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List of Authors

-Carlos-

-Carlos-

New Member
Place these authors in the order of worth with number one being the most worthy author. Also write out your list of notable authors.

  • Marilynne Robinson
  • Edward P. Jones
  • John Kennedy Toole
  • Jose Saramago
  • Aldous Huxley
  • Ray Bradbury
  • George Orwell
  • J.D. Salinger
  • William Golding
  • Harper Lee
  • John Steinbeck
  • John Updike
  • Jeffrey Eugenides
  • Joseph Heller
  • Richard Yates
  • Margaret Atwood
  • Saul Bellow
 
Is the order above that which you would subscribe to? And how could someone rank an author when they haven't read them? (i.e. Saramago, Heller, Salinger, Lee, Bradbury, Toole, Jones)
 
True. The order above is not my order. Please rank authors that you have read from the list above. I should of made that clear...my error.
 
I'll play...

  1. George Orwell
  2. Jeffrey Eugenides
  3. Margaret Atwood
  4. Harper Lee
  5. John Steinbeck
  6. Joseph Heller
  7. William Golding
  8. Richard Yates
  9. Marilynne Robinson
  10. J.D. Salinger

With the ones I've read. Though, other than the top three, I have only read one book by the remaining authors, except for Marilynne Robinson, having read a tiny amount (few pages) of Gilead, and ditto to Heller's Catch-22. Also, Richard Yates only appears so low, because the one book I read, Revolutionary Road, was really read at the wrong time, and I would give him another chance (nice, huh?).

EDIT: argh, spelling.
 
  1. Richard Yates
  2. Joseph Heller
  3. John Updike
  4. George Orwell
  5. Harper Lee
  6. Jeffrey Eugenides
  7. Saul Bellow
  8. Aldous Huxley
  9. William Golding
  10. John Steinbeck
  11. Marilynne Robinson
  12. John Kennedy Toole
  13. J.D. Salinger
  14. Margaret Atwood
Haven't read Bradbury, Jones or Saramago. And the only things I'm certain of in my ordering above (based on pleasure given by them to me) is that Yates is clearly first, and Atwood is firmly last.

I'd also recommend Kazuo Ishiguro, Martin Amis, Patrick McGrath, Graham Greene, and probably others whose names escape me at the minute.
 
Wow Shade, this thread is turning out to be quite insightful after all. :D

What are your choices then Aqua?
 
I have only read five. :( This is my order:

  1. John Steinbeck
  2. William Golding
  3. Aldous Huxley
  4. Marilynne Robinson
  5. Edward P. Jones (in progress)
 
Richard Yates
John Steinbeck
Jeffrey Eugenides
William Golding
George Orwell
Aldous Huxley
Marilynne Robinson
Saul Bellow
Margaret Atwood
 
I've not read many, but heres how the ones I have read go:

Jeffrey Eugenides
George Orwell
Margaret Atwood
J.D. Salinger

I'm not sure if I've even heard of all of the others. :eek: How shameful. I think I'll go read in the corner now...
 
Out of those I've read:

George Orwell
William Golding
Harper Lee
Margaret Atwood
Ray Bradbury
Aldous Huxley
John Steinbeck
Joseph Heller

This was hard!

Why is Margaret Atwood getting such a bad rap? I think she's very worthwhile.

Some I would add include Don DeLillo, Salman Rushdie, Isabel Allende, and Barbara Kingsolver. I would put down more but it looks like we have a 20th- and 21st-century focus here?
 
This was hard!

Why is Margaret Atwood getting such a bad rap? I think she's very worthwhile.
Click to expand...

Yes, it is hard. As I indicated above, most of my middle-ranking choices are more or less randomly placed. Orwell or Lee? Who knows?

For me, I just haven't really liked any of Atwood's stuff, with the exception of her story collection Wilderness Tips, which I did love. Other than that I've read Surfacing (OK), The Robber Bride (hated it), The Handmaid's Tale (gave up halfway after hating it) and The Blind Assassin (gave up even earlier). I guess she's just one of those novelists I'm not tuned in to.
 
Wow Shade, I really admire your efforts to find a Margaret Atwood novel you liked:) If I had the same sort of experiences I would have given up long before.

I read and liked The Penelopiad, The Handmaid's Tale, and The Blind Assassin.

Heller ended up at the bottom for me because I read the first 50 pages or so of Catch-22 but couldn't get into either the characters or the style so I put it down. I wonder if I can say I've read him? I did try.
 
Catch-22, as far as I remember, doesn't really get going until page 100 or so, though it's still over-long anyway. Heller ranked so high for me simply because his second novel, Something Happened, is one of my all-time favourites. It's very black though and powerfully bleak, and in a way quite 'boring' (but deliberately so) - am I selling it to you?? - so not to everyone's taste I imagine.
 
I don't think I've read enough to participate, but I'd just like to mention Gabriel García Márquez, Kurt Vonnegut, and Philip Roth as prolific and acclaimed 20th century authors.
 
Here's my list:

1. George Orwell
2. Margaret Atwood
3. Jeffrey Eugenides
4. Harper Lee
5. William Golding
6. Aldous Huxley
7. Joseph Heller
8. Jose Saramago
9. Ray Bradbury

The others I haven't read.
 
Only from the one's I've read: (And as authors, not as philosophers)
  • John Steinbeck
  • Aldous Huxley - Early work
  • Harper Lee
  • Joseph Heller
  • William Golding
  • Ray Bradbury
  • George Orwell
  • Aldous Huxley - Later work
  • J.D. Salinger
 
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