At long last...a meme...

I wonder if I was the only one feeling meme-deprived. It seemed that all the memes that kept popping up I'd already done before...sometimes more than once. So I was thrilled to see this little meme over at Things Mean A Lot.

Who's your all-time favorite author, and why?

Three guesses, anyone? Orson Scott Card is the winner! Since I first read Ender's Game back in the fall of 2000, I've been as faithful as can be. He still reigns supreme in that coveted spot of my favorite favorite favorite all-time favorite author. I love him because he's good. He's more than good, he's the best. Generally speaking, for an author to become "an all-time favorite" they have to meet certain criteria (or is it criterion?):

a) The author of more than one book. Preferably the author of more than three.
b) The author has to have more than one title sitting in my top-ten favorite favorite favorite spots. The more titles an author has on my list of "best books ever" the higher his/her ranking will be.
c) The author's books have got to pass the again-again test. Maybe I wouldn't *technically* need to have read one or more of the authors books multiple times. But I've got to want to. I've got to have that "again, again" thrill.

When it comes to OSC...Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, The Worthing Saga, and Pastwatch the Redemption of Christopher Columbus would all make my top twenty list of my all-time favorite favorite books. With Ender's Game being THE VERY top. And the rest appearing in a variety of slots.

But I still haven't answered why yet have I? It's his characters. No one does characters as good as Card. No one. He really really gets what it is all about. The plots and premises are good too. Really good. But it is because I care about the characters, love the characters, that I keep coming back for more.

Who was your first favorite author, and why? Do you still consider him or her among your favorites?

This is a tough one. Really tough. How am I ever to decide between Laura Ingalls Wilder, C.S. Lewis, Beverly Cleary, and L.M. Montgomery????? The first three (Wilder, Lewis, Cleary) belong so much in the realm of my childhood that to deny them would be to deny myself. I can't not be the person that loved them to pieces. Yet, I don't really spend any time with anymore either. I reread them this year because I wanted to. But I doubt I visit them again anytime soon...there's just too many other authors out there. L.M. Montgomery I seriously seriously love. I was reading Anne of Green Gables and I was thinking that it was one of the most perfectly perfect books ever. She'll always be in my top ten, maybe even in my top five.

Who's the most recent addition to your list of favorite authors, and why?

Neil Gaiman would be up for nomination certainly. I didn't read any of his until 2007...and I'm still reading him whenever I get the chance. His books are almost always checked out from the library.

Ray Bradbury was another 2007 discovery. I haven't read any Bradbury in 2008, but I'd like to.

H.G. Wells. Yet another 2007 discovery. Can't recommend him highly enough though :)

As to why? Well, when I read a book by an author and that one book makes me want to read more, more, more by that author...then he or she gets added to my list!

If someone asked you who your favorite authors were right now, which authors would first pop out of your mouth? Are there any you'd add on a moment of further reflection.

Orson Scott Card. Stephenie Meyer. Susan Beth Pfeffer. Scott Westerfeld. Rick Riordan. Margaret Peterson Haddix. Lois Lowry. Sarah Dessen. Elizabeth Scott. L.M. Montgomery. C.S. Lewis. Jane Austen. Alexandre Dumas. Mary Shelley. Zora Neale Hurston. Ray Bradbury. Neil Gaiman. J.R.R. Tolkien.

© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews