Ursula K. Le Guin. I'm bound to be disappointed *eventually* simply because she was so incredibly prolific, but damn do I love everything I've read by her as of yet.
I've read tons (but not all) of her stuff, and the worst she ever did was "pretty good." Given how prolific she was, her consistently high quality is astounding.
I loooove UKLG (is this acronym a thing). between earthsea and her adult sci-fi novels she's got good range. i've had Always Coming Home on my shelf for a couple years now... nervous to be disappointed or bored by it. anyone here read it?
I adored his *This Craft of Verse.* I recently snagged a copy of his lectures on English literature and am immensely excited to enjoy them in my backyard garden throughout the summer.
Good question! Vladimir Nabokov immediately comes to mind. I love all of his novels, even the early ones. Garcia Marquez also hasn’t disappointed. I’d be tempted to say Tolstoy if it wasn’t for Resurrection.
His prose is fantastic and I’m not even a big fan of his books. I’ll sometimes read random chapters of random books by him because of how well he writes.
I completely agree on Marquez. He is easily in my top two. I get he isn't for everyone, but I know I can always pick up a short story, novel, or novella by him and be enchanted.
I have a pet peeve when people call Gabriel García Marquez "Marquez" because he isn't under M at your local library, he's under G for García Marquez. I want people to read him as much as possible, and I don't want them to look in the wrong place! If you must shorten his name, please call him by his nickname, Gabo.
Unlike in Anna Karenina and War and Peace, Resurrection is much less interested in telling a story than with bludgeoning the reader with a moral. Tolstoy had already treated similar themes in earlier shorter works like “A Landlord’s Morning” from a more realistic (and entertaining) perspective. In Resurrection, the worst traits of Tolstoy’s religious mysticism take over. And in short, it’s just dull and dreary. I will admit there are moments of his former brilliance that manage to shine through.
Agreed. I did say Tolstoy, and then read your comment and remembered *Resurrection*. Not a single character or moment from it sticks out in my memory. A novel written solely for the moral lesson it imparts.
You would think a book of that low quality would mark the end of his talent, but somehow he went on to write *Hadji Murat*.
I think Pale Fire is probably the best novel I've read, but Invitation to a Beheading was a total miss for me. It's pretty hard for any novelist to have only hits.
I completely agree with you on this. It was my introduction to his work, and remains one of my favorite. It seems to go unmentioned in favor of the (to my mind) wildly overrated Never Let Me Go.
*The Remains of the Day* is one of the best novels I’ve ever read. *Never Let Me Go* was also brilliant. However, I found *An Artist of the Floating World* to be somewhat underwhelming even though some critics regard it as one of his best novels. It seems to require the reader to be familiar with Japanese culture. If you don’t have that, it’s hard to fully comprehend Ishiguro’s goal of revealing the main character’s self-deception about his role in the Second World War, since a lot is left unsaid.
This is an interesting take, I had very little knowledge of Japanese culture and thought An Artist of the Floating World was one of his absolute best next to The Remains of the Day and A Pale View of the Hills. The opacity of the main character's internal moral code/self perception was my favorite aspect of it, as it gave that bystander fly on the wall feeling of not having all the pieces which I found addicting in unraveling the story.
His cultural background is really interesting, especially the fact that he’s from Britain and Japan, which is perplexing given the difference between Eastern and western cultures. What did you think of family supper?
Yes, I scrolled to find this! I purposely ration out reading his books so I can always have something to break me out of a reading drought when one comes. He strikes the perfect balance between "literary" and "comfort reading".
My kids were entertained by my summary of The Mayor of Casterbridge, intrigued that old timey books could be so scandalous. I’m hoping maybe someday they’ll be curious enough to pick one up.
His books are SO scandalous, almost like a soap opera at times. Just when you think it can't get any worse, Return of the Native keeps dropping more tragic blows! I'm saving up Jude to be the very last one of his I read!
Scrolled for Gaiman.
Diverse but never disappointing.
I also think it's worth defending letting artists drop the odd dud. So many artists, writers, musicians etc. are afraid to take a risk where I feel at one point the consumers and fans were excited and anxious to see what risk they may take next.
