List-Ten

I am usually left out of many of the Facebook writer’s challenges because although I am a published writer, I am not a published book author. However, a rather famous author of my personal acquaintance recently hit me topic: Ten Books That Stayed With Me. That was just too hard. Ten, only? I did it quickly of the top of my head because she really asked me to, but I was not happy with it by that evening.

This week at Four Foxes, One Hound we are listing Ten of Our Favorite Books and/or Authors and that is easier, I guess. I suppose that includes series.

My list here is not all-inclusive. I am, and always have been, an avid reader, although not always of fiction. So please, take my list as a sampling of my eclectic tastes and mixed-up brain.

Not in any particular order, among my favorites are:

Almost anything by Ernest Hemingway. I can’t say that I like what he wrote as much as the way he wrote. I find it addictive, like listening to someone with a strange and interesting accent.

Stephen Vincent Benét. I love much of his work. I found a short story in an unusual anthology that has become one of my favorite-all-time stories: The Bishop’s Beggar.

Leo Tolstoy. I read a great deal of his work when I was a teen but put off reading some of his works figuring I could always find them, but he has almost disappeared from library and bookstore shelves. All one can usually find is War and Peace and the horrible Anna Karenina, which even he knew was junk.(The same with Boris Pasternak’s work. One can n-only find Dr.Zhivago, probably because of the movie[they made it out to be a LOVE STORY!] and the fact that it was banned in the old U.S.S.R. His poems are wonderful…and not just the ones he wrote as Dr.Z. I sneaked Boris in; I cheated.)

Robert Louis Stevenson. I love everything I have ever read of his from his childhood poetry to his novels.

Oscar Wilde. My husband bought me a book of his complete works and I inhaled it…until I got to The Importance of Being Earnest. I found it to be, as they say ,”too clever by half”.

Agatha Christie. Hercule Poirot. Although I enjoy most of her other works, even those published under other names.( I can’t get into Tommy and Tuppence, however.)

Daphne Du Maurier . When she stuck to writing about English people, you can’t beat her. She did Americans badly, however. She needed to do more research, (or get over her prejudice).

Douglas Adams. I find him terribly amusing except for one of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books. He must have rushed it or had personal problems during the writing of that one, but the rest is gold.

Jimmy Carter. I have yet to read any of the former president’s novels, but his biographical works, (A Remarkable Mother, An Hour Before Daylight, Christmas in Plains), are incredible reads. I love the way he writes.

James Herriot. All Creatrures Great and Small, etc. I found him to be a little full of himself, but his stories and descriptions made me sad to reach the end of the series

Honorable mention of 10 writers currently publishing that I enjoy,(again, in no particular order):
MaryJanice Davidson, Janet Evanovich, Parnell Hall, Stephen King, (like Hemingway, not always what he says but how he says it), Kate Collins, Gretchen Archer, Eoin Colfer,(Aremis Fowl series), Tonya Hurley,(Ghost Girl series). J.R.Rowling,( Harry Potter…Need I really add anything to that?) I have to mention Cecelia Ahern, because I truly love Rosie Dunne, Thanks For the Memories, Can You See Me Now and There’s No Place Like Here. I have not read all of her novels, but I find some of her work inconsistent.

(I’m getting deja vu  over some of this.I must have said some of this in a previous post; forgive me.)

I omitted William Shakespeare simply because he is not technically an author, but I love his stuff!

In the original list I added children’s books because many, many made an impression on me. Maybe one of the ‘free’ weeks will find me discussing the what and whys of those that formed my taste in literature.

There are so many other good stories, well-written books that I have read recently, many written by those who are my friends, that truly can’t mention some without offending others.

What do you think of my list?