Authors You've Read the Most

[nixie]

Heh it depends on what you mean by critics, i read more Goodreads readers reviews than paper,online review by the regular critics. In SFF i listen most to readers in SFF Chrons, the history of my own reading.

I listen to critics when its an author im already interested in, i want to know more about like a Robert Aickman, Angela Carter, Calvino, classic modern greats i havent read much about.

Usually its like because i trust extollager taste in what he reads, knowledge about literary,classic fantasy,general fiction i will read Charles Williams with one of those books he mentioned. Rather than listening to random snobby critic.

One of the reasons I miss @GOLLUM I know to pay attention if he raves about an author. @ratsy and a few others also have similar tastes to me. Thanks to Chrons I've discovered a lot of authors I would never have read.

 

[Extollager]

....Ian Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia; Great Plains; Gone to New York; On the Rez; The Fish's Eye; Nobody Better, Better Than Nobody... and other books; I'm naming ones I've read.

If you're curious, I'd recommend especially either of the first two books, whichever sound more interesting to you as places to read about. I live near the edge of the Great Plains, but not right in it; it's the Midwest where I live, green and moist even today in mid-August, but a few hours' west of here and I'm in the Great Plains -- ranches, buffalo, Crazy Horse, Black Elk, Lewis and Clark, little towns with a gas station, a cafe, and a museum... The Siberia book was delightful, and when I wrote to the author c/o his publisher, about the monk and the lepers on the Pacific edge of Siberia, he wrote back.

 

[BAYLOR]

One of the reasons I miss @GOLLUM I know to pay attention if he raves about an author. @ratsy and a few others also have similar tastes to me. Thanks to Chrons I've discovered a lot of authors I would never have read.

Ive picked up a few new writers and books that I have never read or heard of as well.

 

[J-Sun]

FWIW, since my most-read skews so old, I got curious and made a list of people who started with or after Cherryh as another blog post with more descriptions and favorites. (Not that Cherryh's new, obviously, but she was just the newest on my all-time list.)

All of A.E. Van Vogt's novels except Computer World (37?) and just about all his short stories (approx. 100).

I ask this all the time, but how do you think the stuff beginning with The Silkie (1969) compares to the stuff before it?

 

[Matteo]

Perhaps a little more "sophisticated" (if that's the right word) but actually, I much prefer his earlier stuff. A bit more naïve (but that's because of the time it was written) but also more...well...loopy(!) - which is what I like about his work.

 

[williamjm]

According to Goodread's most-read authors feature:

1

Margaret Weis 34 - for some reason Goodreads seems to struggle with the concept of co-authors, so this should really read 'and Tracy Hickman'. I think this is a bit of an over-estimate since it seems to be including some anthologies they edited, but I did read a lot of their books when I was a teenager - I don't think I've read anything by them in more than a decade
2

Lois McMaster Bujold 23
3

David Eddings 22 - another author I haven't read in a long time
4

Raymond E. Feist 21 - I think I'm relatively unlikely to read more by him, I came to the conclusion I should probably have stopped reading the Riftwar book several books before I did.
5

George R.R. Martin 20
6

Peter F. Hamilton 19 - given how long his books often are he could be close to the #1 spot in terms of pages
7

Adrian Tchaikovsky 16 - at the rate he publishes books he could be in the #1 spot in a few years
7

Robert Jordan 16
9

Ken MacLeod 15
9= Daniel Abraham 15 (if I combine his James S.A. Corey books with those written under his real name)

 

[Extollager]

I take it the idea is that we're to think of the authors by whom we've read the most titles. In my case, that might mean H. Rider Haggard; without checking, I'd estimate that comes to 25-30 different books.

But if "authors you've read the most" could mean authors whose books you've read and reread the most, my results would favor C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, since I've read (for example) Out of the Silent Planet about 16 times, Lord of the Rings about a dozen times, and so on. (Actually, I've read quite a few different Lewis -titles- too, since I've read all of his fiction, poetry, literary criticism and history, autobiography, theology, etc.)

Combining number of titles of books and also titles read multiple times, my major authors might include Lewis, Tolkien, Haggard, Dickens, Trollope, Shakespeare, Asimov, Dick, Machen, Hawthorne, Lovecraft, M. R. James, Lars Walker, V. S. Naipaul, Orwell, Waugh, Eric Newby, Chatwin, Jane Austen, et al.

Naipaul... time to reactivate that thread.

 

[AndrewT]

Louis L'Amour (40)
Franklin Dixon (beyond count) - before the age of 10 I read most of his.

At the moment there is no one else I have read more than 10 of. There are quite a few I have read 5-10. That will change over the next few decades I am certain. I did very little reading in my 20's other than college texts.

 

[Matteo]

Franklin Dixon (beyond count) - before the age of 10 I read most of his.

That would The Hardy Boys. And I would therefore add to my list but I'm pretty sure that "he" was several authors.

 

[Rodders]

Terry Pratchet is probably the author that I have read the most, although I haven’t kept track of how many book. Perhaps 20.

Second would be Edmund Cooper, who I read much of in the late 80’s.

Modern writers aren’t so prolific.

 

[Alan Aspie]

Terry Pratchett

 

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

I'm amazed how many of you give exact counts. I'm assuming you're not going to the trouble of consulting a bibliography and counting. That's too much work. For me, probably Asimov because I read a lot of his non-fiction in addition to all his fiction. And he wrote a LOT of non-fiction. Heinlein, Burroughs, and Rex Stout would be next because they were all prolific too.

 

[Vertigo]

I'm amazed how many of you give exact counts. I'm assuming you're not going to the trouble of consulting a bibliography and counting. That's too much work. For me, probably Asimov because I read a lot of his non-fiction in addition to all his fiction. And he wrote a LOT of non-fiction. Heinlein, Burroughs, and Rex Stout would be next because they were all prolific too.

Quite a few of us have accounts at Goodreads where you can relatively easily extract these sort of statistics from your database of read books. It's just a question of whether you bother to add all the books you've read long before joining Goodreads.