List of the Greatest Authors of ALL time

What you guys got?

from JoeUser Forums
If you disagree... comment and gimme your list...
1. Dante - La Commedia Divina, Vita Nova
2. Homer - The Odyssey (the complete book not the excert we read in school)
3. Beirce - The Occurrence at Owl Creek
4. Tolstoi - War & Peace (read it 3 times and if its that good you get the point)
5. Kafka - All of Kafka (he is one of the most phenomina writers ever)
6. Faulkner - As I Lay Dying
7. Milton - Paradise Lost ( no one gives a shit about Paradise Regained)
8. Poe A Tell Tell Heart (sure his poems are good but his short fiction is great)
9. Salinger - Perfect Day For Bananafish (need I say more)
10. Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men

Theres my list and I have read everyone of them too.. most of them all thier books in print or of importance
misc
32,623 views 55 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
what about J.S. Mill?  Dickens?  Twain?  Emerson? 
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
Well I was never really in to Twain... nor dickens... never heard of Mills... you might suggest a book title and I might read up on him... Emerson...never really got into him either... at least you didnt say Shakespeare
Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
pynchon, barth, berger, salinger, twain, london
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
theyre not the greatest of all time (well pynchon, twain and barth are not far off the mark as far as american novelists go)
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
Suess

Without him we probably wouldn't have started on the others

Oh and the guy/girl that writes the first grade readers
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top

Link <--- There's a link to some quotes by Emerson... if you're not inspired by any of those, then there's something wrong with ya...


Link <--- there's a link to some info on J.S. Mill... his work is not to be taken lightly.  He was a genius of colossal proportions... He wrote the definitive work on Logic, his system of which is still being used today.


check out the links... I believe you'll be impressed 

Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
as a matter of fact, should you decide to check out those links, let me know what you think... especially in regards to Mill's youth
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
I thank you much Micheal and I apperciate your diligence to give me those links as soon as I have my normal comp back I will surf right back to this article and surely check it out... and if you use Yahoo messy and would like to talk about some of those... be my guest my account with yahoo is:
s_h_a_d_o_w_s_c_r_u_s_h_e_r

thaks guys for the comments and shit... Im fixing to publish another article very soon about the perfect woman... I know your just killing one another to get at that one....

Thomas

Ps and if you dont use Yahoo... my MSN Name is [email protected]
Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
Oh and the guy/girl that writes the first grade readers

you mean the ones that contain such pithy prose as: 'oh look jane. see dick. see spot.'

i dont know if they qualify for greatness except perhaps on the basis of most widely read?
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top
London was okay I will give you that mark but I will admit one of my favorite stories by Salinger was, "A Perfect Day For Bananafish" out of Nine Stories
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
man o man,
I remember reading so many authors because I should and because of reputation....now I just read what I want to, and I tend to like books rather than authors. e.g. Catch22 was one of my favourite books of all time but I could never seem to get into anything else by Joseph Heller. I have read so many good books by authors that most people would never have heard of....Handling Sin by Michael Malone, Boys Life by Robert McCammon or English Passengers by Matthew Kneale. Sometimes an author does it for me Somerset Maugham is probably my absolute favourite. And I have a soft spot for Dickens, John Irving and Louis de Bernieres...for the most part I guess I tend towards more contemporary authors
Now days I am glad I can just be myself and read whatever I feel like without feeling guilty....pass the latest Harry Potter will you dear chap...
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
I will admit that catch-22 was a really good book but Heller didnt make my list... now that I think about it maybe I should go back and tell which books made them what they are to me...
Thanks for the comment man
Thomas

Ps... ol chap no Harry Potter here but I will pass you the Devils Dictionary
Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top
now that I think about it maybe I should go back and tell which books made them what they are to me


Now that idea I do like.....
Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top
now that I think about it maybe I should go back and tell which books made them what they are to me...


me too ...I would like to know your reasons why.

Jess x
Reply #15 from JoeUser Forums Top
I'm new to the whole "writing and reading" scene, so I don't know where he stands in comparison with some of the greats, but Hunter S. Thompson is the guy who got me interested in writing. His style, oh my lord, his style. Up to that point, I had always been accustomed to the normal, boring writing style that I had always been exposed to in school. To find an author like Thompson was mind-boggling to me. Since then, I've enjoyed other authors with unique styles like Hemingway(nothing) and Faulkner(everything), but I'll always go back to Thompson for that trademark drug-addled style of his.
Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top
Herman Melville. 'nuff said.
Reply #17 from JoeUser Forums Top
"Boys Life by Robert McCammon." A good novel, but McCammon weirds me out sometimes. His Swan Song was very good, but Gone South was decidely odd. I haven't read "Speaks the Nightbird" yet.

