Today’s Question: Favorite Authors. Who do you have named in your LT account as favorite authors? Why did you choose them? How many people share your choices? Can you share a picture of one of them?
I have several:
Jane Austen
Jacqueline Carey
Bernard Cornwell
Robin Hobb
Kazuo Ishiguro
Guy Gavriel Kay
Stephen King
George R. R. Martin
Sharon Kay Penman
Brandon Sanderson
Leo Tolstoy
Edith Wharton
In general, I choose favorite authors based on how much I love two or more of their books and the fact that I’m on a mission to own all of their books. Well, except for Bernard Cornwell, as I haven’t tried out his Sharpe series yet; I’ve got a couple of them, but they’re not in my time period so I’m not sure I’ll like them. Generally, my favorite authors write in my favorite genres, and I have an equal representation of historical fiction, fantasy, and classic literature. I’ve got two who don’t fit. Ishiguro is my favorite modern writer and I think he’s absolutely brilliant. My biggest aberration here is Stephen King, but I unequivocally adore him so he can stay despite not writing in one of my genres or writing “literary” fiction. 
I’ve got twelve authors listed, and two people on LT share five of them. A lot share three or four, so I’m inclined to think my favorites aren’t all that strange. The author that is least popular is Brandon Sanderson – only 47 people have included him in their list. I really enjoy Brandon’s books, so I think people are missing out, especially those who enjoy fantasy. Besides that, he’s a nice guy and his blog is one of my favorite author blogs. I hope more are discovering him now that he’s working hard on the last of the Wheel of Time books.
My most popular author is Jane Austen with over 1,000 fans, which isn’t at all a surprise. She deserves all that credit!
See the photo of Brandon to the left – I think he deserves to have his picture here since he is the least popular on LT.
Finally, I have an unrelated update – I apologize if anyone attempted to access my blog this morning to find it down. My server was having some issues, but they’ve been sorted out now as far as I know.
It’s always good to see Wharton on someone’s list.
I can tell that you’re smart, just by looking at your list of favorite authors.
I feel two books is a good basis to pick favorite authors! I really need to update my LT authors list.
Me, too – if an author is going to make my “favorites” list, I usually have to have read and enjoyed more than just one of his/her books. Except for Harper Lee, since she really only wrote the one book. By the way, since you like Jane Austen, you might like Barbara Pym, too – they’re often compared, although I think Pym’s writing is a little more blatantly comic than Austen’s.
My cutoff is three books and I didn’t include classics or Wharton and Austin would be on my list for sure. I have read and enjoyed more than 3 books by Stephen King but oddly didn’t think to add him to my list.
I used to love Stephen King’s books, but haven’t been able to read one for a while … has his writing style changed since his earlier work, or am I just less “adventurous” with this genre? Something for me to think about …
Yay, another George R.R. Martin fan!!
I read the first 3 books of the Fire and Ice saga my senior year of High School, but then I had to wait about 5 years for Feast of Crows to be published! It was an agonizing wait, but I couldn’t even finish the book because I had forgotten that he had killed off all my favorite characters! I think there is going to be a 5th book coming out though. I wonder who will survive the 4th book to make another appearance? What did you think of Feast of Crows?