Authors You've Read the Most

J-Sun

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Feel like there's another thread on this but the search engines aren't being cooperative. This was inspired by a blog post I read, "Authors I've Read the Most Books From." That led to my own blog post, "Top Ten Most-Read Authors" but it occurs to me that it might make a pretty good thread (if it hasn't already). My list and the comments on the authors are on the blog post but, for convenience, my list was

11. Norman Spinrad (18)
10. Philip K. Dick (19)
09. Roger Zelazny (20)
08. Arthur C. Clarke (23)
07. Robert Silverberg (24)
06. Fritz Leiber (24)
05. A. E. van vogt (25)
04. Poul Anderson (27)
03. C. J. Cherryh (35, maybe 37)
02. Robert A. Heinlein (40)
01. Isaac Asimov (44)

(As I said on the post, the reason I have 11 is because I originally thought #11 and #10 were tied.)

So, what's your list and your comments, if any?
 
Um.... Lois Master Bujold, Jodi Taylor, Val McDermid, Maeve Binchy, Marian Keyes, Orson Scott Card, an author who I won't promote by using her name in a post but read a lot of once, Stephen King, Carlos Ruiz Zafon or Isabelle Allende (about equal but probably Allende has it), JK Rowling (but only because I devoured the Robert Galbraith books - I stopped HP about 1/2way through)

This is just based on what I have on my bookcase. What interests me (I've been planning a blog on this for awhile) is that 8 of these writers are women and 2 of the men are writers who would be known as being good character writers (I'd argue Card is too). This is despite me picking up pretty much any book that vaguely interests me - I have a bias to enjoying books written by women I see.
 
Fantasy & SF the most commonly read (and reread) would be:
Roger Zelazny, Steven Brust, Kevin Hearne, Stephen Campbell, Jim Bernheimer, Harry Turtledove, John Ringo, Stephen R. Donaldson, Michael Moorcock.
 
The author I've read the most is, without a doubt, Agatha Christie. Fantasy would be Brooks, Sci-Fi Heinlein.

Modern authors would include Carolyn Hart.

Up and coming on the list are Maria Haskins and Jo Zebedee.

DA WOMEN ARE TAKING OVER!! :D
 
Hmm. Tricky.

Bernard Cornwell must still be top of the list even though I haven't read his stuff for a while.

Joe Abercrombie's probably on the list. Er... maybe Jim Butcher for the Codex Alera. Brandon Sanderson and Robin Hobb perhaps.

Ian Mortimer and Theodore Ayrault Dodge are probably the historians I've read most. And Philip Matyszak.

I deliberately try to read a lot of different authors so not many authors stand out a lot.
 
According to Goodreads which i use always when i read books since 2008, since i started reading for real in 2007 like i do. It isnt 100% accurate since some of the old reads i havent added to GR.

1. Richard Stark/ Donald E. Westlake(33) - Stark the pen-name i like Westlake most in Parker noir books.
2. Jack Vance (32) - THE Fantasy, SF author in my eyes, alltime favorite author
3. Ken Bruen (19) - a irish noir,humor
4. David Gemmell (18) - first fav fantasy author, the reason i joined chrons in 2007
5. Michael Connelly (17)
6. Elmore Leonard (13) - Dickens of Detroit
7. Max Allan Collins (12) - PI hardboiled
8. Robert E. Howard (11) - the reason i dislike high fantasy, REH/Gemmell is me
9. Philip K Dick (10)
10. C. S Forester (10) - military history student who loves naval history because of CSF
11. Lord Dunsany (9) - all time fav author
12. Dashiell Hammett (8) - The Continental OP!

Im pretty new as an avid reader, have been reading like this since i joined chrons in 2007 so other than being crazy about reading Vance, Westlake every year i dont the history, time to have read all these authors 20-40 times.

Michaell Connelly is the only writer of these 12 that isnt high on my fav alltime author list. That list is like hall of fame for my two fav types of literature. Noir, PI hardboiled, SFF is what dominates my bookshelves i have 100s of those books. I also read many genres, its natural i come always back to alltime fav.

Vance, Lord Dunsay, Hammett, Westlake, Howard, Dick is who i own most books of, who dominate my top 10 fav author list.

Some of these greats was not prolific, i have all Lord Dunsany short fiction fantasy in one omnibus, Hammett wrote 4 novels, Howard few collections have all his fantasy, horror, historical fiction, boxning etc. I wish there was enough books to read Lord Dunsany, Hammett, Howard 40-50 times since i almost never re-read :)
 
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I deliberately try to read a lot of different authors so not many authors stand out a lot.

I have the same issue, problem with this thread because of that since the authors i have read most i try to savour my Vance type author by reading lesser version in same genres. If i wanted i could have read 50 Vance or 40 PKD or all 20+ Gemmell books.

I havent read my fav author this year for example because i have a great fear of running out the feeling of reading all their books for the first time. Its a horror when you have read all books by a fav author....
 
I probably only started reading seriously about 10 years ago, so to try and catch up I've tried to sample as many authors as possible.

However, whenever I feel reading burn-out, I usually turn to Lee Child (19 novels) or David Gemmell (16 novels).
 
At a rough guess, my top 10 would look something like

1. Sir Pterry
2. That hack Eddings
3. Gemmell
4. Bernard Cornwell
5. Raymond E. Feist
6. Lindsey Davies
7. Jim Butcher
8. Mercedes Lackey
9. Andrea Camilleri
10. Katherine Kerr
HM - Robert Jordan - he rockets up the list if we've gone for most words I've read :p

This is trying to account for re-reads as well mind. Brian Jacques is maybe on the list, Robert Rankin another HM.
 
I probably only started reading seriously about 10 years ago, so to try and catch up I've tried to sample as many authors as possible.