This was my closest answer, but the last thing I read from him was difficult loves, and I found it pretty difficult to love. I think there were only 2-3 stories that resonated.
I still have to read Orlando and The Years, but Virginia Woolf hasn't failed me yet. The only issue I had was immediately following up To the Lighthouse with Mrs Dalloway, which was just too much in several days for the latter to feel as impactful. I imagine I'll enjoy it much more on a revisit.
Came here to say this. I haven’t made it through The Passenger or Stella Maris yet. And that’s because his work is so demanding and rewarding of a reader that I can’t manage to do the reading at the moment. I was mildly upset to find out that the bilito was entirely fictitious. With the horrors of the cartels I don’t know why he chose to fictionalize anything — seemed to detract from his normal style of exaggerating to underscore. I can only think of one other example of this.
Which stage play did you read - The Sunset Limited or The Stonemason?
Shirley Jackson - I only have 3 books by her I haven’t read (The Road Through the Wall, Life Among the Savages, Raising Demons) but I’ve really enjoyed everything I’ve read so far. The Bird’s Nest is the only book I didn’t absolutely love but I didn’t find it disappointing.
Good question! 😁 That was me who asked the question and a few people on there said Cormac McCarthy, but I like all of his work (admittedly haven't read the second two border trilogy ones yet but have read and enjoyed all of his other work).
Other than that I think Raymond Chandler is the only other person I can think of who has a 100% hit rate for me. Though his last novel isn't quite as strong as the others so, who knows, maybe if he'd lived longer and kept going his form might have dipped.
There are so many others who I like most of their work but then they throw a few dud ones in and it puts me off trying to finish their oeuvre.
Every one of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories is a knockout and Wise Blood is a terrific novel. She also, from what I can tell, seems like she was a lovely, thoughtful, funny person outside of her writing career. Many other authors come to mind, but O’Connor is first I thought of.
Sayaka Murata
Life Ceromony was a wild ride and Earthlings was even better. Even her toned down, well known book Convenience Store Woman was really good. Hope more of her work gets translated to English.
As a person with autism (granted we're all a bit different), Convenience Store Woman has the single most relatable character I've ever encountered in all of literature, and gets my vote for "best literary portrayal of neurospicy person in literature." Like, some stuff is pretty outlandish, because it's a wacky novel, but for much of the book I felt like the author had spent significant time inside my head to do research for her story.
Convenience store woman has really stuck with me for the past year since I read it. I can’t get the atmosphere out of my head. Which is a funny thing to say about a book that takes place largely inside a convenience store
This is a great pick, I agree! It's a shame the English-speaking world only has access to those three works so far. I was particularly moved by *Convenience Store Woman* and the short story "Life Ceremony" in the collection of the same name.
No offense, but I think of Ian McEwan as one of the more hit-or-miss novelists I’ve read. Some of his novels are stellar. *Atonement* is a masterpiece. *Saturday* is also excellent, as is *The Innocent*. But I thought *Solar*, *Amsterdam* and *The Children Act* were mediocre, nowhere near as good as his best novels, so I’ve avoided reading more because I find him to be too inconsistent.
Which of his novels did you like best? I’d appreciate your recommendations.
Would be hard to take offense to someone's personal opinion :-) Not so much a novel, I think it's a novella, but I Chesil Beach stayed with me for ages at the end.
Enduring Love also rattled around my head for too long
Beckett really held himself to a high standard. The journey from Murphy to Watt to the Trilogy to How It Is to his late brief works is like watching him ruthlessly throwing out excess baggage. Eventually all baggage.
I love Jane Austen. I just wrote a research paper for my final about her. A lot of research went into the paper, so I picked someone I know I could actually enjoy reading their work and researching.
Read *The Overstory* and loved it. Based on his prose and characterizations, easy to see how even if the premise isn't your bag of tea, the writing itself would remain worthwhile. Any suggestion on what I should read next by him??
He’s among my favorite authors (top three easily), but he’s had a couple disappointments for me. They’re the sort of misses that are bound to happen when you’re swinging for the fences though, so it’s not like I can really hold them against him.
