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Who's your favorite author?

Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 1:34 am
by Euclidthegreek
I prefer non-fiction, so when I read fiction, it tends toward things that have an interesting plot and are witty, rather than anything particularly serious. I like Terry Pratchett, Jasper Fforde, and Daniel Pinkwater.* I also like Raymond Chandler, Douglas Adams, and the Harry Potter series. I do occasionally read more serious books (I've liked Hesse and Kafka).

My favorite non-fiction***( writer is Ian Stewart. I would highly recommend his novel Flatterland**** to anyone with any interest in Mathematics.

* I know he mostly writes children's** books, shut up shut up.
** His "young adult" novels are pretty much the only members of the Genre that I can stand.
*** Mostly, but not entirely
**** Incidentally,I am named in honour of a character from the book

Re: Who's your favorite author?

Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 3:55 am
by Oldrac the Chitinous
Euclidthegreek wrote:Raymond Chandler
Hooray++
(Matey.)

Re: Who's your favorite author?

Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 4:16 am
by smiley_cow
I'm quite fond of Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams, Oscar Wilde, Voltaire, Charles Dickens and James Joyce. My favourite children's authors (because I believe children's books are good enough to deserve their own section) include Peter S. Beagle, Phillip Reeve, Diana Wynne Jones and Gail Carson Levine.

I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple of good ones, but that's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Re: Who's your favorite author?

Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 5:10 am
by LordRetard
My favourite authors are Kafka and Camus. I read a lot of Murakami but mostly because it's easy to read. I will also admit to owning every Harry Potter book. Douglas Adams shouldn't need mentioning but I may as well. I'm also a big fan of Dave Barry's newspaper column, if that counts; I still think he's one of the funniest people around. Melville is pretty good. I'm reading something by Sartre right now and totally, seriously digging it. Márquez is pretty cool. Bob Powers is also really funny, and he totally counts since he has a couple of books out now. There are individual books and stories that normally I'd single out but I think that defeats the point of "favourite author".

Re: Who's your favorite author?

Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 5:28 am
by Rainbow
Euclidthegreek wrote:I prefer non-fiction, so when I read fiction, it tends toward things that have an interesting plot and are witty, rather than anything particularly serious. I like Terry Pratchett, Jasper Fforde, and Daniel Pinkwater.* I also like Raymond Chandler, Douglas Adams, and the Harry Potter series. I do occasionally read more serious books (I've liked Hesse and Kafka).

My favorite non-fiction***( writer is Ian Stewart. I would highly recommend his novel Flatterland**** to anyone with any interest in Mathematics.

* I know he mostly writes children's** books, shut up shut up.
** His "young adult" novels are pretty much the only members of the Genre that I can stand.
*** Mostly, but not entirely
**** Incidentally,I am named in honour of a character from the book
I just spent a good minute thinking I was seeing colors go by looking at the d. I'm only kinda glad I'm not crazy.

Re: Who's your favorite author?

Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 5:40 am
by Euclidthegreek
It was an edit. "I've like Hesse and Kafka" makes no sense.

Re: Who's your favorite author?

Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 8:56 am
by Kimra
I prefer childrens books or 'Young Adult' books. I find a great deal of enjoyment in them and have a pile of them that I will read after finishing 1984.*

My favourite author is Tamora Pierce. Young Adults/Childrens books.

Other authors I love? Neil Gaiman is legendary, so is William Goldman.

That's all I can think of for now.

*why yes I'm proud of reading this book and will name drop it every chance I get until I've actually gotten to the end of it.

Re: Who's your favorite author?

Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 1:27 pm
by smiley_cow
LordRetard wrote:My favourite authors are Kafka and Camus.
True story. Because of your constant praise of Camus I actually went out and bought L'etranger, which I plan to read right after I'm done the book I'm currently reading. It cost me $.51 at value village.* Probably the only place in the entire city that had it.

So you know, if I hate it, you totally owe me $.51.

Re: Who's your favorite author?

Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 7:00 pm
by LordRetard
smiley_cow wrote:True story. Because of your constant praise of Camus I actually went out and bought L'etranger, which I plan to read right after I'm done the book I'm currently reading. It cost me $.51 at value village.* Probably the only place in the entire city that had it.

So you know, if I hate it, you totally owe me $.51.
It's a good book, so you won't regret it. But if you do, you can pay to travel to Toronto and I'll gladly hand over the 51 cents! Does no one out of 40 thousand people like to read books? Maybe you should think about shopping online more often.

Re: Who's your favorite author?

Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 10:30 pm
by smiley_cow
We have three or four bookstores here, and they're great if you're looking for the latest Oprah book. Not so good if you're looking for something decent. Not to mention Value Village is also the only place in town that has books in French (like an entire shelf last time I checked!). Which is awful, because there's easily enough francophones to support carrying at least some French books (I'm looking at you public library who has a Spanish section and still no French books).

Re: Who's your favorite author?

Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 2:32 am
by LordRetard
Yeah, that's weird; just about every Toronto library has a French section. My library has a Tibetan section. Aren't you jealous?

Re: Who's your favorite author?

Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 3:50 am
by Apocalyptus
LordRetard wrote: Aren't you jealous?
No. ++

Re: Who's your favorite author?

Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 4:30 am
by smiley_cow
LordRetard wrote:Yeah, that's weird; just about every Toronto library has a French section. My library has a Tibetan section. Aren't you jealous?
To be fair, there are definitely a lot more native Spanish Speakers than French here. And Chinese speakers, and German speakers actually now that I think of it. But there's still quite a few francophones (just in my circle I know Francophones from Ontario, Quebec, Haiti, Belgium, Mauritius, France, various parts of Africa and one or two Metis) and you would think as one of the official languages, what with all the 'we have a right to all public services in both English and French, etc...' in our constitution there'd be at least a couple of French books in the Library. But no, apparently it doesn't work like that. I actually think, despite what other Canadians say, that I would thoroughly enjoy living in Toronto.

tl;dr? Yes. Very jealous.

Re: Who's your favorite author?

Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 4:43 am
by Oldrac the Chitinous
It's my opinion that tl;dr is still too long, and could be further shortened to ~r.

Re: Who's your favorite author?

Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2009 4:54 am
by LordRetard
I definitely don't see what's so bad about living in the big city. If there is something so terrible that you cannot stand living, yet must visit; then you can live in the suburbs, easily.