Wonderful Wednesdays – Favourite Authors
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011Wonderful Wednesdays is a meme run by Sam @ Tiny Library aimed at spotlighting and recommending some of our most loved books, even if we haven’t read them recently. Each week will have a different genre or theme.
This week’s theme is OUR FAVOURITE AUTHORS.
First things first – to be classified as one’s favourite author, does one need to have read more than one title from that author?
If the answer is YES, then these are some of my favourite authors:
Irene Nemirovsky
I have a deep appreciation for all of the Nemirovskly titles I have read to date: Suite Francaise, The Courilof Affair, David Golder and All Our Worldly Goods. Given the often confronting and sad subject matter Nemirovsky’s novels are not ‘fun’ reads but her writing style and I must say the translation by Sandra Smith is consistently outstanding. She was an extraordinary literary talent taken from the world much too soon.
Joanna Hines
Joanna Hines’ titles are almost impossible to find new, and this in itself is a mystery to me. I have enjoyed immensely the two novels I have read by her, Improvising Carla and Surface Tension. I have another of her titles, Angels of the Flood, which I picked up from eBay waiting in my TBR pile. I find her writing really strong, with just the right amount of description to add depth and mood, without slowing down her compelling mystery/thriller plots. If you’d like to find yourself a Joanna Hines novel I would recommend either BetterWorldBooks.com or Abebooks .
And of course, I cannot go past Stieg Larsson and his Millenium Trilogy.
If however I can call an author amongst my favourites while having only read one title from them, then these are some of my favourite authors:
To this day I rank David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas my favourite book of all time. I read this many years ago (pre-blog) yet the story stays with me to this very day. Tony @ Tony’s Reading List has written one of the best reviews of Cloud Atlas I have read. I have the deepest admiration for a talent such as David Mitchell’s that spurned this novel.
Why have I not then gone on to read all of David Mitchell’s works? It sounds really silly but the honest truth is that I’m afraid any other title I read of his is bound to not live up to the expectations set for me by Cloud Atlas.
Some other more recent authors I have read whose writing style I just love are:
Daphne Du Maurier (Rebecca)
Connie Willis (Bellwether, To Say Nothing of the Dog)
Colum McCann (Let The Great World Spin)
Muriel Spark (A Far Cry From Kensington)
Are any of these authors on your favourites list?
(US), 
(UK)
