Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Special Favor: Who is (Are) Your Favorite Author(s)?

I'm doing a rather ambitious project with my high school students.  Basically, they need to choose an author of fiction to focus on for a yearlong project.  They'll have to read a book each quarter and do an accompanying project, then tie it all together with a final paper focusing on a theme that runs throughout the four books as well as analyzing how the author's life and experiences played a role in his or her works.

Phew!

Yup, like I said ... ambitious.  It might even be overly so, but I'm super-excited about it, and the kids seem to be as well.

Which brings me the favor part ...

A number of my students have asked for an author recommendation list, considering that the parameters include an author prolific enough to have four published novels.

I've made a list, but I tend to have tunnel vision at times with regards to literature.

If you would be so kind as to leave author suggestions (and perhaps a blurb about why you'd recommend a particular author), I would be unfailingly grateful :-)

18 comments:

  1. Here are a few of my favorites who wrote multiple books.

    Shirley Jackson
    Ray Bradbury
    Margaret Atwood
    Daphne du Maurier
    Connie Willis
    Mark Twain
    Oscar Wilde
    Douglas Adams

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  2. C.S. Lewis
    Madeleine L'Engle
    Lloyd Alexander
    J.R.R. Tolkien
    Ursula LeGuin
    Marion Zimmer Bradley
    Vernor Vinge
    Kage Baker
    Patrick Rothfuss
    George R. R. Martin
    Phillip Pullman
    Terry Pratchett

    and that's the short list

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  3. I would add an unusual choice to the already impressive list: Christopher Moore. He's far more (heh heh) than just a humorist, in my view. I have recommended "Lamb" to tons of people, and nearly always gotten an intense reaction (usually positive).

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  4. Lois McMaster Bujold - brilliant sci-fi and fantasy writer, the Vorkosigan series covers everything from space opera through detective stories and on to romance. She blogs and has published a number of essays about her writing.
    http://www.dendarii.com/

    Terry Pratchett - hugely prolific fantasy/humour/satire writer
    http://www.au.lspace.org/

    Jane Austen - for obvious reasons!

    Neil Gaiman - multi award winning fantasy/horror/sci-fi writer
    http://www.neilgaiman.com/works/Books/

    Georgette Heyer - sort of Jane Austen lite, funny, clever and meticulously researched historical romances.
    http://www.georgette-heyer.com/

    Dorothy L Sayers - The only crime fiction I reread - there's so much more than just "whodunnit?" in her books.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_L._Sayers

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  5. margaret atwood

    geraldine brooks

    am homes

    julia glass

    gaiman

    jasper fforde

    melissa banks

    liza palmer

    curtis sittenfeld

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  6. Stephen King

    Dean Koontz

    Ann Rule (I don't know if she'd be considered fiction, though. I just love her stuff).

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  7. Terry Pratchett
    Tom Holt
    Stephen King
    Isaac Asimov
    Iain M Banks
    Robert Harris
    Alasair Reynolds
    HG Wells
    Douglas Adams
    Mitch Albon
    Stephen Hunt
    Charles Stross

    Mostly SF, some humourous, mostly newer authors.

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  8. Top of the list: Joel Rosenberg. That's sci-fi author Joel Rosenberg, not the political hack author Joel C. Rosenberg.

    Douglas Adams
    Neil Gaiman
    Michael Crichton
    Tom Clancy
    John Grisham
    Robert Ludlum

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  9. My recommendation is to stay with the classics.
    Modern popular writers are too shallow for such an immense project.

    Hemmingway, Faulkner, Melville, Hawthorne, Dickens, Austen, Henry James, etc.

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  10. Larry Niven
    Robert Heinlein
    Arthur Clarke
    Harlan Ellison
    Douglas Adams

    There are others, but those spring to mind.

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  11. I echo everyone's authors and want to add John Updike!

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  12. Jane Austin, Rachel Mead,Stephen King, Dean Kootnz

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  13. John Green. He's a Young Adult author who isn't lacking in the depth department. Looking For Alaska and Paper Towns have the deepest meaning but lessons can be learned from An Abundance of Katherines. His newest is to be released in January, The Fault in Our Stars about a young girl with cancer. Please don't make the mistake that because he's a YA author that it's all fluff :)

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  14. Agh, the author lists here are so full of ... white people with European perspectives! I'm terrible at remembering author names off the top of my head when I'm in the midst of care of the wee ones, but I'll stop back with suggestions.

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  15. Very true. I'm afraid my reading outside the white European perspective has been rather limited (most of my suggestions came from looking at the bookshelf I was sitting next to!) but I'll try to add a little balance to my list.

    Octavia Butler - http://zeroatthebone.wordpress.com/2009/02/24/octavia-e-butler-died-thre-years-ago-today/

    Samuel R Delany - http://www.samuelrdelany.com/

    Haruki Murakami - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruki_Murakami

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  16. Jack Finney
    Matt Stover
    Jennifer Hillier
    Daniel Wilson

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  17. I have two suggestions for you that I'm glad no one else has suggested actually. Garth Nix, who has wrote several series' as well as stand alone books, and his real life does come into play with the stories sometimes. Also Eoin Colfier, the author of the Artemis Fowl series. Two great authors and several great series' between them.

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  18. haha. what a fun conversation. great topic:)

    ray bradbury
    steven king
    george orwell
    the bronte sisters

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