Now the "Devils Dictionary" by Ambrose Beirce is something that I quote from all the time.

Here is a list of great authors who never won a Nobel Prize, submitted for discussion:

JOYCE, considered the greatest writer of the century
KAFKA, greatest German novelist of the century
PROUST, considered the greatest French novelist of the century
BORGES, one of the greatest literary figures of the century
JAMES, possibly the greatest American novelists of all times
CONRAD, one of the greatest British novelists of all times
PESSOA, one of the greatest poets of the century
NABOKOV, one of the greatest American novelists of the century
VALERY, greatest French poet of the century
GARCIA LORCA, greatest Spanish poet of the last 3 centuries
BRECHT, the founder of modern theatre

Reference: http://www.scaruffi.com/fiction/nobel.html

Let me pose a question of modern authors. Where would you put Tolkein? How about Jules Verne?
Reply #19 from JoeUser Forums Top

Robert Pirsig get's my vote.


good point Joe98... So I take it you've read Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance?  what'd you think?  Did you read it for fun or for school or both?

Reply #20 from JoeUser Forums Top
Indeed Larry you bring up some great authors, Nabokov... his prose was so great... I know I had to have read at least 50 chapters in Lolita a night, that book went by so fast... it was a master piece in its own right.
Conrad... he was okay I thought Heart of Darknes was okay and so was Lord Jim but I thought The Secret Sharer was the best out of all three.
Borges... I had friend suggest him to me over a chess game and I read a little tale by him and indeed, his write sometimes can be mind boggling (I obviously looked more into him)
I never read Joyce, though after hearing some synopsis of his works I found them decidedly not worth placing time and effort into reading...

Its like Wuthering Heights by Bronte... I read the synopsis... didnt find it pleasing... and then had to read it in school and even then with the English Lit teacher I had it was a horrid story... so predictable by the end.

I will say that Dumas to me was a damn good writer.. he didnt make my list but his stuff was good enough for me to go and buy 2 books of his

As for an American poet I find Blake to be absolutely phenominal, even though his schemes were almost standardized, the way he placed the words to facilitate a sentence was grand

Thomas
Reply #21 from JoeUser Forums Top
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - try One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Umberto Eco is a fav as well, of late I would say Baudolino is my pick.
Reply #22 from JoeUser Forums Top
"Boys Life by Robert McCammon." A good novel, but McCammon weirds me out sometimes. His Swan Song was very good, but Gone South was decidely odd. I haven't read "Speaks the Nightbird" yet.


Larry,
I agree 100%. I checked out a couple of his other books and came to the same conclusion. I guess he just hit the mark with that one book.

Brackenfish,
When Thompson is on the mark he is great....gonzo journalism.

Good post and good discussion Thomas!
Reply #23 from JoeUser Forums Top
"Lord of the Flies" by William Golding.
"Briefing for a Descent into Hell" by Doris Lessing
the "Canopus in Argos: Archives" series by Doris Lessing
"Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut
"A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess
Not nearly as deep or thought-provoking, but very fun in a nastily surprising sort of way, Short stories of Roald Dahl (though of course his children's stuff is also classic).
Also not nearly as deep or thought-provoking, but fun in a much gentler, more eccentric way, just about anything by Terry Pratchett.
Reply #24 from JoeUser Forums Top
How ya doing Cita... I read Golding, and he is decently good I will grant you that... I have read some of Vonneguts stuff it was instresting but not something I would have focused more time into.. We discussed A Clockwork Orange in my Psyc class in high school and I have always been interested in watching the movie and reading the book but I can never find copies n sadly to say I was never too keen on buying stuff of the net... stupid me.... Okay guys here is comes Im gonna post my article on teh reasons that I picked the authors I did... if you guys wanna hope over there and give your reason like I did in the comments that would be totally kick ass!

Thomas
Reply #25 from JoeUser Forums Top
good point Joe98... So I take it you've read Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance? what'd you think? Did you read it for fun or for school or both?


Thanks Imajinit!! I read it for fun but I've got to say it and it's sequal "Lila" really changed the way I view the world. Tim Allen said reading ZAMM was a life changing thing for him. I have to agree! "The Great Divorce" by C.S. Lewis is also a very good book. An allegory tale about Heaven & Hell which is fantastic.