Okay, enough about me.
I want to hear from you. Who are your favorite writers? Who are the ones that wrote the books that changed your life, made you decide to be a writer? Why?
As a kid, it was Beverly Cleary. As a teenager, Judy Blume and Stephen King. As an adult, Ray Bradbury and Neil Gaiman.
Beverly Cleary because she wrote a character that was just so me: Ramona Quimby. Ramona was weird and individual and totally followed her own beat.
Judy Blume because she wrote books that allowed girls to explore being a teenager, including that sex thing. Yeah.
Stephen King because his writing was so scary yet so conversational.
Ray Bradbury, because in Something Wicked This Way Comes he nails what it means to be alive.
Neil Gaiman because his ideas have such a twist and are the most original thing out there. There's no one out there doing what he's doing.
8 comments:
I love Bradbury, too. His short stories are wonderful.
I can't narrow in to any favorite writers I had growing up, because I read any and everything. It's all I did. But I loved books with a great plot. Adventure, fantasy, anything that transported me away from being a lonely twelve- (or fourteen-, or sixteen-, etc) year-old girl and let me be a part of something completely removed from my sphere of existence.
Rereading a lot of it now, the writing is terrible, which makes me sad.
Books that inspire me now are things like The Phantom Tollbooth and Marilynn Robinson's Gilead. I read those and come away amazed. Also a little depressed, because I don't think I can ever, ever write like that ; )
So I guess I also like the stuff I read that's not very good, because then I think, "Hey, I'm better than this at least!"
Growing up, I loved science fiction most of all. The great writers were Asimov, Clarke, Wyndham, E E "Doc" Smith... It was another world - and one where women didn't really play a part. No wonder I wished I was a boy! I also loved C S Lewis and still did into adulthood.
Now I read sci fi if I can but I'll read anything - as long as it isn't too heavy. So, Ian Rankin, Iain Banks, Tanya Huff etc. I like gay and lesbian friendly books - I just like that level of open-mindedness. You can find some great sci fi and fantasy recommendations on the GLBT Fantasy Website: http://www.glbtfantasy.com/ I love many of Terry Pratchett's books too - I think I've probably got nearly all of them.
Some of the non-genre books I've read and enjoyed Cat's Eye by Margaret Attwood, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. The last two I listened to in the car while driving to work.
Ooh. . . . audio books, FHH. I love the idea of them, but not having a car, i don't get to listen to them much.
Sadly, K, I did not discover fantasy/SF until high school, and even then I read crap. The Dragonlance Series. Total rip-off of LOTR.
I'm just reading a lot of stuff now I wish I had discovered as a kid. But I still read a lot as a kid. A lot of it was just crap, was all.
Ha ha, yup, Dragonlance. And Terry Brooks. Really poorly written stuff, but I wasn't the most discriminating reader in elementary and junior high schools.
You know, K, a few years ago, a good friend of mine sold her Dragonlance books online and made a nice bundle. Apparently the out-of-print books are worth something.
How?!
I just thought of another one: Dickens. Every once in a while I just get in the mood for a Dickens novel. I think his observations on humanity are spot-on. And I love the dry, British sense of humor.
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