my Favorite authors
It is hard to define who or how someone influences you. I believe you take something away from everything you read and, thus, have been influenced in some way by every writer, positively or negatively. I am not a person who keeps notes on writers, although I will copy down sentences that I think are especially well written. These are my favorite writers, ones that I enjoy reading and hope have influenced me in a positive way, beginning with general literature and then mystery/suspense.
Ernest Hemingway said all he was trying to do was write a perfect sentence. No one, in my opinion, wrote more of them than Willa Cather. She is my all time favorite writer. I enjoy her stories, but it is the beauty of her writing that brings me back to her again and again. My top three books: My Antonia, Death Comes For The Archbishop, The Professor’s House.
www.willacather.org
www.cather.unl.edu
www.online-literature.com/willa-carther
He changed American writing, developing the distinctive, concise style that became so popular it was copied by hundreds or writers who followed. None of them, however, has ever done it as well. My favorites: The Sun Also Rises, A Moveable Feast, The Complete Short Stories: The Finca Vigia Edition.
www.timelesshemingway.com
www.nobelprize.org
www.hemingwaysociety.org
Read On The Road, The Dharma Bums and Big Sur. You’ll understand.
www.kirjasto.sci.fi/kerouac.htm
www.beatmuseum.org/kerouac/jackkerouac.html
By The Way: Try reading The Sun Also Rises and On the Road back-to-back. Very interesting.
Seemingly loved and hated by an equal number of people, I am a fan, not so much of Tender Is The Night or This Side of Paradise, but definitely of The Great Gatsby and, as with Hemingway, the short stories.
www.fscottfitzgeraldsociety.org
www.sc.edu/fitzgerald
www.online-literature.com/Fitzgerald
Okay. You may not agree with his extreme radical politics – few people do, but the man can flat out write. I love all the historical novels from Burr through The Golden Age. Vidal presents a living, breathing American history through brilliantly conceived characters placed in fascinating situations, and all wrapped up in great storytelling.
www.pitt.edu/~kloman/vidalframe.html
www.kirjasto.sci.fi/vidal.htm
Unsurpassed in my estimation. As the New York Times wrote in its obituary of Hammett, he was “the dean of the ‘hard-boiled’ school of detective fiction.” Raymond Chandler would disagree, but I attribute that to professional jealousy, and so I go with the Times’ more objective view. The best of his work: he published only five novels during his lifetime so I suggest you read them all and pick what you like best. I give the edge to The Thin Man.
www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/hammett.html
www.mikehumbert.com/Dashiell_Hammett
www.mysterynet.com/hammett
He stands right behind Hammett in my view. One reason I put him a step down is because Hammett’s female characters were more fully and interestingly developed. That said, private eye Philip Marlowe is one of the great characters in American fiction. Try The Long Goodbye or The Big Sleep for starters.
www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/chandler.html
www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/amlitprivate/scans/chandlerart.html
www.laweekly.com/2009-03-26/art-books/thebig-sleep
I debated about putting Doyle on this list. I have read every Sherlock Holmes tale at least twice. The writing can be tedious and overdone, but, at the same time, it adapts well to film and television. I enjoyed the BBC Sherlock Holmes series starring Jeremy Brett so much that it tipped the scales in favor of including Doyle here. And after all, Holmes is the foundation for almost all English-language sleuths. The other thing is that, except for The Hound of The Baskervilles, all the stories are relatively short and you can easily decide if you like them after reading three or four in one evening.
www.sherlockholmesonline.org
www.siracd.com
Sayers is another British mystery writer who created one of my favorite characters of all time: Lord Peter Wimsey. The aristocratic sleuth is witty, urbane, intelligent, humane and just fun to read. Sayers presents Wimsey in both short stories and novels that are easy to find on websites and in bookstores. I especially like the first novel, Whose Body?
www.sayers.org.uk
www.mysterynet.com/sayers
No one writes spy novels like John LeCarre. The Brit with the French last name (it’s a pseudonym) can scare the pants off of you. He creates such believable characters caught up in such unbelievably tense and dangerous situations that, for me, it is truly almost impossible to put one of his books down. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley’s People are the most famous LeCarre novels, but my favorites are The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and The Night Manager.
www.johnlecarre.com
www.kirjasto.sci.fi/lecarre.htm
What can you say? The man knows how to write a popular mystery novel. The difference between Grisham and so many of his peers (I’ll let you throw your own names in here since there are so many of them) is that he knows how to write and how to build a story. Further proof of this is that none of the many movies adapted from his books has ever been as good as the novel that inspired it.
www.jgrisham.com
www.johngrishamonline.com
www.olemiss.edu/depts/English/ms-writers/dir/grisham_john