Apart for Terry who do you consider the best writers?

[deldaisy]

The wisdom of Winnie The Pooh....
http://thinkexist.com/quotes/winnie_the_pooh/

http://www.just-pooh.com/pooh.html

Actually I love the very first line of the book Winnie the Pooh....

Winnie the Pooh lives by himself in a tree in Hundred Acre Wood under the name of Sanders. "It means he had the name over the door in gold letters, and lived under it

... thats the promise of the book.... and what is to come.... stuff and nonsense.

[Portia]

I'm throwing Evelyn Waugh, F. Scott Fizgerald, Nabokov, Ian McEwan, Zadie Smith and Donna Tartt out there too!

I was first introduced to Waugh when I was 15 years old, via Stephen Fry's adaptation of Vile Bodies. When I read the book I was struck by how amazingly funny the dialogue was. I loved his sparse, modernist writing style and silly characters like Miles Malpractice. Later at university I took a brilliant course on imperial fiction and discovered Decline and Fall and Black Mischief - which are both deeply Conservative in nature yet hilarious commentary on education, class and Empire.

Like Waugh, Ian McEwan and Nabokov chronicle 'doomed romances' incredibly well. In the popular imagination, I think 'sleazy' is often used to describe Humbert's confessions in Lolita but actually he is very funny and touching. Meanwhile Ian McEwan's novella On Chesil Beach is a very poignant tale of a wedding night that goes horribly wrong.

I read Donna Tartt's The Secret History in my first year of university and could relate to her eager-to-please West Coast protagonist who has just started reading Classics at an East Coast liberal arts college. Her observations on the East Coast/West Coast divide and 'professor worship' are very good indeed.

[BaldFriede]

"The Secret History" was a very enjoyable read indeed. Unusual construction of the book too. It starts with the murder, then recalls the events that led to it, then in the middle of the book the murder happens "again", only this time we know why it happens, and what follows is the aftermath of the murder. And while everything before the murder is a build-up, everything afterwards is a sort of decay.

[nickinwestwales]

Delighted to have a pocket summary of `Secret History`-been packing and posting copies for years without ever having time to even look at the cover and read the synopsis-such is life-one day.............
ATB
Nick

[nickinwestwales]

Now then,since we are all assembled :- Would be interested to take your views on the Ghormenghast Trilogy -much as I love the works of Yer Man Pratchett,The imagined world of Titus Groan and his singular environment captured my imagination like no other-I will concede that the third volume broke the spell (the characters were as well drawn ,but somehow never drew me in in the same way )-but the first two :- from first word until last, I was a slave to Swelter ,the appalling chef,Flay-`Masters chief servant`-the keeper of the bright carvings,locked in his gallery and the twins-desperate in their lust for power-the doctor and his awful sister,The masters of the college,The Earl,maddened by Owls-the Countess ,with her train of white cats ,the almost beautiful Fuschia,Nanny Slagg-nursemaid to generations of Groans,and at the heart Titus & Steerpike-The chosen one and the kitchen boy who will climb across the heron haunted flagstones of the castle roof to fight a duel to the death in the Ivy choked facade of the great castle

ATB

Nick

[chris.ph]

Delighted to have a pocket summary of `Secret History`-been packing and posting copies for years without ever having time to even look at the cover and read the synopsis-such is life-one day.............
ATB
Nick

dont tell me you work in macmillans in pontarddulais

[rockershovel]

another vote for Evelyn Waugh

Lewis Carroll

Herman Melville

Nicholas Monsarratt

[BaldFriede]

Robert Anton Wilson is an excellent author too. I especially loved "Masks of the Illuminati", a book in which Albert Einstein and James Joyce meet in Zürich at the beginning of the 20th century and together solve a series of mysterious suicides.

[captainmeme]

I've got to say either John Bunyan or H.G. Wells (A bit old-fashoined, but they're brilliant).

[TheTurtleMoves]

Neal Stephenson
Stephen Fry
Bo Fowler
Peter F. Hamilton
Jaqueline Wilson (I don't care that she's a kids author, I think a lot of the things she has written are awesome)
Beatrix Potter

[Pearwood]

Philip K. Dick
Robert E. Howard
Alex Garland
Anthony Burgess (although I find he can be too self-indulgent at times)
Alexandre Dumas
Lewis Carrol

[pip]

Currently on a bit of a Philip K Dick buzz and have been gradually working my way through his books. Next on the list is counter clock world.
Big fan of Lewis Carroll as well.
They have a great Alice shop across from Christchurch Uni in Oxford which was bloody brilliant.

[Pearwood]

Currently on a bit of a Philip K Dick buzz and have been gradually working my way through his books. Next on the list is counter clock world.

Haven't read that one yet. Let me know how it is!

[pip]

I will. Probably be a few weeks til i get to it though.
Starting the last part of the Gormenghast books today .

[Tonyblack]

I preferred Dick's version of Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep) to the movie version. The protagonist was a much more complex man.