YOUR favourites!

Tom Sharp Stephen King Lord of the rings and the hobbit Aztec by Gary Jennings Arthur Conan Doyle Saki

And The Rabbit books by John Updike

Louise Kean... guess which category she falls into... Just kidding. Right, will go and think properly now.

J D Salinger, Luke Rhinehart and Anthony Burgess are the ones that immediately spring to mind... Ken Kesey as well, I guess. Oh, and Hunter S Thompson. So, in book terms that's: Franny and Zooey - J D Salinger The Dice Man - Luke Rhinehart Earthly Powers - Anthony Burgess One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - Ken Kesey Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S Thompson If you've read those five then you pretty much know all there is to know about my writing influences. Yes, I know there are no female writers there. I've already been castigated for my chauvinistic biases when it comes to reading; I have no doubt scores of posters will list dozens of incredible female writers. Oh, and in terms of non-fiction, it's Shunryu Suzuki all the way. Suzuki am the man. Good - if unoriginal - thread idea, Henster.

Tom Robbins - especially Jitterbug Perfume and Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates. Beautifully written, very funny, highly original. Kurt Vonnegut - notably Breakfast of Champions. Again, witty, original and moving. Shakespeare - especially the tragedies Jane Austen - just sheer excellence of construction. The large taken out of the small. The constriction of her world and the sparsity of her language. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Charles Dickens - I think that Barnaby Rudge is my current favourite but David Copperfield and Bleak House take some beating. Sustained excitement, comedy, characterisation and superb plotting. Also highly readable, even today! TS Eliot - The Magi and The Wasteland restore my faith in poetry Worst: Apart from the obvious ones like chicklit writers and Jeffrey Archer I have to say that I cannot stand Hemingway, DH Lawrence or large swathes of Knut Hamsen but I suspect that is a problem with me!

See, there's the rub. I know it's an off-the-cuff comment, but when did we get round to thinking that if a book doesn't live up to its reputation, it's the reader's fault? Well, I would argue it is, but no more than it's the reader's fault when a book is successful. Kurt Vonnegut is one of my absolute faves. I don't think the pleasure is derived from the plotting, or the characterisation, or even the inventiveness. It's more like a hotline to Kurt himself - the delight of 'knowing' a man who writes and thinks like that. I've bought every Albert Camus book around, but strangely enough, I find them frustrating and difficult to read. Having finished them though, I'm glad I read them. Leonard Cohen - only two novels, but my favourite poet. Again, he seems to bypass all traditional poetic devices just to be himself on the page, and that's what I enjoy. I enjoy the company. Similarly to Rokkit, I think you could probably trace all my successes back to lessons learned from these writers. Oh, and Felipe Alfau, just for 'Locos.' A writer visibly playing with his characters and ideas - I love that. Having set the hate section of this quiz as well, I find I'm not very good at it. I find Virginia Woolf incredibly boring, but still appreciate her worth, particularly to the cause of breaking tradition. I find J. K. Rowling very poor. And finally - my girlfriend bought me the Lord of the Rings trilogy last year, and I just can't stomach the prose. Deeply troublesome.

Oh, I forgot the hate element. I tend to think that my intense disliking for certain books says more about me than the novels themselves. I think J K Rowling stinks like a month-old mackerel stuffed behind the radiator, but that's partially an overreaction to the phenomenal amount of press she gets, which I feel is disproportionate. I'm not a big fan of Iain Banks either - his writing feels contrived and profoundly misanthropic to me when I read it. His characters play out like freaks he wheels out for the reader to oggle and disapprove of, and the worst crime of all, his novels are entirely predictable and dreary. But I know people who love his punk ass, so go figure.

Well first and foremost it would have to Luigi Pirandello, anyone who knows me knows how highly i rate him. Next probably Garcia Marquez for the sheer magical intensity of his writing, along with the wonderful Bruce Chatwin. Finally i would have to choose someone from ABC and that would be the impeccable Sooz. Least favourite has to be George Eliot, Middlemarch i have started umpteen times but cannot get past what Dirk Bogarde called the deathly dialogue. Next to her would be E M Forster and lastly someone modern who is a disaster (to me) would be Len Deighton!

