Your Favorite Writers’ Favorite Writers
Mickey Spillane’s favorite writer was Frederic Brown.
“When Ayn Rand was asked who her favorite writer was, she replied: Mickey Spillane. When asked why she admired Spillane’s writing so much. Rand said: ‘Because he is primarily a moralist.'”–from The Armchair Detective
Ralph Ellison claimed Man’s Fate to be his favorite book, as said in Conversations with Ralph Ellison.
Emily Dickinson’s favorite novelist was Charles Dickens.
Charles Dickens loved Shakespeare.
Poe enjoyed the poetry and essays of Samuel Taylor Coleridge above most others,
Joyce loved the plays of Henrik Ibsen so much that he studied Norwegian at University College Dublin in order to be able to read them in their original form.
Chaucer’s favorite author was Aristotle.
Melville’s favorite was, awkwardly, Nathaniel Hawthorne, whom Melville may have stalked; Hawthorne admired Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress above all other narratives.
Danielle Steele’s favorite author was France’s Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette.
Flannery O’Connor complained of being consistently misheard during interviews. She reported in a letter to Cecil Dawkins that when an interviewer asked who her favorite authors were she replied that she “liked James and Conrad mighty well, and in a minute [the interviewer] said, ‘And you said your favorite author was James Conrad, now…’ If you do manage to say anything that makes sense, they put down the opposite.”
William Faulkner never gave a straight answer to the question of his favorite writer, never able to admit his career-long effort to supplant the gigantic association to Twain perhaps.
Nevertheless, close family and associates readily told interviewers that Faulkner did have a favorite TV show. He was obsessed, in fact, with one TV show in particular.
Herman and Grandpa, before they were Munsters. I see the first part of that Shakespeare quote in this– “like a tale told by….” but “sound and fury”? –Not really.
Who’s your favorite author?
Much enjoyed! (Favorite writer? Got one for each mood. And there are many..)
I can relate 😉
🙂
I don’t think I can choose just one, but E.L. Doctorow, for “The Book of Daniel” and Virginia Woolf for “Mrs. Dalloway”. So many others that I wouldn’t know where to begin.
My favorite author is Don DeLillo. My favorite book is, conveniently, “White Noise.”
Dumas hands down. Count of Monte Cristo, now there is a novel on a stage.
Dumas is one of my favorites–like Pushkin, another mixed-race European.
Ayn Rand thinking of Spillane as a moralist. Priceless!
I chuckled at this, too 🙂
I know.
Reblogged this on heatherzhutchinswrites and commented:
It’s Monday in a holiday week here in the USA. You deserve some Michael Alexander Chaney, Fictioneers. Enjoy!
I like Brothers Grimm. Oh well…
Fantastic post! My favorite is Vonnegut. That man altered my mind.
I think: Lian Hearn, Iain M. Banks, Joey Comeau. All for very different reasons. These are also the authors whom I try to emulate the most.