Write On

Hope is not a plan. - B.M.

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List of favorite authors/works. All-time personal favorites carry an asterisk:

Playwrights: Tom Stoppard (Arcadia, The Invention of Love, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead*), Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman*), Neil Simon (The Odd Couple), William Shakespeare (Hamlet*), Tony Kushner (Angels in America, parts I and II), Samuel Beckett (Waiting for Godot)

Fiction: Iain Banks (Complicity), Kazuo Ishiguro (The Remains of the Day*, Never Let Me Go), Iris Murdoch (The Black Prince), John Kennedy O’Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces), Koushun Takami (Battle Royale), Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club, Survivor, Guts), Stephen King (Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption*, The Stand), Ian McEwan (Saturday)

Science Fiction: Iain M. Banks (Use of Weapons*, The Player of Games, The Algebraist), Harlan Ellison (I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, The Man Who Rowed Christopher Columbus Ashore, The Paladin of the Lost Hour), Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game), Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash*, Diamond Age), Frank Herbert (Dune)

Fantasy: Terry Pratchett (Night Watch*, The Thief of Time, Good Omens*), Neil Gaiman (Good Omens*), J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix), Stephen King (The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass*)

Graphic Novels: Alan Moore (Watchmen*, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Vol. I), Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns, Sin City: Hell and Back) Dr. Seuss (Oh, The Places You’ll Go, The Cat in the Hat) Shel Silverstein (The Giving Tree), Art Spiegelman (Maus Vol. I and II), Craig Thompson (Blankets), Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes)

Non-fiction: John McPhee (Oranges, Looking for a Ship*, A Sense of Where You Are), Tom Wolfe (The Right Stuff), Bill Russell (The Russell Rules), Sylvia Nasar (A Beautiful Mind), Dave Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius), Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point*)

Poetry: Dylan Thomas (Do not go gentle into that good night*)

Sports Columnists: Bill Simmons, Ralph Wiley (his article comparing Tracy McGrady to Paul Atreides, the Kwisatz Haderach, was genius), Michael Wilbon, Tony Kornheiser, Chuck Klosterman, Gregg Easterbrook

I’m also a fan of the writing styles of J.L.H. and Z.M. J.L.H.’s writing reminds me of a bejeweled Faberge egg. It’s so intricate, ornate, yet at the same time, mildly understated. Like a breath of pure oxygen, followed up by a spark from a match. Z.M.’s writing just flows naturally, conversationally, from a viewpoint vastly different from mine. I like to think of it as sweetwater, especially after slogging through hours of e-mail refuse and otherwise busted English.

There’s a fair slant towards the Brit Lit (I’m an anglophile), and a heavy slant towards the men (and I don’t know why). A lot of the stuff on here is fairly violent, and maybe that’s part of it.