Good. The immaculate Julio Cortazar.. especially Hopscotch ..which you have to start from the middle and work your way out. When I have the money I'll get some of his short stories.. Henry Miller's Tropics.. Anais Nin's Diaries and short stories. A.L Kennedy is the best british writer we've had in years.. anything by her ..especially Everything You Need. Osamu Dazai's Setting Sun, Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book. Jean Genet.. anything by him.. but especially 'Our Lady of the Flowers' (incidentally are there any Genet fans out there who know where I can get a translation of his long poem 'The Man Condemned to Death'?) Rabelais is great. I like Virgina Woolf's Mrs Dalloway but don't know her other stuff. Clare Pollard, Glyn Maxwell, Sarah Corbett all write good poetry at the moment.. and Lyn Lifshin, Peter Reading.. Lots and lots. Er.. Not so good. Never really liked Hemingway. I find Chekhov's plays dull as ditchwater but want to read his stories. Couldn't get into Houllebecq's Atomised. Will Self's 'Great Apes' was pretty awful.. (How The Dead Live is ace tho). The Rhyme of The Ancient Mariner. Twelfth Night. How do I get my hands on some Suzuki (the writer!) by the way?

Ah, yes. Glyn Maxwell - I like him too.

Favourite writers: Roald Dahl Ibsen Chekhov Strindberg Goldoni Andy McNab Isaac Bashevis Singer Least favourite: Tom Stoppard Robert Ludlum Primo Levi Trollope Ben Elton Best non-fiction: William Dalrymple Apsley Cherry-Garrard The Journals of Captain Cook Pepys

'How do I get my hands on some Suzuki (the writer!) by the way?' I took the eccentric route of visiting the library. Failing that, all his books are on Amazon. You ought to read them. They are superb.

Andrew, try this for the Genet: http://www.geocities.com/marksspitzer/Translations/prisoner.htm

Andrea ..you are a bloody star!! ..cheers muchly ..I shall print this out and read it at work ..perhaps write the most tasty bits out on wine labels at Oddbins ..lovely jubbly. Thank You. (See! There is something to be said for surfing after all!) If you don't like Genet then read Sartre's 'Saint Genet'. If you don't like Sartre then read Edmund White's biography 'Genet'.. if you don't like Edmund White.. well.. you're stuck.. Genetless.. in a no man's land.. stuck between worlds.. in a pitiful Genet-free-zone.. at least you won't get arrested that way, I s'pose.

1. Kerouac 2. Proulx 3. Colin Maclinnes 4. Steinbeck 5. Camus 6.Tim Lott 7. Nick Hornby 8. Bukowski 9.Waits 10. Weller 11. Wolf 12. Sondheim

J.D. Salinger Stephen King Nancy A. Collins Spike Milligan Terry Prattchet All these dudes rule! Can't stand - ANY romance writers!

Why has everyone got it in for Hemingway? Is it because he is so often wheeled out as an 'exemplary' writer that he can hardly fail to disappoint? Saying that someone is overrated is different from saying that they are just crap. I think Hemingway (whilst, yes, overrated) deserves a little more than to be a feature of 'least favourite' lists. Even his harshest critics must surely concede that he is technically proficient.

Hmm... perhaps you oughta put your cards on the table and name your favourite writers, Joel... along with justifications. I think it says a lot for a writer's profile if they consistently appear in hate-lists. It means people have felt they 'ought' to read them purely because of their reputation. You can't appear in a hate-list if no one's read you, after all.

I read Hemingway.. and did not like. Not a lot.. The Sun Also Rises.. The Old Man and The Sea.. The Snows of Kiliman giro.. how much is enough?

Trouble is, Joel, the harshest critics of practically any novelist must concede to their worth of some level. Either they're 'technically proficient' or they're 'full of ideas,' or perhaps simply have a unique perspective to give. Bear in mind Lee Stringer wrote a best seller without any revision or practice - he didn't work out the plot beforehand, or take classes - 'Grand Central Winter' sold because people were interested in the experiences he related. Some people would say they rate the 'something interesting to say' part of writing above anything else, and that might be a complaint about Hemingway - that he was a writer just for the sake of being a writer. According to something Rokkit once said to me, Hemingway lost all his stories once, and saw it as a blessing. I don't think he'd have seen it that way if the stories themselves were his cause, rather than the matter of writing them. On the other hand, people who simply value the artistic and technical merits of a story are the ones who give Hemingway such applause. I'd say if a novelist is hated as part of a backlash, then he must have succeeded to the greatest possible degree beforehand.

