Who/What are your favorite author’s/books?

To start, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas is probably one of my favorite books of all time, though I haven’t really gotten into The Count of Monte Cristo.

I adore The Lord of the Rings, and most everything by Neil Gaiman, except Stardust. Vonnegut is a pretty interesting author. Oooh, oooh, and Artemis Fowl totally deserves to be mentioned. ;)

I love The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, not so much The Subtle Knife or The Amber Spyglass.

That’s exactly how I feel too.

Well, my favorites include:

-Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) – The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien) – The Silmarillion (J.R.R. Tolkien) – The Book Thief (Markus Zusak) – I Am The Messenger (Markus Zusak) – To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

And many more…

Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker Trilogy (which currently has six books…) is a favorite of mine (along with the aforementioned Tolkien, Austen, and Eoin Colfer). I also love the Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis (as well as most of the rest of his writing).

I’ll just say the unknown ones that need more attention since I have too many well-known favourites:

- From E to You by Chris d’Lacey and Linda Newberry. This is about an email exchange thing. The twist is that Chris writes the girl and Linda writes the guy, and it’s AWESOME.

- 45 + 47 Stella Street and everything that happened by Elizabeth Honey. Basically, the next-door neighbours are money-launderers and the narrator hooks you in with her chatty voice and awesome characters. Kid action story to the max, but it’s believable.

- Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox. The most lyrical prose, vibrant characters, creative plot, and interesting premise I’ve ever read, all in one book.

- I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith. Set in the 1930s (when the author was actually alive, too!) and about a girl and her impoverished family trying to make ends meet. Cassandra’s voice alone makes this novel amazing. Probably my favourite book of all time. JK Rowling loves this book, in case you need more incentive.

- Possibly ‘How I Live Now’ by Meg Rosoff. Daisy’s voice is unusual and fresh, and the writing is beautiful. The part that makes it a ‘possibly’ is that there’s a cousin/cousin thing happening there. But I can pretend that they aren’t related and that Edmond was adopted or something. Anyway, that’s not even what this book is about. Go read it and find out.

-‘Finding Cassie Crazy’ or ‘The Year of the Secret Assignments’ by Jacqueline Moriarty. Three girls end up doing a pen-pal assignment for school. Lydia’s the snarky one who gets along with Seb, the streetwise one. Charlie and Emily are the nice-people of the group. And then there’s Cassie, Lyd and Em’s friend, who’s been writing to somebody who may not even exist. Lydia and Em are getting worried. But the thing is, this plot is so hard to pin down, and it’s actually funny. It’s not ‘bittersweet’ (oh, how I loathe that word), it’s seriously, rip-roaringly funny. The whole thing ends up with a fake court case and it’s awesome beyond the extreme.

I think I have to stop now before I mention ‘The Screwtape Letters’ and ‘Enna Burning’ and… and…

A Madness of Angels, by Kate Griffin.
Sabriel, Lirael, and Abhorsen by Garth Nix.
Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
Mistborn, The Well of Ascension, and The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson.
Elantris by Brandon Sanderson (though not as much).
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas.

Pfft, being a fan of the books doesn’t make you a furry, that’s ridiculous.

Aw, crud, I still haven’t got Doomwyte. Guh, the trouble is, when I leave off buying books I want, it becomes a massive long list in the Amazon wishlist and the price becomes a heckuva lot scarier. :(

The Lord of the Rings
The Hobbit
The Silmarillion
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Prydain Chronicles
The Westmark trilogy
The Marvelous Misadventures of Sebastian
King of the Wind
The Misty trilogy, but especially the last one.
Pretty much anything else by Marguerite Henry, (especially The White Stallions of Lipizza and Brown Sunshine of Sawdust Valley
The Redwall books
The Great Divorce
A Tale of Two Cities
Ivanhoe
Jane Eyre
Anything nonfiction by C.S. Lewis.
The Screwtape Letters

Although there are a great many books that I truly love, I can never go past the first proper “grown up book” I ever read: The Hobbit. Beautiful in its simplicity, and nostalgia only makes it better.

I have to second Steph on I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith. I still have to go back and reread it. But she also wrote The New Moon with the Old, which I really enjoyed

Right now, the Rogue Agent series by K.E. Mills is up there.

So far my longest, consistently favorite series is Terry Pratchett’s Guards & Witch Discworld series.

Other than that I generally switch favorites too often, and I haven’t really read anything in the past year or so that sticks out too much, mostly because I’ve been reading pretty critically, and not among just my stand-bys. Although Seperation by Dan Franck turned out really well.

Well, I confess my “now” is at least six months old…it’s just been a long time since I read a book I just unqualifiedly enjoyed…or let myself enjoy anyway. I don’t remember the shouting, but yeah, some of the characters can be grating, though I still liked Gerald.

They might not be as high-brow as some of the authors in this thread, but I love Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Their novels are Crichton-esque, but better. (except, of course, for the recent Pendergast novels. those could stop and I wouldn’t be too upset)