Ayn Rand--totally agree on this one. Her philosophy/fiction style is amazing--very heavy reading though. I think Atlas Shrugged one of the greatest books ever.

Re: Favorite Authors
 

+1 for Ayn Rand. James Mischner also comes to mind. I still read Atlas Shrugged every 5-10 years.

My favorites are the ones that make me look the smartest....those ones.

Cormac McCarthy, Larry Brown and Patrick O'Brien

+1 Mandatory reading for any fan of sportscars. Especially great reading for a Sunday afternoon at Lime Rock.

Herman Wouk. Inside Outside is amazing. The Winds of War and War and Remembrance are much better than the miniseries.

Douglas Adams. Read him first in high school and college when my vocabulary was forming. Still can't shake the phrases I picked up reading those books. But I know where my towel is.

Robert Caro. His biography of Lyndon Johnson is like watching the man walk again. David McCullough. His biographies of Truman, et al have the same effect as Caro's.

William Penn Warren. Reading All The King's Men is like drinking single barrel bourbon drop by drop.

Alexander Dumas, A Conan Doyle, Edgar Allan Poe, William Chandler. And Len Deighton for his Bernard Sampson series.

I just read Hells Angles and I all can say is what an awesome life he lead.

If I haven't found something at the library after ten minutes I check if I've missed anything by Elmore Leonard. No TV, so 3 or 4 books every two weeks.
Jim

1. Cormac McCarthy. If you haven't read the Border Trilogy, you haven't read.

a very distant 2nd: Robertson Davies. The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks is priceless.

tom wolfe

Neal Stephenson- Cryptonomicon and Snow Crash are in my collection of "Books I will never sell or donate"

Ever read 'Don't Stop The Carnival'? I think that's my favorite and I've never seen a copy besides the one I own. Not sure it's still in print.

I enjoy Vonnegut, D. Adams, Asimov, Heinlein, Heller, some Rand, Alistair Maclean and Stephen Ambrose. I could go on forever . . .

Okay, no one has mentioned Terry Pratchett or Lee Child. Then, if you want to go back a bit, Russell Hoban's Riddley Walker was just an incredible piece of work. Patrick O'Brian was one of the greats, as was Raymond Chandler, and Elmore Leonard may still be. Faulkner once said that Hemingway never went out on a limb, and he was probably right that time. ....I'm still making up my mind about Thomas Pynchon...

Good thread--may keep me from wandering around B@N for an hour with nothing purchased.

Rand, Bill Bryson, Dave Eggers. Would like to hear of similar writers - particularly Bryson.

TG

+1 for Vonnegut and Asimov. Also Ken Follett, Ludlum and le Carre.

This guy...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1282374184.jpg

I like Elmore Leonard. Check out the tv show "Justified" which is based on his characters and has a lot of the same attitude; combines two of his strengths - crime and westerns.

I like Chandler and Hammett as well, but my favorite modern is probably Lawrence Block, the Scudder and Rhodenbarr books. I also like Walter Moseley.

For action, I like Stephen Hunter's "Sniper" series with Bob Lee Swagger. The first book was recently made into the movie "Shooter" with Mark Wahlberg, which didn't do it justice.

For fun, nothing cracks me up like PG Wodehouse, but I've got a lot of SJ Perelman, too.

And while the first book I downloaded to my iPad was "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance," what I re-read almost every year is "The Razor's Edge" by W Somerset Maugham. Trivia: BIll Murray only did the Ghostbusters sequel to do a(nother) movie version of it (which was awful, btw).

+1
I've been thinking of a way to characterize Rand since there has been so much said about her here lately. You hit it on the head. Thanks.
I like F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Steinbeck, and Joyce Carol Oates for their characters.
I love Mitchener and Larry McMurtry for their big stories - epics almost.
Lately I've been reading Mary Roach. "Stiff" and "Packing for Mars" are both funny and informative.

Absolutely. I don't read a lot of fiction, but I love his stuff.

Interesting thread...I know most of the authors posted above, not all.

I have been on a bit of a retro trip as of late, re-reading many of the books the Penguins insisted I become familiar with in HS, then the college mill.

Travels With Charlie was a huge disappointment. Of Mice and Men will make a strong man cry. East of Eden, amazing. Cannery Row. Rose of Sharon Jode...wow.

Islands in the Stream was great. The Sun Also Rises was riveting.

Willa Cather's three seminal books were all excellent...unsparing.

Faulkner scares me...I read Light in August, Absalom, Absalom! and Requiem for a Nun under the covers.

Cormac is the best...every last word.

Twain...most of his stuff.

Pretty much it for the last year, with new folks sprinkled in.