi, Bret Easton Ellis, Elmore Leonard, Steinbeck, Philip Dick, Robert Silverberg, Hemingway, David Lodge, Ian McEwan, Nick Hornby, Emile Zola, Henry James, Thomas Pynchon, William Burroughs...

[Guest converge241]

Bret easton Ellis, Philip K Dick and the second subject of this joke:Descartes walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Would you like a beer?"

Descartes says, "I think not." Descartes disappears.

 

Neitsche walks into a bar. The bartender says, "Would you like a beer?"

Neitsche says, "Hell, yes!  I saw what happened to Descartes!"

 

those are the only authors i "follow"

[Guest Red Hot Thumbtack In The Eye]

I don't as much as i probably should but i did love the entire 'Magic Kingdom' series by Terry Brooks.

[Guest Ace309]

James Morrow. It's bizarre, religious-oriented fiction. In one of his novels, God dies, and the body falls into the ocean. The Vatican contracts a lapsed Catholic to tow it to the arctic so it won't rot. Good stuff.

 

Also, can't go wrong with Hunter S. Thompson.

[Guest redbaron51]

I usually read magazine articles from Guitar One, and MacLaens. Though Penthouse is a must read for my penis.

 

But for Authors, I usually read Tom Clancy's novels. Patriot Games is probably one of the best books that I have ever read

[Guest]

Vonnegut is the Undisputer Master of Brilliance or whatever title I gave him earlier, but Hunter S. Thompson is the Duke of Brilliance, maybe Baron. Yes, Baron sounds cooler.

 

And Player Piano was NOT weak. It's just the most conventional-style book he's written. I was reading it as I was getting my first job at Harris Teeter two years ago(still there! Aw yeah!), and they told us all to refer to our superiors by their first names. I had just read the part where Proteus was instructed to do this that afternoon. It was scary, and I've noticed that the entire Harris Teeter corporate structure is turning into that book more and more by the day.

 

They have yet to boast endlessly about their vaccum tubes though.

[Guest converge241]

Though Penthouse is a must read for my penis.

 

lol

 

well i guess both heads need some literature

[Guest dreamer420]

hunter s. thompson

stephan king

[Guest Anorak]

He's not the most prolific author but Denis Johnson deserves a special mention. Whether it be short stories, larger novels or poems he's one of the best American writers of recent times. 'Already Dead' was the best book i've read in ages, it was the rare kind of book that enthralled you but was impossible to really describe to anyone because Johnson's writing style isn't conforming towards any trend or relying on glib archetypes. Every author takes on some influences of course, that's unavoidable, but Johnson is deserving of his plaudits where many others are not.

 

I like reading a lot of sports related books and there are a lot of talented people out there who don't get half the recognition many average 'regular fiction' writers get.

I'm not the biggest fan of Hornby, i think 'Fever Pitch' is a much richer novel than 'High Fidelity' but i guess a lot of people think the opposite because they aren't big football fans. Football naturally inspires the best sports related writing and novels because the game has so much cultural significance for people around the world. The game can act as a backdrop for an exploration of social history and the like, as we all know sport and politics go hand in hand anyway.

 

This thread could not have been more perfectly timed for me as i've got some book tokens to use and i'll be investigating some of the more unfamiliar names you lot have brought up.

[Guest The Vanilla Midget]

good fantasy novels here:

Tolkien

George r.r. martin

Robert Jordan

Terry Goodkind

Raymond e. feist

just to name a few

[Guest]

Iain Banks, his science fiction books are top nothc for me and really get good background notions into the fore no matter what.

 

Terry Pratchett, the Discworld series is just so damn funny and a joy to read. While it may not have any relevance to real life most of the time, it's just really witty and cool.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

I unfortunately rarely read outside of required school reading on my own time.  Like my guitar, it's something I really like to do, and when I get around to doing it I do it for hours straight, but unless someone orders me to read or I have to do it for a class or something it's just not something that pops into my head as something to do.  You can place the blame for that on computers and the internet, with movies as a secondary scapegoat, respectively.  Now then...

 

Even when I used to read a lot, I didn't usually follow books by a favorite author, but by favorite title.  The only author that I've consistently read from by name alone (besides R.L. Stein, but that was years ago) is John Steinbeck, even if it did take me months to read Of Mice and Men, one of his shorter books.

 

As for Kurt Vonnegut, I've heard a lot about him but have never read any of his books.  Can you give some titles and maybe short plot summaries? Who knows, I might even go to the library for the first time since I was a high school sophomore...

[Guest The Man in Blak]

The big Vonnegut book that I've heard about is Slaughterhouse Five, which I really need to sit down and read some time.

 

Unfortunately, I'm not a real big "author" reader, as the only authors I've read multiple works from are Michael Crichton (who, indeed, does have about the worst book-to-movie transition rate ever) and Anne Rice (past the Vampire Lestat, run away).  Otherwise, the works that I've read by Tolkien, William Gibson (Neuromancer), Ray Kurzweil (The Age of the Spiritual Machines), Ray Coleman (the Lennon biography), and Frank Herbert (Dune) have been excellent.