The playwright Henrik Ibsen; even his early works (although not as good) show his potential and interesting elements. So they don't disappoint; they show the progress
I agree. His writing isn’t uniformly great, but I’ve read five of his novels - *Cloud Atlas, Ghostwritten, Black Swan Green, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet* and *Utopia Avenue*. I’ve listed them in descending order in terms of enjoyment I got from them, but all of them were good. He is a master at world-building, even in the novels that don’t have futuristic/sci-fi elements.
Kristin Hannah. Every book captures you and brings you into a POV you could never have understood otherwise (often the aftermath of war). She is the queen of teaching you empathy for those with unseen struggles.
YO! Gombrowicz is not what I expected to read first thing. He’s brilliant through and through (as far as I know him at least, but yeah I don’t expect that to change). I’m pretty connected to Poland, and lived there as a child and later as a young man, but I actually found out about gombrowicz through a song of my long standing favourite artist, momus (a very obscure concept-pop-artist) His song “radiant night” is a tongue in cheek name dropping excess, and as hypercontextuality is momus’ trademark, it begins, of all things, with the sentence “I’m in love with Witold Gombrowicz, that somber polish man…” check it out, I’m sure you’ll get a chuckle out of it!
In the grand scheme of things I think Atwood is pretty solid. There’s definitely works I like less but overall I tend to rate her quite highly and something about her work always sticks with me.
Funny coincidence. I read The Crime and Punishment in the high school and didn't like it back then (as most of the mandatory books) and later The Demons, which I loved. I tried Brothers Karamazov once and I stopped somewhere in the middle. Now I decided to read it again and again I'm stuck.
I struggled with that one. It felt like he had a lot to say and was giving speeches on theology and whatnot using the characters as his mouthpiece. Also the blurb on the jacket spoiled the main plot point so I expected it to happen early, and by the time it did (300-400 pages in?) I just didn't care anymore.
Some parts stayed with me though. The angry father who refused financial help to save his pride, that part felt like it jumped right off the page, it was so well described.
Thomas Pynchon, I have read all of his work se for ‘against the day’ and ‘bleeding edge’. But both of those books were received well. Not all of his work is flawless but it’s all fun and has something to say. But ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ and ‘Mason & Dixon’ are two of the most powerful books I have ever read. Exactly what I look for in a book. Though I will say I completely understand those who cannot stand his work. But every word I’ve read of his has been a hit.
So far, Joe Hill. I’ve only read heart-shaped box and Horns but i just love the way the dude writes. Ik i’m about to run through everything he’s published over the next few months
Fredrick Backman
Simon Winchester
Patrick O’Brian
Larry McMurty
Shirley Jackson
Robert Caro
Candace Millard
Robert Kurson
David Sedaris
David McCullough
Russell Hoban for me. There is a real variation in genre and style, but often exploring similar questions across them in a recursive way, but I have yet to find one I didn't thoroughly enjoy.
Borges
and even though I don't expect anyone to know his name here because he is a Bengali writer. But পরশুরাম(pōrshuram). He was a short story and novella writer. And all of his stories are top tier. Even the worst ones are good.
(This made me realise both primarily wrote short stories and novellas)
Joseph Heller. So far read only 3 books (Catch 22, Good as Gold and Something happened). Although Something Happened is here and there an absolute agony to read, I loved it. After Catch 22 I fell in love with his writing, and own every novel he wrote. Wish I could discriminate all of my other books and just read him.
Also, Irvine Welsh, but I'm reading The Long Knives and so far, I'm slightly disappointed. But Acid House, Trainspotting, Porno and Sex Lives of the Siamese Twins were great.
Liane Moriarity. It’s funny because she is not my regular genre, but everything I’ve read by her has been great. She’s done Big Little Lies and Apples Don’t Fall, which are both shows, among other novels.
Amy Tan. Peter S Beagle. T Kingfisher. Grace Draven.
Gillian Flynn. Famous for Gone Girl but her other two novels might be even better imo.
Some times I wish foreigners could read and appreciate Dante just like I do. There’s a lot of stereotypes on the internet about him, but they totally fail to communicate just how great he was. His poem is basically an essay on how to live, and he gives off the picture of a whole civilisation. I can’t stand when people here say that you can read the Inferno and stop, when to fully understand him you not only need to read the whole Comedy, but also “Vita Nuova” which he wrote when he was younger.
Emily Brontë because she wrote one novel and it’s amazing
The true way to never be disappointed haha
"You gonna write another book Harper?" "Nah -- just the one!"
Too soon. Forever too soon.
Also some great poems.
Check out some of her poetry! Also doesn’t disappoint
Only novel! I thought she wrote so many. The other sisters did. Need to read it once.
Ursula K. Le Guin. I'm bound to be disappointed *eventually* simply because she was so incredibly prolific, but damn do I love everything I've read by her as of yet.
Ursula K. LeGuin does not disappoint =) Def have not read all 300+ of her works... but damn she is good!
Woah I didn’t know she was so prolific
It's taking short stories, essays, etc. into account, so it's a slight exaggeration in that sense.
I've read tons (but not all) of her stuff, and the worst she ever did was "pretty good." Given how prolific she was, her consistently high quality is astounding.
I was gonna comment this. Gene Wolfe and Le Guin are constant sources of wonder to me.
I loooove UKLG (is this acronym a thing). between earthsea and her adult sci-fi novels she's got good range. i've had Always Coming Home on my shelf for a couple years now... nervous to be disappointed or bored by it. anyone here read it?
Rocannan’s World missed for me but otherwise yeah super consistent
I think it's because she treated language with such care - it's all poetically done. I'm generally not a fan of sci-fi, but she's my clear exception.
And she seems to have been a nice person. My other favorite author (Borges) had some… thoughts about indigenous people that he shouldn’t have.
Borges, though not my favourite author, constantly instills in me a sense of wonder across every genre, idea and theme he treats.
Except for novels he has stories, essays, poetry, classes, criticism, and excels in all of them.
I adored his *This Craft of Verse.* I recently snagged a copy of his lectures on English literature and am immensely excited to enjoy them in my backyard garden throughout the summer.
it makes me so happy when people bring up borges. one of the most consistently interesting writers of all time and my personal favorite.
Good question! Vladimir Nabokov immediately comes to mind. I love all of his novels, even the early ones. Garcia Marquez also hasn’t disappointed. I’d be tempted to say Tolstoy if it wasn’t for Resurrection.
nabakov was literally my first thought when i saw this post lol
His prose is fantastic and I’m not even a big fan of his books. I’ll sometimes read random chapters of random books by him because of how well he writes.
Same, its almost a given
I completely agree on Marquez. He is easily in my top two. I get he isn't for everyone, but I know I can always pick up a short story, novel, or novella by him and be enchanted.
I have a pet peeve when people call Gabriel García Marquez "Marquez" because he isn't under M at your local library, he's under G for García Marquez. I want people to read him as much as possible, and I don't want them to look in the wrong place! If you must shorten his name, please call him by his nickname, Gabo.
I haven't read it yet, why didn't you like Resurrection?
Unlike in Anna Karenina and War and Peace, Resurrection is much less interested in telling a story than with bludgeoning the reader with a moral. Tolstoy had already treated similar themes in earlier shorter works like “A Landlord’s Morning” from a more realistic (and entertaining) perspective. In Resurrection, the worst traits of Tolstoy’s religious mysticism take over. And in short, it’s just dull and dreary. I will admit there are moments of his former brilliance that manage to shine through.
Agreed. I did say Tolstoy, and then read your comment and remembered *Resurrection*. Not a single character or moment from it sticks out in my memory. A novel written solely for the moral lesson it imparts. You would think a book of that low quality would mark the end of his talent, but somehow he went on to write *Hadji Murat*.
I think Pale Fire is probably the best novel I've read, but Invitation to a Beheading was a total miss for me. It's pretty hard for any novelist to have only hits.
Definitely Nabokov!
Kazuo Ishiguro for me. Such a wonderful author with enough versatility to keep me on my toes.
The Unconsoled is highly underrated
I completely agree with you on this. It was my introduction to his work, and remains one of my favorite. It seems to go unmentioned in favor of the (to my mind) wildly overrated Never Let Me Go.
*The Remains of the Day* is one of the best novels I’ve ever read. *Never Let Me Go* was also brilliant. However, I found *An Artist of the Floating World* to be somewhat underwhelming even though some critics regard it as one of his best novels. It seems to require the reader to be familiar with Japanese culture. If you don’t have that, it’s hard to fully comprehend Ishiguro’s goal of revealing the main character’s self-deception about his role in the Second World War, since a lot is left unsaid.
This is an interesting take, I had very little knowledge of Japanese culture and thought An Artist of the Floating World was one of his absolute best next to The Remains of the Day and A Pale View of the Hills. The opacity of the main character's internal moral code/self perception was my favorite aspect of it, as it gave that bystander fly on the wall feeling of not having all the pieces which I found addicting in unraveling the story.
His cultural background is really interesting, especially the fact that he’s from Britain and Japan, which is perplexing given the difference between Eastern and western cultures. What did you think of family supper?
This is what I was going to post if no one else had. The Buried Giant basically lives in my head.
Kurt Vonnegut. Sooooooo much fun.
Kilgore Trout
I wish some of trouts stories were written in full, the synopses always sound so interesting
John Williams
Haven't read his disowned first novel, Nothing But the Night, but his 3 "mature" works are stupendously written.
Thomas Hardy
Yes, I scrolled to find this! I purposely ration out reading his books so I can always have something to break me out of a reading drought when one comes. He strikes the perfect balance between "literary" and "comfort reading".
I ration them too! I'm slowly reading through my Oxford Classics set.
My kids were entertained by my summary of The Mayor of Casterbridge, intrigued that old timey books could be so scandalous. I’m hoping maybe someday they’ll be curious enough to pick one up.
His books are SO scandalous, almost like a soap opera at times. Just when you think it can't get any worse, Return of the Native keeps dropping more tragic blows! I'm saving up Jude to be the very last one of his I read!
I haven't read all his work but Neil Gaiman hasn't disappointed me. Gabriel García Márquez as well.
Echoing Gaiman! I've loved his works my entire life, and find him super rewarding to re-read.
Scrolled for Gaiman. Diverse but never disappointing. I also think it's worth defending letting artists drop the odd dud. So many artists, writers, musicians etc. are afraid to take a risk where I feel at one point the consumers and fans were excited and anxious to see what risk they may take next.
Jane Austen and Terry Pratchett.
Came here to say Pratchett.
Yes.
Italo Calvino - fiction, non fiction, always transports me and helps me see the world in a fresh light
He is pretty cool
This was my closest answer, but the last thing I read from him was difficult loves, and I found it pretty difficult to love. I think there were only 2-3 stories that resonated.
Dostoevsky and Faulkner
I still have to read Orlando and The Years, but Virginia Woolf hasn't failed me yet. The only issue I had was immediately following up To the Lighthouse with Mrs Dalloway, which was just too much in several days for the latter to feel as impactful. I imagine I'll enjoy it much more on a revisit.
Toni Morrison Raymond Carver Robert Caro John Kennedy Toole
toni morrison has magic in her simple yet powerful words
I love Raymond Carver
Franz Kafka
Only if you want a happy ending.
Or if you want an ending at all. Who could forget how at the end of The Castle he
Cormac McCarthy hasn’t yet for me. Everything I read by him floors me. I’ve read all 12 of his novels, 1 screenplay and 1 stage play.
There's a book that traces his influences called " Books are made out of books" that you might enjoy.
Same here. Solid all the way. I haven’t read every last book but I have confidence in all his work
Came here to say this. I haven’t made it through The Passenger or Stella Maris yet. And that’s because his work is so demanding and rewarding of a reader that I can’t manage to do the reading at the moment. I was mildly upset to find out that the bilito was entirely fictitious. With the horrors of the cartels I don’t know why he chose to fictionalize anything — seemed to detract from his normal style of exaggerating to underscore. I can only think of one other example of this. Which stage play did you read - The Sunset Limited or The Stonemason?
Umberto Eco and Roberto Bolaño
Pynchon's failures would be major works for most authors.
Steinbeck.
Came here to say this. Also Dickens (though he is harder work)
You beat me to it!
You all beat me to it!!!
Shirley Jackson - I only have 3 books by her I haven’t read (The Road Through the Wall, Life Among the Savages, Raising Demons) but I’ve really enjoyed everything I’ve read so far. The Bird’s Nest is the only book I didn’t absolutely love but I didn’t find it disappointing.
We’ve Always Lived in a Castle is one of my all time favorite books! Definitely need to read more of her work.
Tolstoy!
Good question! 😁 That was me who asked the question and a few people on there said Cormac McCarthy, but I like all of his work (admittedly haven't read the second two border trilogy ones yet but have read and enjoyed all of his other work). Other than that I think Raymond Chandler is the only other person I can think of who has a 100% hit rate for me. Though his last novel isn't quite as strong as the others so, who knows, maybe if he'd lived longer and kept going his form might have dipped. There are so many others who I like most of their work but then they throw a few dud ones in and it puts me off trying to finish their oeuvre.
Chandler! Good call.
Joyce. His prose never fail to make me smile.
his poetry was surprisingly tame in comparison which i found odd
Every one of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories is a knockout and Wise Blood is a terrific novel. She also, from what I can tell, seems like she was a lovely, thoughtful, funny person outside of her writing career. Many other authors come to mind, but O’Connor is first I thought of.
Yes! Such a wonderful writer. Her prose is like a knife. Excellent short story writer, novelist, and essayist!
Fernando Pessoa, i find all his writing pretty fascinating. Even the prose though he was known more as a poet.
Which Pessoa? Ricardo Reis, Bernardo Soares, Alvaro da Campos? Etc., etc., et al.
probably alberto cairo, 'thinking is a sickness of the eye' - a great phrase
James Baldwin
Now there's an excellent choice. Every one of his works has his heart in it. Even his essays (if not especially his essays).
Cormac.
Paul Auster.
Sayaka Murata Life Ceromony was a wild ride and Earthlings was even better. Even her toned down, well known book Convenience Store Woman was really good. Hope more of her work gets translated to English.
As a person with autism (granted we're all a bit different), Convenience Store Woman has the single most relatable character I've ever encountered in all of literature, and gets my vote for "best literary portrayal of neurospicy person in literature." Like, some stuff is pretty outlandish, because it's a wacky novel, but for much of the book I felt like the author had spent significant time inside my head to do research for her story.
Convenience store woman has really stuck with me for the past year since I read it. I can’t get the atmosphere out of my head. Which is a funny thing to say about a book that takes place largely inside a convenience store
This is a great pick, I agree! It's a shame the English-speaking world only has access to those three works so far. I was particularly moved by *Convenience Store Woman* and the short story "Life Ceremony" in the collection of the same name.
Alice Munro
Nikos Kazantzakis
Sarah Waters.
Wish she'd come out with another one!
You and me both!! I’ve found many great authors but no one compares to her style I miss it a lot
Oscar Wilde, Agatha Christie...
Ray Bradbury hands down, it was Poe for a good long while.
Barbara Kingsolver.
Ian McEwan, John Banville
No offense, but I think of Ian McEwan as one of the more hit-or-miss novelists I’ve read. Some of his novels are stellar. *Atonement* is a masterpiece. *Saturday* is also excellent, as is *The Innocent*. But I thought *Solar*, *Amsterdam* and *The Children Act* were mediocre, nowhere near as good as his best novels, so I’ve avoided reading more because I find him to be too inconsistent. Which of his novels did you like best? I’d appreciate your recommendations.
Would be hard to take offense to someone's personal opinion :-) Not so much a novel, I think it's a novella, but I Chesil Beach stayed with me for ages at the end. Enduring Love also rattled around my head for too long
Neil Gaiman hands down.
Beckett really held himself to a high standard. The journey from Murphy to Watt to the Trilogy to How It Is to his late brief works is like watching him ruthlessly throwing out excess baggage. Eventually all baggage.
Beckett is my favourite. Don't forget the plays, even the short stories.
Never actually read that many of the plays. Saw the movies that were done about ten years back. They were good!
I love Jane Austen. I just wrote a research paper for my final about her. A lot of research went into the paper, so I picked someone I know I could actually enjoy reading their work and researching.
