Wonderful Wednesdays is a meme about spotlighting and recommending some of our most loved books, even if we haven’t read them recently. Each week will have a different genre or theme.
This weeks theme is favourite authors.
This is such a difficult topic because I could come up with a number of names. Daphne du Maurier springs to mind, but that is because Rebecca is one of my favourite books and I only have read this and Jamaica Inn. There are many more I could be reading, and I have yet to participate fully in Discovering Daphne which is running this month.
I thought I would go and look on Goodreads as it comes up with some silly statistics and I see under ‘ most read authors’ comes Mary Jane Staples and I have read 32 of her books. I have not read any for many years, but I went through a stage of reading them one after the other. She is an author of the genre ‘aga saga’ and I loved reading about the Adams Family from the turn of the twentieth century through the wars. For some reason though I tailed off from reading them. The author is no longer with us but her books still seem to be being printed and I have read that some of her books written under pseudonyms are being reissued. Perhaps this favourite author should remain a memory of the past. Aga saga and ‘village’ story authors feature in my most read authors on Goodreads. But does most read equal favourite. No I do not think so.
I would still from a children’s book perspective say that Enid Blyton and Roald Dahl are favourite authors. I have revisited various different Enid Blyton books this year and I am currently on a bit of a Dahl binge as well. More about that in a later post.
Most recent favourite authors include Patrick Gale, Notes of an Exhibition is an excellent book and I recommend it. I have not read all of his back catalogue (no doubt I will at some point) but I would certainly be interested in his future books. Linda Gillard and Lucinda Riley are new authors to me this year and they have some fantastic books which everyone should read. Emotional Geology by Linda Gillard is a book which explains much about mental health issues but also helps with those who suffer or know someone who suffers. Lucinda Riley’s Hothouse Flower is a great novel to escape into and her new novel The Girl on the Cliff is great and I am over 100 pages in and hopefully Lucinda will pop onto this blog for a chat soon. Other authors that pop into my head; Sharon Owens, Kate Atkinson, Phillipa Gregory, Deanna Raybourn to name a few who write very differing genres.
Oh I could go on (do not worry I will not!) but I think mention has to go to Agatha Christie as she is up there as a favourite author without a doubt. For that passion I thank my mum.
In conclusion I am not sure I have a favourite author and actually I think if I answered this question a year a go it would be a very different post with different names that pop up. As more books are let loose on readers like us all, more authors are discovered and favourites come and go.
Do join in if you want to here and leave link to your post so we can all pop along and read and perhaps pick up some new favourite authors along the way.
The Book Jotter 