My Favorite Authors OF ALL TIME

As a fiction novel enthusiast, when I'm inevitably asked who my favorite author is, I can quickly descend into a guilt-filled frenzy of trying to work out which authors have stuck with me over the years, which authors have written characters that changed my outlook on life, which authors have the most affecting prose... and so on. But in taking a deep breath and examining my home book shelf I notice that five authors stand out and have stuck with me over the years.

So here are my Top Five Favorite Authors OF ALL TIME, in order:

No. Five - Laura Lippman

Now, Lippman is the most recent discovery on this list. I picked up Sunburn from the new book shelf at my local library last summer on a complete whim and read it in a single setting. I had not read a lot of suspense/thriller/mystery novels and she sent me into a frenzy of reading not only her books, but branching out into other books in this genre and I'm pretty hooked to this day. What is so engaging about Lippman are her characters. She gets deep into the heads of so many characters, they all feel so real, so tangible, so 4D.

Her books are set in Baltimore and center around a crime. Typically, the crime happens either at the front of the book, or it's discovered through character recollection and revealing what the original crime was and who was responsible for it. Don't take my horrible attempt at explaining her magic to heart. Let her books speak for themselves!

The odd thing for me about her, though, is the one character I don't enjoy is the one that is recurring in her books: private investigator Tess Monaghan. I can't put my finger on why I don't like this particular character, but I don't. I much prefer Lippman novels where Tess is not present. But outside of that odd little hiccup, her books are amazing.

Favorite Book: I'd Know You Anywhere

No. 4 - Francesca Lia Block

A friend in middle school introduced me to the pure magic that is Francesca Lia Block books. The first book I read was I Was a Teenage Fairy and there was no looking back. Describing Block's prose as 'poetic' is cheap and tawdry as there just aren't words to describe how beautiful, elevated, and mythological her word choice and rhythm is. I re-read her books when I want to be taken away on a magic carpet ride of emotion, sights, scents, sounds, and humanity. 

She's branched out a lot from her typical YA novels of girls living a highly Bohemian existence in California, dealing with love lost and teenage woes. I'm currently reading Teen Spirit which is nothing at all like her usual writing and I am still enjoying it quite a bit. She is most known for her Weetzie Bat books, all centering around a cast of characters who are so alive and yet feel often like shimmering mirages on the desert sands. Beautiful and just out of reach of reality. I can't recommend her enough. 

Favorite Book: I Was a Teenage Fairy

No. 3 - S.E. Hinton

I first read The Outsiders in middle school and no, it wasn't for a school assignment. I read it because my mother described it as her favorite book, a book she had read in school that stuck with her through the years. My mother is not a huge reader so I thought this book must be something special. And it is! PonyBoy and the Greasers clashing with the Socs is another telling of Romeo and Juliet on the surface. But the impressive framing device and dark parts in the book make it so much more than that! I related some to PonyBoy and all of the characters are so real and interesting. I was in love with them all by the end of the book. 

I also love that Hinton is a woman and wrote The Outsiders while she herself was in high school. She used her initials as a pen name just so she could sell more books and have a better chance at being published if the public thought she was a male author. I think that is so clever and impressive at her age and experience level. The fact that the book is written from a male's point of view and never once feels forced or unnatural speaks to Hinton's genius. 

I have read a few of her books and have loved them all. If you haven't read The Outsiders since high school, I recommend a re-read. It's great and holds up!

Favorite Book: The Outsiders

No. 2 - Neil Gaiman

I was first introduced to Neil Gaiman through the masterful novel he co-wrote with my all-time favorite author: Terry Pratchett. The novel was called Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch. Having read Pratchett so much, I could easily determine what had come from his voice and what had come from this 'other writer'. And I found that I enjoyed just as much the parts contributed from this 'other writer'. The next time I went to my favorite bookstore at the time (Walden Books in the River Falls Mall) I sought out the name Neil Gaiman. The first book to catch my eye was Neverwhere. I purchased it and read it in probably one sitting. It was one of the best books I'd ever read and I was transformed by it.

I still remember my favorite line of dialog, and it's the only book I've ever read where something has worn itself to my memory that I can recite it verbatim (save for the one time as a child I had to memorize Bible verses for Vacation Bible School):

“What's it like then?" asked Old Bailey. "Being dead?"
The marquis sighed. And then he twisted his lips up into a smile, and with a glitter of his old self, he replied, "Live long enough, Old Bailey, and you can find out for yourself.”
― Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

 

I adore Gaiman's cleverness, his humor, his insight. His worlds and stories are so layered and textured that they feel like they've been around since forever. They don't feel like stories created in the twenty-first century, they feel ancient, true, and deep. I believe Gaiman's fables and tales, despite that I find them in the fiction section at the library. His prose is wonderful and I don't think there's any like him in the world.

Favorite Book: a close tie between Neverwhere and American Gods

No. 1 - Sir Terry Pratchett

My mother used to buy me boxes, yes boxes, of books from yard sales when I was a kid. My reading habit was so voracious that buying brand new books or driving back and forth to the library as often as I wanted would have put us out of house and home. So these boxes of miscellaneous chapter books would be plopped onto the floor in the center of my room and I'd dig through to see if anything caught my fancy. 

 

I remember one of these boxes containing, Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett. I was probably seven or eight years old. I attempted to read it, but the vocabulary was a bit above my station and I got frustrated and tossed it into the back of my closet along with the other books in the yard sale boxes that didn't tickle my fancy. One lazy summer day years later as I was tasked with cleaning my room, including my closet, I came across this book and something nudged me to open it up and try reading it again. I tore through it. I couldn't get enough. 

 

This quirky world, the Discworld, riddled with British humour and surreal situations, word play and puns, intriguing characters (I especially loved Angua, the female werewolf on the police force in Ankh-Morpork) caught my attention and imagination this time and a life-long Pratchett fan was born. I remember going to the library to see what else was out there and an entire shelf littered with the prose of Pratchett. I was hooked. I read Discworld novel after Discworld novel, attempting to read them at first in chronological date by publication, but realizing that it's not necessary to do so, each book holds it's own, but also that waiting to get my hands on a specific tome was a task too arduous for me. I just had to read them. 

 

For a long time, Pratchett was all I read. Nothing else would satisfy. Eventually, JK Rowling came along, and other genres and authors, but Pratchett always stands as the king of my reading list. I have a bookshelf, almost two, dedicated to just his works. It is littered with figurines to commemorate characters in the books (I have an orangutan figure that as soon as I laid eyes on it didn't register to me as an orangutan. I thought immediately, "Oh, a figure of the Librarian". He sits proudly atop a pile of Discworld novels.) 

 

When Pratchett passed away, I was heartbroken. No more new Discworld novels. And to this day, even though I bought it immediately upon it's release, I have yet to read The Shepherd's Crown, Pratchett's final Discworld novel. I know it will be emotional to read and I'm still not ready for it. But one day. One day, I will. 

 

Favorite Book: close tie between Mort and Hogfather and Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch