Here is the list of 9 of my favorite authors:
1. Siri Hustvedt - She has written a whole bunch of essays and novels. What I love most about her style is her narrative. Things seem to unfold so naturally in her stories. Something super organic about ehr writing. Her novels are psychologically endowed and her characters are so well-rounded. I love reading her and I recommend her at the highest degree. On another note entirely unrelated, she is married to Paul Auster - I have yet to read anything by him.
2. Ayn Rand - I think the reason why she is up here is pretty straightforward, but allow me to expand. She writes with such depth of character, a strange sense of familiar unpredictability, she is logical yet totally irrational, she is a woman of her time yet before her time. Her novels are rich with flavour and dialogue that will have you mesmerized. I say we should be considered lucky to have the chance to read books like hers.
3. Fyodor Dostoevsky - Major. Major. Major. Out of this world, yet so of this world. The Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, Crime and Punishment, Notes From Underground - some of his novels (most of them actually) are all considered classics and for good reason. just read on of them and find out for yourself. Very rarely is an author able to write more than one great novel in his career. Well, Dostoevsky proved that he is the exception to that rule ten times over.
4. Oscar Wilde - I think I have already sung his praises plenty in my last rant. But, what list would be complete without Wilde? I have never met the man, but I know he must have been sexy. His novels and plays and essays... all of them are so loaded with innuendos and aphorisms and quotable dialogue - he is one of my all-time favourites. I even had a friend paint his portrait for me that I have hanging in my study.
5. Miguel de Cervantes - One of the biggest geniuses of all time. I am obsessed with everything and anything Cervantes has written. He is hilarious and witty and all kinds of fun. His books are intelligent and avant-garde. He is so ahead of himself, they had to create classes about just him! His Exemplary Novels are laugh out loud funny, but they also offer a snapshot of Spanish society at the time of his writing. Don Quijote, one of the biggest, baddest most awesomest books known to the world to date, is so poignant. I love him and his writing because he not only makes you think (his books requires a great amount of both intellect and patience), but he also makes he cry from laughter. What other books really does that as effortlessly as his?
6. Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Want to talk about an intelligent man... well, here is a forerunner. Marquez invented a movement that defines a country (or several countries to be more exact). He is confusing and to be quite honest, it hurts my brain to read his novels and novellas alike. But wow! When I finally finish anything he has written, I feel so accomplished and I feel so much smarter. It's like working a jigsaw puzzle or doing math - you can feel your brain pumping and getting stronger. The Chronicle of a Death Foretold is one of my favourites of his works, but don't worry - of course One Hundred Years of Solitude is a close second (so cliche... but not without reason).
7. Judy Blume - Say what you will, she is the bomb. Period.
8. Jane Austen - What would the world be like if Jane Austen had never written or been published? I do not want to find out. In all seriousness, Austen was a portraiture of society, and her brush was her pen. But, what is interesting is that although she painted her time, it is almost as if it were the reverse. That whole theory about life mimicking art and art mimicking life, I mean there is definitely something to that. I think I walked around acting and talking as though I were in an Austen novel for months after reading her canon. Admittedly, I was not your average teenager, but I think a ton of women obsess over Austen like I did. Book clubs around the world only prove my point.
9. Antoine de Saint-Exupery - To be quite honest I have only read The Little Prince and I am pretty sure that is all he wrote... but I mean what could he possibly write to top that!? A book filled with life lessons and imagination, complete with images and all - this books is jam-packed with everything a novel is supposed to have, and he fit it all in less that 100 pages. This book informed my teenage years and every time I read it, or someone I have recommended it to reads it, I am impressed by it even more. I wish I had written this book.
I am constantly searching for new favourite authors. Whenever I come across a book I love so much, I am always happy to find out what other books the author has written so I can read them all. It is one thing to write one great book, it is quite another to write a bunch of books and have them all be great.
Who are your favourite authors? What are your favourite books? Let me know what book I have missed out on and I will get right on it!
Can't wait to read these. If only there was an extra day in da week
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