Author Preferences Quotes

Novels are my favorite to write and read. I do like writing personal essays, too. I'm not really a short story writer, nor do I tend to gravitate to them as a reader.

For many years, I read mystery novels for relaxation. But my tastes were too narrow - and, having read all of Agatha Christie and John Dickson Carr, I discovered that the implausibility and the thinness of the people distracted me unduly from the plot.

I am not unique in my elegiac sadness at watching reading die, in the era that celebrates Stephen King and J.K. Rowling rather than Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll.

In crime, I like Ian Rankin and James Lee Burke. As for historical books, I enjoy Bernard Cornwell, Patrick O'Brien, and C. S. Forester - anything with battleships!

I don't think I have one particular favourite writer. I have many whose works I will always buy or reread - Muriel Spark, Anthony Powell, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ruth Rendell, James Ellroy, William McIlvanney, Kate Atkinson, John Burnside, Louise Welsh, Iain Banks.

Unfortunately, I'm not a history buff. I don't read biographies, except of some of those writers whom I've collected over the years - particularly Samuel Beckett and Henry Miller, people like Charles Bukowski and John Fante and David Foster Wallace.

Honestly, I haven't the time to read contemporary writers. I know this is awful, but in the main it is true.

Any writer would rather dig into character than dig into fancy plots.

I am a voracious reader, so it's difficult for me to give a list of my favourite authors of all time.

I have a strong say in how my books are marketed, and the covers - I am very firm that I don't want pink and fluffy, or stick figures sitting drinking cocktails. That's simply not appealing to me.

I read a lot of science fiction, but I also mixed it up with a lot of other genres: crime, literary fiction, as well as nonfiction. Author-wise, I'm a fan of Stephen King, Lauren Beukes, Robert McCammon, Raymond Chandler, Greg Rucka, Ed Brubaker and Gail Simone, among many others.

I never read articles about my books.

I read a lot of science fiction and biography - these are my two favorite genres. My favorite science fiction writers are Hertling, Suarez, Gibson and Stephenson, but I enjoy many others. I dislike reading business books, although I skim a lot of them.

I grew up reading Stephen King, Peter Straub, Clive Barker, Robert McCammon, Isaac Asimov's nonfiction books, and Roald Dahl.

Updike and Bellow and Roth were my three favorite writers when I was young and throughout my life.

I liked early Amis a lot, but I stopped reading him some time ago. I admire Hitchens on literary topics - I think he is very astute. McEwan, I read a bit. But I suppose it's more the ideological phenomenon that they represent together that interests me.

I lay off a lot modern fiction and only rely on living writers for non-fiction work.

My favourite authors include Trollope and Dickens.

I've always been drawn to dark stories. I enjoy reading Flannery O'Connor, Patricia Highsmith, and Margaret Mitchell.

I like Jo Nesbo and Hakan Nesser. There are so many good books in the world. I don't want to spend time reading bad crime novels.

I must confess I love female writers: Jane Austen, Isak Dinesen, Colette, Willa Cather, Dawn Powell, Joan Didion. I grew up on the Bronte sisters, and Daphne du Maurier.