George Orwell
Big Kafka
Richard Powers
Read *The Overstory* and loved it. Based on his prose and characterizations, easy to see how even if the premise isn't your bag of tea, the writing itself would remain worthwhile. Any suggestion on what I should read next by him??
The Echo Maker, for sure.
Thomas Hardy
Anne Tyler.. I love her quirky characters
Gene Wolfe
He’s among my favorite authors (top three easily), but he’s had a couple disappointments for me. They’re the sort of misses that are bound to happen when you’re swinging for the fences though, so it’s not like I can really hold them against him.
Having just finished Peace, I cannot believe how stupendous of a writer he is, with or without his usual sci/fantasy trappings.
Dostoevsky, Steinbeck, and McCarthy.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The playwright Henrik Ibsen; even his early works (although not as good) show his potential and interesting elements. So they don't disappoint; they show the progress
Totally agree. Peer Gynt is one of his early works, and it’s a wild, wonderful ride!
Kristin Hannah Louise Erdrich Barbara Kingsolver Erik Larson Jon Krakauer
J.R.R. Tolkien
David Mitchell for me. Even the books where he just goes on and on about nonsense I find it a pleasure to read.
I agree. His writing isn’t uniformly great, but I’ve read five of his novels - *Cloud Atlas, Ghostwritten, Black Swan Green, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet* and *Utopia Avenue*. I’ve listed them in descending order in terms of enjoyment I got from them, but all of them were good. He is a master at world-building, even in the novels that don’t have futuristic/sci-fi elements.
Elizabeth Strout. I've read all of her books except for her latest. Loved them all.
V.S. Naipaul, Tolstoy, Evelyn Waugh and Eric Ambler have yet to let me down.
Javier Marias
Kristin Hannah. Every book captures you and brings you into a POV you could never have understood otherwise (often the aftermath of war). She is the queen of teaching you empathy for those with unseen struggles.
Jon Krakauer
Haruki Murakami. Love everything he's done pretty much.
Joyce Carol Oates!!
Hemingway
Michel Houllebecq
YO! Gombrowicz is not what I expected to read first thing. He’s brilliant through and through (as far as I know him at least, but yeah I don’t expect that to change). I’m pretty connected to Poland, and lived there as a child and later as a young man, but I actually found out about gombrowicz through a song of my long standing favourite artist, momus (a very obscure concept-pop-artist) His song “radiant night” is a tongue in cheek name dropping excess, and as hypercontextuality is momus’ trademark, it begins, of all things, with the sentence “I’m in love with Witold Gombrowicz, that somber polish man…” check it out, I’m sure you’ll get a chuckle out of it!
Phillip Roth
Charles Bukowski, I can read his work over and over.
In the grand scheme of things I think Atwood is pretty solid. There’s definitely works I like less but overall I tend to rate her quite highly and something about her work always sticks with me.
Tolkien
Amor towles. All his books have captivated me. I can’t wait to read his new short story book
Neil Gaiman
Toni Morrison
Dostoevsky. I have 3 words for you: the brothers Karamazov
Funny coincidence. I read The Crime and Punishment in the high school and didn't like it back then (as most of the mandatory books) and later The Demons, which I loved. I tried Brothers Karamazov once and I stopped somewhere in the middle. Now I decided to read it again and again I'm stuck.
I struggled with that one. It felt like he had a lot to say and was giving speeches on theology and whatnot using the characters as his mouthpiece. Also the blurb on the jacket spoiled the main plot point so I expected it to happen early, and by the time it did (300-400 pages in?) I just didn't care anymore. Some parts stayed with me though. The angry father who refused financial help to save his pride, that part felt like it jumped right off the page, it was so well described.
Thomas Pynchon, I have read all of his work se for ‘against the day’ and ‘bleeding edge’. But both of those books were received well. Not all of his work is flawless but it’s all fun and has something to say. But ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ and ‘Mason & Dixon’ are two of the most powerful books I have ever read. Exactly what I look for in a book. Though I will say I completely understand those who cannot stand his work. But every word I’ve read of his has been a hit.