Being asked to name my favourite writers is something guaranteed to send me into paroxysms of indecision. Even when I can come up with a list, I invariably change my mind within days, if not hours. However, as the gauntlet has been layed down... Well, first and predictably, another Salinger fan here. Yes, I know, but I don't feel like excluding him merely for the sake of being original. Secondly, (another easy choice, I'm afraid) Raymond Carver. In terms of atmosphere, there are few writers I would prefer to read. I include in this his poems as well as his short stories. I would second Hen on the Kurt Vonnegut front, although I've just read Galapagos and found myself mildly disappointed. Still, Slaughterhouse 5, Sirens of Titan and Timequake more than make up for that. P.G. Wodehouse, for being both impressively prolific and very funny. Something of a comfort read, to be honest. And I've always had a soft spot for Robert Rankin. I'm not holding him up as a literary great, or suggesting that his writing is beyond reproach, but there's an energy behind the narrative I find hard to resist, and when he gets going, he's one of the few writers that can make me actually laugh out loud. There. That'll do for the moment. I'm slightly ashamed that they're all male, and all twentieth-century, but there it is.

Ok, my list is slanted towards women writers – someone needs to redress the balance... For novels, Iris Murdoch, Barbara Trapido and Russell Hoban (token bloke) always get me excited. Amy Bloom and Janice Galloway for short stories, and for total escapism, Diana Wynne Jones beats JK Rowling into a cocked hat.

Russell Hoban's Ridley Walker is a really interesting novel. I read it a few years back and I want to revisit it. It kind of confused me in places but I remember enjoying it.

My favourite is Amaryllis Night and Day, which I bought without having ever heard of Hoban because of the great cover and the equally great opening lines: "The first time Peter Diggs saw Amaryllis she was at a bus stop where the street sign said Balsamic, although there was nothing vinegary about the place. The bus was unthinkably tall, made of yellow, orange and pink rice paper, lit from within like a Japanese lantern." What a fantastic image!

You guys don't seem to like JK Rowling. How come?

put it there, alex-j. Diana Wynne Jones is a legend. why not give her a try, caz? if you like Harry Potter, start with Witch Week. Geraldine Harris is also a legend - White Crane's Castle and The Prince of the Godborn series are major.

Favourites: Terry Pratchett - Any writer who can make me spit softdrink through my nose deserves applause. Raymond E. Feist, Robin Hobbe, David Gemmel - Characters to die for Douglas Adams, Ben Elton - For their wit & humour JK Rowling - Not sure, just liked her style Alan Dean Foster, Asimov - For the worlds they created Least Fav: Tolkien - To much Salad, not enough meat

Just took a look at your sets chant - would that be a tribute to DWJ underway there? Have never heard of Geraldine Harris but will check her out. Are her books easy enough to get hold of?

most certainly would, alex! Harris's books *are* tricky to get hold of now, i think, but can be ordered from amazon. DWJ wrote a review of Prince of the Godborn and praised it very highly.

Barbara Trapido, definitely... Nicola Barker Iain Banks (up yours, Tim!) Matt Ruff Jeanette Winterson Could never get on with Jane Austen...

William S Burroughs Allain Robbe-Grillet F. Scott Fitzgerald Dos Passos Bukowski Tom Wolfe Celine Shakespeare McEwan Michel Houellebecq Hesse ..and the list goes on....

F.ucking Celine eh? What a writer.. brilliant .. even tho he was up his own @!#$ and completely anti-semitic..

no.. that was a bit much.. I don't know his specific politics at all.. I like his books tho.. look who's talking out of his a.rse now?

Thomas Hardy and William Hazlitt Any author that's surname begins with 'Ha'. Um... oh dear, thats it really... Oh yeah, Shakespeare, he rocks. Ah yes, so does P.G. Wodehouse. And Raymond Carver...thats more like it. Boo to Kerouac and Heaney.

Faves at the mo, Angela Carter Iain Banks Douglas Adams anything by Terry Pratchett Janette Turner Hospital Alan Bennett Ian Shirley Louis de Bernieres Ian McEwan Henry Fielding Armistead Maupin Anything by Stephen Fry Margaret Atwood and Diane Wynne Jones and loads of others...:) Because I can lose myself in their writing. I really dislike historical romances, derivative Bridget Jones crap, Enid Blyton and Fay Weldon gets up my nose.