However, whenever I feel reading burn-out, I usually turn to Lee Child (19 novels) or David Gemmell (16 novels).

I use to like Jack Reacher books until 4 or 5 was so off that i stopped reading the series. I like the character more than the writer.

Since my username is from Connavar of Rigante, Gemmell is like a first love for me, the first fantasy author i admired. I havent read a book of his like in 5 years, i have read almost everything he wrote in less than 2 years. Im truly afraid to read the last 5 Drenai books because Waylander, Druss books are huge fav, im afraid Gemmell isnt as good as i remember.
 
Everyone's tastes are different but I still love Gemmell and would account some of his later works my favourite by him. Winter Warriors and Hero in the Shadows are both awesome.
 
I think my most read author is Feist, I can't be a hundred percent sure. I will eventually get round to cataloguing all the books I've collected over the last thirty years but it won't be a complete picture of what I've actually read.
 
Partly it depends on the author in question, and how many books (s)he has written. Partly it depends on when I actually read them - every time I've been through a nomadic phaes I've disposed of many volumes, while stacking others in friends' attics (or wherever) and failing to reclaim them later. Thus both Heinlein and Niven have been memorised and pruned. And more recently, to prevent bookshelf rupture, I've been buying more in Kindle format.

But I have just about all of Bujold some electronic, most dead tree - and it's below my absolute shelf space for Cherryh or Lackey, just because she hasn't written that many books. I have as much Forward as I've been able to find, but a lot more Weber, Flint, Turtledove…I thing I've got all the mainstream pTerry, plus several of his collaborations and off topics.In actual shelf length, David Hamilton is taking up an inordinate amount, but I don't tend to reread any but the Greg Mandel trilogy. I have masses of McCaffery, plenty of Eddings, and have had quantities of Chalker ( until I recognised that he, like Eddings, was telling the same story over and over) lots of Arthur C Clarke (but many of those were when I was much younger), Spider Robinson, Barbara Hambly… how many am I up to?

Unreasonably eclectic, and more recently electric.
 
I've never done a count like this, but I'm fairly sure that like @J-Sun my most read author would be Isaac Asimov. Following him would have to include Robert A. Heinlein, Larry Niven, Bernard Cornwell, David Weber, Arthur C. Clarke, Frank Herbert and quite possibly Simon Hawke. I may just have to go back and do a hard count now to sort this out.
 
I'll have to have a proper look later, but ones I'm pretty certain of are:

1. Agatha Christie - I've got 64, but read a few more than that.
2. Terry Pratchett - I've read most, but not all, of his work.
3. Enid Blyton - All the Famous Five (21) and Secret Seven (15) books.
 
Going back over my list and trying to provide actual hard numbers - seeing where I was eyeballing wrong

1. Sir Pterry - 44 books at least once, gods knows how many re-reads
2. Bernard Cornwell - 40 books at least once, plenty of re-reads
3. David Eddings - 21 books at least once, plenty of re-reads
4. Gemmell - 22 books at least once, plenty of re-reads
5. Mercedes Lackey - 31 books at least once, but far less re-reads
6. Raymond E. Feist - 28 books at least once, but far less re-reads
7. Lindsey Davies - 21 books at least once, decent number of re-reads
8. Jim Butcher - 21 books at least once, decent number of re-reads
9. Robert Jordan - 18 books at least once, quite a few re-reads, particularly partial
10. Brian Jacques - 19 books at least once, decent number of re-reads
HM. Katherine Kerr - 16 books at least once, quite a few re-reads
HM. Andrea Camilleri - 17 books at least once, only a few re-reads

Looking at the list...

I feel mildly disgusted with myself that Lackey is so high. I suppose it says a lot about her output of fun readable books but there's so many other better books I could have read. To a certain extent I feel the same about Eddings but he's really fun so there.

Jordan is low but he is the only fantasy guy there where I haven't put down a book of his/looked at a blurb and been "know what mate, I'm good". Is there a book threshold after which a style grows stale?
 
I'll have to have a proper look later, but ones I'm pretty certain of are:

1. Agatha Christie - I've got 64, but read a few more than that.
2. Terry Pratchett - I've read most, but not all, of his work.
3. Enid Blyton - All the Famous Five (21) and Secret Seven (15) books.

4. Isaac Asimov - 26
5. Iain (inc. M) Banks - 21
6. Robert Rankin - 19
7. James Herbert - 15
8. Alastair Reynolds - 13
9. Tom Sharpe - 12
10. China Miéville / Neil Gaiman - 10

. . . something like that, anyway. I've re-read quite a lot of the above numerous times, but not read anything by Tom Sharpe or James Herbert for years (they were last read during my late teens / early twenties, I still have the books though ;) )
 
In no particular order...

Elmore Leonard, Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, Michael Moorcock, Enid Blyton, Arthur Ransom, Terry Pratchett, Isaac Asimov, Iain M. Banks
 
Feel like there's another thread on this but the search engines aren't being cooperative. This was inspired by a blog post I read, "Authors I've Read the Most Books From." That led to my own blog post, "Top Ten Most-Read Authors" but it occurs to me that it might make a pretty good thread (if it hasn't already). My list and the comments on the authors are on the blog post but, for convenience, my list was

11. Norman Spinrad (18)
10. Philip K. Dick (19)
09. Roger Zelazny (20)
08. Arthur C. Clarke (23)
07. Robert Silverberg (24)
06. Fritz Leiber (24)
05. A. E. van vogt (25)
04. Poul Anderson (27)
03. C. J. Cherryh (35, maybe 37)
02. Robert A. Heinlein (40)
01. Isaac Asimov (44)

(As I said on the post, the reason I have 11 is because I originally thought #11 and #10 were tied.)

So, what's your list and your comments, if any?

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.
 

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