Who is Your Current Favorite Writer?

[Shortwave]

Title edited for uppercase letters; Rule 9.

These days I've been reading Jack McDevitt. If you're a fan of science fiction, give his work a read.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Haruki Murakami. His work is sort of dark modern surrealism with Japanese spices. The Wind Up Bird Chronicles got me hooked on his work.

 

[tbradsim1]

Thomas Perry, writer of The Old Man made into a tv series, currently reading his series The Butchers Boy!

 

[Chasing Embers]

Ray Bradbury

 

[anotherbob]

Frankly James Joyce. And it's all about Finnegans Wake. Not only do I enjoy the way trying to read that monstrosity makes my brain feel stretched out in a both joyous and painful manner, but it also killed my pathetic attempts at experimental writing. Things have been much better on that front for me since then, though my poetry has gotten a lot worse. I should probably just go back to experimenting there while going straight with the stories.
I could also have gone with Kurt Vonnegut for the other side of the coin. That man has a way of sounding like you're just hearing an old man tell a basic simple easy to digest story while still bringing up bigger issues philosophically and sociologically. Like the dude has a way to make bigger mental meals go down without the heartburn

 

[anotherbob]

Ray Bradbury

no one ever says Ray Bradbury and that's a freaking shame. He's certainly worthy of it. I feel like the snob factor gets in the way. Bradbury is awesome and highly accessible. I put him in the general artist category of so good he makes it look easy.

 

[coming to_falling too]

Haruki Murakami. His work is sort of dark modern surrealism with Japanese spices. The Wind Up Bird Chronicles got me hooked on his work.

Good stuff. I really like Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and Hard-Boiled Wonderland. I need to read more of his stuff

 

[Chasing Embers]

Kurt Vonnegut

"The Sirens of Titan" is probably what got me into science fiction as a child.

 

[agnosticpipe]

I've been working my way through Peter Cawdron's First Contact series. All are very different takes on humans first contact with alien life forms. Some here on earth others take place in different areas of interstellar space. Most are thought provoking, much like the movie District 9 if any of you are familiar with that.

 

[Andriko]

I'd say John Kennedy Toole, but he only wrote the one book. Otherwise there is Plato, whom I am not more or less comprehending in Ancient Greek. Brilliant philosophy combined with wonderful humour and a very well paced read, mostly (just don't start with the Parmenides).

Also, Flan O'Brien/Myles na Gopaleen as the unsung genius of early-mid 20th Cenutry Irish writers. I've never looked at a bicycle the same way since.

 

[brooklynpiper]

Milan Kundera probably. Denis Johnson second
They wrote multiple good books.

 

[burleybreath]

I'd say John Kennedy Toole, but he only wrote the one book.

What? [gasp!] You haven't read The Neon Bible ?

https://www.amazon.com/Neon-Bible-J...swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1664751613&sr=8-1

 

[RonB]

Robert Goddard (Into the Blue etc) and Patrick O’Brian (Post Captain etc). Both amazing writers.

 

[warren99]

If “current favorite writer” means one’s favorite writer, at the parent time, as opposed to favorite current writer, I’d pick Dostoyevsky, hands down.

 

[warren99]

Frankly James Joyce. And it's all about Finnegans Wake. Not only do I enjoy the way trying to read that monstrosity makes my brain feel stretched out in a both joyous and painful manner, but it also killed my pathetic attempts at experimental writing. Things have been much better on that front for me since then, though my poetry has gotten a lot worse. I should probably just go back to experimenting there while going straight with the stories.
I could also have gone with Kurt Vonnegut for the other side of the coin. That man has a way of sounding like you're just hearing an old man tell a basic simple easy to digest story while still bringing up bigger issues philosophically and sociologically. Like the dude has a way to make bigger mental meals go down without the heartburn

Finnegan’s Wake, you say? I’m impressed. Never could quite get into much beyond A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners.

 

[brian64]

If “current favorite writer” means one’s favorite writer, at the parent time, as opposed to favorite current writer, I’d pick Dostoyevsky, hands down.

+1 ... definitely Dostoevsky.

 

[warren]

If “current favorite writer” means one’s favorite writer, at the parent time, as opposed to favorite current writer,

Yup, I'm not sure what he asking for. Current, as in living, I favor Anne Hillerman. If the OP is asking for one's favorite, living or dead, Tony Hillerman.

 

[K.E. Powell]

Do you mean writers currently active now, or just my favorite writer of all time? And are we talking fiction or non-fiction? Ah, too many choices!

In terms of contemporary fiction writers, it is hard to keep up, because I devote roughly a third of reading to fiction and the other two-thirds to non-fiction, which means I'm constantly playing a game of catchup when it comes to fiction. Kazuo Ishiguro is an obvious choice, but few others spring to mind. It's not because there aren't other great authors, but the immense literary output of the 21st century and my own inability to keep up makes it hard to stay up on current trends. I have been impressed by what little I have read by Jeff VanderMeer and Brian Evenson, but as I said, it has been little; I only read the first book of the former's Southern Reach trilogy.

If we're talking all-time fiction greats, Ishiguro reaches this list as well, as does Cormac McCarthy and Neil Gaiman. For essay-style non-fiction writing, Christopher Hitchens, Barbara Ehrenreich, James Baldwin, and George Orwell are tops (and the latter two's fiction is also excellent). For history, Theodore Draper, Gordon S. Wood, Jonathan Israel, and David Harvey (okay, technically an anthropologist, but it would feel remiss not including him).

 

[ashdigger]

Nathaniel Philbrick

 

[warren]

Looks as though "Shortwave" has left the building.