Singapore Expats

Just out of curiosity. Who are your all time favourite authors?

Mine are David Gemmell, Chris Bunch and Jane Feather.

Wallace Stegner.

John Faulz, Paulo Coelho, Haruki Murakami, don't expect locals knows who is it, most people read comics or Danielle Steel books here

Linna_ wrote:most people read comics or Danielle Steel books here

that seems unduly cruel

Hahaha tried daniel steel before.. didn't like it one bit

Linna_ wrote:John Faulz, Paulo Coelho, Haruki Murakami, don't expect locals knows who is it, most people read comics or Danielle Steel books here

And, your English suggests any different?

Linna_ wrote:John Faulz, Paulo Coelho, Haruki Murakami, don't expect locals knows who is it, most people read comics or Danielle Steel books here

Meow.....

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Paul Theroux, Bruce Chatwin, Malcolm Lowry, Fernando Pessoa, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Rainer Maria Rilke, Redmond O'Hanlon, Isabel Allende, Jean Genet, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Paul Celine.

Eric

Eric,

I adored Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. One of my all time favorites. I have Daughter of Fortune but haven't started it yet. What is your favorite by Allende?

MHB[/i]

Hi La Reinne,

Hard to say I find... I read most of her books, The house of the spirits, Of love and shadows, Eva Luna, The infinite plan, Daughter of fortune.

I think each of the books has its own unique character, all of them I read with great interest and couldnot get myself to stop reading. Of course the first one, The house of the spirits, is thrilling as it is the first time you meet the author and her unique narrative style. And it is so latin. But also The infinite plan I just loved reading. Very different in story from the first 3 books.

Marquez is probably my favorite though, his one hundred years of solitude and indeed love in times of cholera are brilliant novels.

15 years back or so there was a documentary on Dutch TV, called "nauwgezet en wanhopig", to be translated as something like "precise and desperate".

It were 4 individual interviews, with Gyorgi Konrad (Hungarian writer), Rudolf Steiner (philosopher, probably one of the worlds' most intellectual human beings), Jorge Semprun (communist and former minister in Spain) and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Just 'talking heads' so to speak. No other images then those 4 older people talking for 8 hours in total.

In an impressive way they all tell the history of the 20th century through their own life stories, about ideologies, the horror of World War II and the meaning of our existence.

Steiner (of course...), Konrad and Semprun are all very intellectual and philosophical, Marquez is shy, apologised for not being able to answer the questions on our existence on this planet, but he just tells the way he writes: Magical.

It is a documentary of 8 hours or so, but not a second is to be missed. best thing I have ever watched on tv.

Anyway, my fav therefore is Marquez, his magic.

Eric

Linna_ wrote:John Faulz, Paulo Coelho, Haruki Murakami, don't expect locals knows who is it, most people read comics or Danielle Steel books here

I you read these authors then why can't you put a correct sentence together?



I'd have to go with Rilke (a la Eric) and for light reading either Connely or Crais (Ah lurves ma deeeetektive storees!)


(Linna - care fior a translation?)


(Hey, look Sapphire - you're not in paretheses . . . Oh. )

Eric from the Netherlands wrote:Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Paul Theroux, Bruce Chatwin, Malcolm Lowry, Fernando Pessoa, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Rainer Maria Rilke, Redmond O'Hanlon, Isabel Allende, Jean Genet, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Paul Celine.

Eric

Question was: Who is your favourite author?

Not the list of books you have read.

Carpe Diem wrote:

Eric from the Netherlands wrote:Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Paul Theroux, Bruce Chatwin, Malcolm Lowry, Fernando Pessoa, Carlos Drummond de Andrade, Rainer Maria Rilke, Redmond O'Hanlon, Isabel Allende, Jean Genet, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Paul Celine.

Eric

Question was: Who is your favourite author?

Not the list of books you have read.

. . . . on a library shelf . . . . (Eric, why so quiet today?)

samantha wrote:Just out of curiosity. Who are your all time favourite authors?

Mine are David Gemmell, Chris Bunch and Jane Feather.

David Gemmell

OK, here is my LIST. It's not exhaustive, and it IS just the list of authors, not which of theirs I love. (Sigh, don't jump on me please for little things!!)

Jane Austin

Gabriel Garcia Marquez (ditto Eric's choices there)

Isabelle Allende (because she's off with the fairies, but in a totally believably clever way)

Patrick Suskind........said before everyone should read 'Perfume' and stick with that.

Sebastian Faulkes.....Ever read 'Birdsong'....very beautiful, tragic book.

Used to like Solzhenitsyn in my student days....(I was going through a 'dour' stage....but it's passed now!!)

No one will make me love Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre any less than I've loved it from being a little girl.

But there's nothing wrong with loving the lighter side of fiction too....

I love the 'Aga Saga's' of Joanna Trollope....'Brother and Sister' 'A passionate man' all good stuff. Ordinary themes, explained well. Description of 'aga saga'....Aga is a cooker which is old fashioned here in the UK, usually found in well to do homes as they're damned expensive now...about £5000 upwards...and these books revolve round that kind of family, well heeled, educated usually, perhaps sometimes churchy.

I also love crime......Val McDermid is a wonderfully clever, gruesome writer. Bright with a gory side, yum!

Good old fashioned ghost stories are good too, Susan Hill is one of the best and 'Woman in Black' is just about her best, well, I think so.

But perleez, spare me the Danielle Steele. OK, I'm not slagging her off, but one paragraph makes me want to tear my hair out at what some writers get away with.

I'm sure I'll think of ten more in a moment, but am now looking to read a few of the authors mentioned by some of the others. It's always great to find someone new to love to read.

Bubbs.