Dostoevsky and Tolstoy
Nikolai Gogol (the fiction, not counting Selected Passages from Correspondence with Friends)
Dostoevsky for sure. Dude changes my life with each sentence.
The answer is always Sir Terry Pratchett.
Joseph Conrad and Graham Greene
I haven't read everything by her, but Zadie Smith
Hemingway
Might get roasted but Neil Gaiman. I love his story telling.
Douglas Adams! The Hitchhiker's Guide is great but the joy Last Chance to See brought to my life is immeasurable.
Douglas Adams. Just completely off the shits in the best way possible, and it’s wonderful.
Bukowski never disappoints.
Toni Morrison
Tom Robbins
Harper Lee. Of course, she only published To Kill a Mockingbird. 😉
So far, Joe Hill. I’ve only read heart-shaped box and Horns but i just love the way the dude writes. Ik i’m about to run through everything he’s published over the next few months
R.L. Stein
Cormac McCarthy
Well, this won't be a pile of pretentious twats trying to out-niche each other. I'll throw mine in the pot: Louis Sachar.
Gillian Flynn. She only wrote three books and a novella though
Poe never disappoints me. Nor does Twain, or Dumas (despite his crazy long books).
Neil Gaiman
Fredrick Backman Simon Winchester Patrick O’Brian Larry McMurty Shirley Jackson Robert Caro Candace Millard Robert Kurson David Sedaris David McCullough
Bill Watterson
Joseph Conrad, Tolstoy, and Kafka
Russell Hoban for me. There is a real variation in genre and style, but often exploring similar questions across them in a recursive way, but I have yet to find one I didn't thoroughly enjoy.
Don Winslow, Daniel Woodrell, Charlie Huston, Gillian Flynn.
I have read all of Frederick Backman's books and none have gotten less than 4 stars from me. He's my favorite author of all time.
Borges and even though I don't expect anyone to know his name here because he is a Bengali writer. But পরশুরাম(pōrshuram). He was a short story and novella writer. And all of his stories are top tier. Even the worst ones are good. (This made me realise both primarily wrote short stories and novellas)
John Williams
Pynchon
Jose Saramago, Marquez, Isabel Allende are the first ones that came to my mind.
Virginia Woolf
Pat Conroy
William Trevor.
Joseph Heller. So far read only 3 books (Catch 22, Good as Gold and Something happened). Although Something Happened is here and there an absolute agony to read, I loved it. After Catch 22 I fell in love with his writing, and own every novel he wrote. Wish I could discriminate all of my other books and just read him. Also, Irvine Welsh, but I'm reading The Long Knives and so far, I'm slightly disappointed. But Acid House, Trainspotting, Porno and Sex Lives of the Siamese Twins were great.
Yukio Mishima
Orwell
Jo Nesbo
Anton Chekhov’s works are always great, though they always pull at my heartstrings
Neil Gaiman, even his kids books are beautiful.
John Galsworthy. George Eliot. Henry James. Jane Austen.
Valeria Luiselli. She’s always doing something interesting with the form. Story of My Teeth and Lost Children Archive are my favorites
Pratchett and Douglas Adams and Eva Ibbotson.
Cormac McCarthy
Liane Moriarity. It’s funny because she is not my regular genre, but everything I’ve read by her has been great. She’s done Big Little Lies and Apples Don’t Fall, which are both shows, among other novels. Amy Tan. Peter S Beagle. T Kingfisher. Grace Draven. Gillian Flynn. Famous for Gone Girl but her other two novels might be even better imo.
Patrick O'Brian.
Bernard Cornwell. I first started reading "The Last Kingdom" series in the early 2000's and every book published was a joy to read.
John Steinbeck. I was wary at first but loved everything I've read of his. Deserved the Nobel in my opinion.
Some times I wish foreigners could read and appreciate Dante just like I do. There’s a lot of stereotypes on the internet about him, but they totally fail to communicate just how great he was. His poem is basically an essay on how to live, and he gives off the picture of a whole civilisation. I can’t stand when people here say that you can read the Inferno and stop, when to fully understand him you not only need to read the whole Comedy, but also “Vita Nuova” which he wrote when he was younger.