Hatrack River Writers Workshop: 3 greatest writers

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Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :

Who are your 3 greatest writers of all time?

Here are mine:

Fyodr Dostoyevsky
Kazuo Ishiguro
Henry James

I'm interested in who yours are. Also, feel free to talk crap on mine if you so desire.

Posted by arriki (Member # 3079) on :

How do you mean "greatest?"

Most admired? Revealed the human condition best? Entertained the most people?

I'd have to put forth Homer, Shakespeare, and...hmmm probably somebody from the far east whose works I'm not familiar with (I only read genre stuff from there.) though I might go for Euripides as a good, solid third.

On the other hand, my own personal favorites are -- Mary Renault, ummm...the other two? I have a bunch of favorites who are one step down from her as writers. Andre Norton (whose sf novels I loved as a kid), Daniel Silva, Robert B Parker's Spenser novels, Thomas Burnett Swan's fantasies, other people whose writing skills I trust enough that I buy their newest novel as soon as it comes out without even peeking inside to see what it's about.

Then there are the writers who have one or two books that were really, really good but not all their books are as good, iike Rowling's first three Potter books. Iain Banks's Culture novels.

Posted by Avatar300 (Member # 1655) on :

Friedrich Nietzsche
Adam Smith
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Posted by AeroB1033 (Member # 1956) on :

Some obvious choices might be Homer, Sophocles, and Shakespeare. Honestly, though, I find myself relating most to authors from our time (by which I mean the latter half of the twentieth century to today)--and I'm not experienced enough in either those or the classics to comment.

[This message has been edited by AeroB1033 (edited October 29, 2006).]

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

As long as this is here...

Robert A. Heinlein
Isaac Asimov
Arthur C. Clarke

...as long as we're sticking with science fiction.

If fantasy is included, substitute "J. R. R. Tolkien" for Clarke.

I really can't think of any mainstream writer I'd want to put in the top three...I could go further down with the list, and include them, but who'd want to read my top three hundred? And besides, how could I rank them in proper order?

(arriki already named one other favorite writer of mine: Thomas Burnett Swann.)

Posted by Alethea Kontis (Member # 3748) on :

I submit to you:

Jane Austen
J. R. R. Tolkien
Shakespeare (though I am of the school of thought that both he and Homer are meant to be heard, not read)

But seriously? from Plato to Poe, Dickens to Dahl, even Margaret Mitchell--so many authors did so much for so many genres. I could no sooner pick a favorite star in the sky.

[Edit, because how on earth could I have forgotten the Brothers Grimm?? So my list has to be four. I'm such a cheater.]

[This message has been edited by Alethea Kontis (edited October 29, 2006).]

Posted by J (Member # 2197) on :

Using my own idiosyncratic version of "greatest":

Ernest Hemingway
C.S. Lewis
Fyodor Dostoevsky

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Well, I guess I'm the only one who would put myself on that list, huh?

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

I've never read any Survivor, so I wouldn't know where to rank you.

Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :

I.P Nightly
Seymour Butts
Major Bumsore

Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :

hoptoad!

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

quote:
I.P Nightly
Seymour Butts
Major Bumsore

Don't know 'em. They must write mainstream fiction.

Posted by franc li (Member # 3850) on :

The three writers who have affected me the most are probably different from whom I would name the 3 greatest writers of all time. I'd assume you mean fiction writers.

Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Twain. I'm very narrowly read, though.

Posted by arriki (Member # 3079) on :

Isn't three an awfully limited number for greatest?

Posted by trousercuit (Member # 3235) on :

quote:
I.P Nightly
Seymour Butts
Major Bumsore
Don't know 'em. They must write mainstream fiction.

Romance, actually.

EDIT: No nested quotes?

[This message has been edited by trousercuit (edited October 31, 2006).]

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Well, if you want those that "affected me the most," it's a slightly different three. In order:

Robert A. Heinlein (whose work is literally and literarily the axis on which my life pivots---meaning if I hadn't encountered his work, I wouldn't be the guy I am today. (Hmmm...)

Kenneth Grahame (whose The Wind in the Willows moved me like no other book)

Isaac Asimov (whose commentaries and stories in The Early Asimov made me think, "If he could get those published, I should try my hand at it as well.")

Tolkien would be fourth on the list, after which it again gets harder to pick.

Posted by hoptoad (Member # 2145) on :

I would say it is the authors, but more accurately it would be the books.

Robert Holdstock — Mythago Wood
Megan Lindholme — Wizard of the Pigeons
Walter M. Miller Jr — Canticle for Liebowitz

Wetwilly, am I redeemed for my infantile post above?

(hee hee I said 'wetwilly')

Edit:

Dang! I did it again. Didn't I?

[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited October 31, 2006).]

Posted by Faye (Member # 4170) on :

Darn it. This is really hard. I usually don't notice an author's body of work as a whole unless I'm trying to explain why such a crappy writer is considered by so many to be so good. (lol) This is the best I could do:
C. S. Lewis
Shakespeare (and Euripides and Sophocles)
Machiavelli (Does he count as an author? I'll add a fourth, just in case.)
George Orwell/Aldous Huxley

Yeah, that's more than three. I don't make decisions well.

[This message has been edited by Faye (edited October 31, 2006).]

Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :

Hoptoad,

So I can stop scouring the internet for books by I. P. Nightly, Seymour Butts, and Major Bumsore? Jokes that keep me up all night trying to find non-existent books are not funny, Mr./Mrs./Ms. Toad.

Posted by Mig (Member # 3318) on :

There are too many great writers to narrow down to three, but these are my three favs. I thought I'd include a writer whos's still writing:

Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita, best novel of the 20th Century, IMO)
Edith Wharton (Age of Innocence is my favorite early 20th century novel)
Ian Mcewan (Atonement is probably his best known novel.)

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

Ian Mcewan is the first one named here that I can't recall ever hearing about before---though I haven't read the work of most of 'em. (I have heard of I. P. Nightly and company...just not as writers.)

Posted by Grimslade (Member # 3173) on :

3 Greatest writers for their mastery of language:
Rudyard Kipling
W.B. Yeats
Mark Twain
3 favorites that I read over and over again:
Robert E. Howard
Fritz Leiber
Stephen King

and for Wetwilly to save your Googling:
I.P. Daily - Yellow River
Seymour Butts - Moons over Miami
Major Bumsore - 30 Days in the Saddle

Posted by franc li (Member # 3850) on :

I thought Seymour Butts wrote Under the Bleachers.

Posted by Mig (Member # 3318) on :

quote:
I thought Seymour Butts wrote Under the Bleachers.

No, that was I.P. Frealy.

Posted by wetwilly (Member # 1818) on :

I think the romance writer you're thinking of, Trousercuit, is Amanda Huginkis

Posted by djvdakota (Member # 2002) on :

Writers! Pfsh!