Although I did not start this thread I thought it was a good one. Mine are William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski and Hubert Selby,Jr.

Stephen King, Arthur Nersesian, J.G. Ballard, and Chuck Palahniuk

Dean Koontz


Other authors I like to read:

Stephen King
Michael Crichton
Robert R. McCammon

Give me some similar author suggestions. I'm a modern fiction whore. ;)

Terry Brooks and Piers Anthony in the SciFi/Fantasy realm.

Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Collin Dexter in the Mystery realm.

Stephen King for Horror.

I can never pick a favorite, but i like:

John Irving
Jeanette Winterson
Jonathan Lethem
Paul Auster
Martin Amis
Nick Hornby
Jim Thompson

Overall it's Ernest Hemingway, but I also really like Nick Hornby and P.J. O'Rourke. And Dave Barry's books crack me up.

John Steinbeck

Like I said before: Joseph Conrad, Frank Herbert, and C.S.Lewis in particular. But there are many more.

Tuan Jim

John Irving, Dickens, T.C. Boyle, Vonnegut, Stephen King, Anne Tyler, Cormac McCarthy, Jim Thompson and lots of others.

I think you guys are all forgetting last weeks Pulitzer Prize winner, <b>Michael Chabon</b> who wrote <i>The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Wonder Boys, & The Mysteries of Pittsburg.</i>

That's a hard one.

F. Paul Wilson, Glen Cook, Terry Goodkind, Heinlein and so many more for the fantasy and sci-fi.

Others include Clive Barker, Ayn Rand (I'm almost too ashamed to admit that, heh) and a few others. Those are the more favorite ones.

J.R.R. Tolkien

Impossible to choose a true favorite though.

Steven Brust
R.A. Salvatore's a close, close second.

Check out his website:

home.earthlink.net/~mchabon

Margaret Atwood, Margaret Laurence, and Alasdair MacLeod for depth and elegance of language

Diana Gabaldon for pure thrill and kilt fantasies. ;)

Jilly Cooper and Helen Fielding for humour.

And pretty much anything I can get my hands on that doesn't bite back...i'm really not a picky reader.

If forced to pick a favorite, I'd have to say David Foster Wallace. I also like Jonathan Lethem, Rick Moody, Nick Hornby and many others. Don't really know what this forum is like yet, but I'll apologize up front for them all being so contemporary.

E.M Forster is my all time favorite author. Brilliant and beautiful books, great reads.

Two more for the list
 

James Crumley ( either The Last Good Kiss or Dancing Bear) and James Lee Burke's novels featuring Dave Robicheaux - specifically 'In the Electric Mist with the Confederate Dead'. The title alone is worth the money.

Isaac Asimov
Robert Heinlein
Tom Clancy

I can always pick up a Dean Koontz book and always enjoy it. Irvine Welsh is close to the top, also.


Drew

Douglas Adams, Tim O'Brien, Stephen King, Tony Hillerman, E.L. Doctorow, Nick Hornby, Chuck Palahniuk.

heimerSWT: You may also like Dan Simmons, especially Summer of Night. It's very comparable to It and Boy's Life. Also, check out anything by Bentley Little. For something similar to Crichton, I recommend Pierre Ouellette's The Deus Machine, about artificial intelligence and biological warfare gone amuck. It's out of print, but you can find used copies at half.com.

Darin

I like this guy, a friend of mine gave me a copy of London Fields and I was hooked from there. I tried getting some of my other friends to read him, but they keep saying he is boring.

"It's kegged innit"

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Harlan "bugf*ck" Ellison!

for the story "Jefty is Five" alone.

Tom Robbins

followed closely by

Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Milan Kundera
Nikos Kazantzakis

Tough question! In no order:

Stephen King
Kurt Vonnegut
Philip K Dick
Michael Crichton