Your Top Three Favourite Authors

[sixret]

Well, I'm surprised to see John Rhode in your list, Nigel.

Are you sure it was John Rhode not John Rhodes?

To others who don't know who he was: John Rhode aka Cecil John Street was a detective author and his works has long been out of print. Some of his titles are very expensive to buy.

There are 77 titles under John Rhode pseudonym. I have all except 8 titles. His other pseudonym was Miles Burton. I have about 20 titles.

[sixret]

depends if we are sticking to 'kid' authors - then that is easy

Enid/Roald Dhal &third place is shared between 'Worst witch' writer (Jill Murphy?) Lewis Carroll & the person who wrote 'naughtiest girl' series, oo could put in Edgar Allan Poe as well as he did stories and poems.

'adult' wise it is harder - agree with Herbert, read most of his Stephen King could be maybe share third with James Patterson as some of their books are decent others are 'rubbish', Tess Gerritesen gets second and again first is hard, as I have many authors I read through, Harlen Coben/Peter James/Kathy Reichs/Dean Koontz/Alex Kava/Thomas Harris/Jeff Deaver/Jeff Abbott/Irvine Welsh/Jean m Aureal (reckon that may be spelt wrong)/Barbra Erskine/Chuck Palahniuk & Hunter s Thompson - all written great stuff and worth checking out if never read them! - I think of any more will add them to my 'list'

Welcome to the forum, xtine. There are some of my favourite modern authors in your list. Tess, Deaver, Patterson, Reichs, James, Abbott, Kava and Coben. I have the majority of their books. Some are wonderful read.

[Moonraker]

Well, I'm surprised to see John Rhode in your list, Nigel. Are you sure it was John Rhode not John Rhodes?

John Rhode it is, sixret!

I cannot understand how I left out one of my top three authors in my list above. Malcolm Saville. I have amended my list.

Poppy - I awoke in the night, and remembered I had forgotten all about Malcolm Saville. I also thought my comment to you might appear a little odd. I meant that your list of authors both shared some of my best-loved authors, but also some which seemed a little too serious for me. Nothing weird intended!

Back to my top three - all joint first:

Enid Blyton
Malcolm Saville
Agatha Christie

[Poppy]

Poppy - I awoke in the night, and remembered I had forgotten all about Malcolm Saville. I also thought my comment to you might appear a little odd. I meant that your list of authors both shared some of my best-loved authors, but also some which seemed a little too serious for me. Nothing weird intended!

Don't worry, Nigel: I thought that's what you meant!

[xtine]

Pleased my author list pleased/impressed Rankin is also very clever as read all the Rebus series - if anyone fancies recommending any to/for me then feel free. I live by the rule/ phrase 'if given a book I'll read it' - and I do!

[Mehul]

Well let me see.
1. Enid Blyton
2. Pamela Cox
3. Elizabetha Dami

[Rob Houghton]

SO difficult, I had to 'cheat' a bit as Eddie did...three children's, three adults.

1 Enid Blyton
2 E. Nesbit
3 Celia Rees

1 Daphne DuMaurier
2 Linwood Barclay
3 Harlan Coben

Plus loads of others!

[Farwa]

Glad to see so many bookworms who find it hard to tell only three favourite authors! Very good choices too!

[Mehul]

Forget my previous post.
Here you are, my final seven

1. Enid Blyton
2. Arthur Conan Doyle
3. Anne Digby
4. Ruskin Bond
5. Franklin W. Dixon
6. Jeff Kinney
7. Jules Verne

And this was my 150th post

[jubei]

Coming from oriental world, my favorite authors may offer something different:

not in particularly order
-Jin Yong, I wonder anybody here ever heard or even read his martial art novel, there is English translation available.
-Gu Long, very unorthodox writing style compared to Jin Yong
-Eiji Yoshikawa, writer of Musashi
-Luo Guanzhong, writer of Romance of Three Kingdoms

British:
Agatha Christie
Enid Blyton
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

American:
Robert Arthur , creator of the Three Investigators and the other authors
Sidney Sheldon
hmm... maybe Gertrude Chandler Warner, the Boxcar Children

[Crwban]

In no particular order my favourite authors at the moment are:

Enid Blyton
Terry Pratchett
Carolyn Keene (I know this isn't really a proper author but some of the writers for Nancy Drew were very good).

[walter raleigh]

I browsed back through this thread to check if I had posted in it already. I had, and at first glance I thought my choices were still fairly accurate.

1. Alan Moore
2. George Orwell
3. Stephen King
4. Enid Blyton
5. P.G. Wodehouse
6. John Wyndham
7. Donald E. Westlake 
8. Isaac Asimov
9. Robert Westall
10.Bill Bryson 

And then I realised I'd somehow contrived to miss Charles Dickens off my list!

So for the record Dickens should have gone in between Enid and P.G. Wodehouse. As Moonraker says above it's virtually impossible to narrow it down to ten let alone just three. Still can't believe I forgot Dickens though

[Darrell71]

Just discovered this thread. Hmm....top three....that's a little hard.

1.James Rollins. (Only read two of his books but I'm hooked, the guy's a genius!)
2.Rick Riordan
3.Pseudonymous Bosch (WHOEVER he is! )
No EB in my top three, unfortunately, she's probably around 5th.
I also like: Lee Child, J.K.Rowling, Ann M Martin, Amish (the one and only Indian author who writes in English that I like), John Green, Suzanne Collins, Veronica Roth, Phillip Pullman, etc.)
And of course: ENID BLYTON!!

[Bannerman65]

Apart from Enid Blyton....?

1. Jennifer Roberson. For her Chronicles Of The Cheysuli series. 8 books in the series, too!
2. Piers Antony. For his Bio Of A Space Tyrant series. 6 in all, including The Iron Maiden.
3. E.E. 'Doc' Smith. 3 series, I like. Only got the full set, of one of the series.

[Poppy]

I think my top three would now be:

1. Gillian Flynn
2. Ransom Riggs
3. Enid Blyton