This week’s Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl, is our ten favorite authors and our favorite books by each of them. It was hard to narrow my favorite authors down to ten. I’ve tried to highlight some books you may not have heard of by these authors. I also didn’t include children’s author or books in series.
Barbara Kingsolver
It’s impossible to pick a favorite, but I’ll go back to one of the first books I read by her, Animal Dreams. It’s not as artfully written as The Lacuna or Demon Copperhead, but deeply moving.
Emma Donoghue
All of Donoghue’s books are so different, and I’ve liked them all. I think Room was amazing, for the way Donoghue was able to tell a story this horrible through the eyes of a child.
Maggie O’Farrell
Hamnet is my favorite, without question, but I’ve loved nearly all of O’Farrell’s books.
Margaret Atwood
I have to put The Handmaid’s Tale first, for the enormous influence it’s had. But Hag-Seed is a little known work by her that I thought was fantastic.
Thomas Hardy
I’ve loved Thomas Hardy since I read The Return of the Native in high school. It’s still my favorite, though it might not be considered his best work.
Jane Austen
Every Austen fan has a favorite, and mine’s Emma. I like that Emma is a heroine who needs a lot of work, but she’s also strong, smart, and independent. I need to re-read Persuasion, since I know that’s a favorite of many.
David Mitchell
Mitchell is a prolific author, and there were a lot of books by him I could include on this list. It’s not really possible to pick a favorite. Cloud Atlas is iconic, but I think I liked the story of Thousand Autumns better.
Celeste Ng
I think these are the only three books by Ng (so far) but I’ve loved each one. Everything I Never Told You was an amazing debut novel.
Jenny Lawson
Lawson doesn’t fit neatly into this list, but so what? I loved Furiously Happy for its humor (with extra points for the cover) but I also liked Broken for how much honesty and vulnerability Lawson shows.
David Nicholls
Nicholls seems to keep getting better and better; I loved the combination of a walking journey and romance between two troubled people in You are Here. The only Nicholls book I haven’t loved was Starter for Ten, which was a very early book.
Ann Patchett
I’m fairly new to Patchett, and haven’t read as many by her as I’d like, but I thought all three of these were fantastic. Commonwealth didn’t resonate with everyone, but it did with me — maybe because that’s where I live.
There are certainly a lot of great authors I didn’t include here, but I did my best! Who are some of your favorite authors, or your favorite books by the authors I listed?
