Which author have you read more than any other?

[LaceandChintz]

I'll start!
Enid Blyton, without a doubt. And still the author who instilled a love of reading, whose books I devoured, and have loved as much all over again reading them to my own children.

As an adult, I guess it's Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine.

Over to you...

Yy to Ruth Rendell and two highlights in my life were meeting her

David Baldacci I love the King and Maxwell series

Agatha Christie
Philippa Gregory

I was going to say Marian Keyes, buy I've realised I read way more Ann M Martin - the Karen series and the Babysitters club - as a kid

As a child, probably Enid Blyton, LM Montgomery, Lorna Hill and Agatha Christie.

As an adult, probably Iris Murdoch, Dickens, Trollope and ... erm.. David Eddings

Enid Blyton as a child and with DS, for sure. Also Roald Dahl.

Now, it's Peter James (fantastic easy crime reads), Penny Vincenzi (perfect holiday long reads - in paperback), Maeve Binchy for such easy, relaxing reading. I've also read every Marian Keyes but sometimes I don't have the patience for her endless tangents!

What I love is that Enid Blyton has been looked down on for so long. The girls aren't good role models. The books are outdated. Etc etc.
And yet look how many of us, as readers, list her as someone they read, and read lots by. It's not just that everyone has read something by her, but lots of us have listed her as the author they have read more than any other. You wouldn't have read loads by her if you didn't like her. So I think you can arguably say she was critical in getting lots of people to enjoy reading. Certainly true for me too.

No other author can compete, simply because no other author has been quite so prolific.
But like other pp's, I've read most of the chalet school, Roald Dahl, and also the Trebizon series. L. M. Montgomery.
Later child/early teenage - James Herriot. Agatha Christie.
Adult - Bill Bryson. Kate Morton.
And Gerald Durrell. But I will also confess here that GD shaped my whole career, I ended up working at his zoo, and have not only one copy of every book he wrote, but also some first editions, and signed copies of things. Bit of an obsession...

Enid Blyton as a child
Catherine Cookson & Georgette Heyer (holidays at grandma's)
Charles Dickens as early teen
Ellery Queen YA fiction didn't exist
Lionel Shriver, John Grisham & Sara Paretsky (waves to @Reaa)

I have been a bookworm since I learned to read. Embarrassed to say that as a child, I read my way though

Enid Blyon
Malcolm Saville
Arthur Ransome
Alison Uttley
Noel Streatfield
Ellizabeth Goudge, and the Helston library shelf of fairy tales, as well as anything else left lying around, although the names elude me. I liked pony books, boarding school books, ballet books.....

At about 11, I was lent all of Ian Fleming and started on the adult section, where I can still be found 50 years later. My preference is (well-written) thrillers, historical and political novels and crime; most of my favourites have already been mentioned. I'm not very tolerant of a poor prose style. Not fond of self-consciously "literary" fiction, which IMO is often pretentious and trite, or romances, and my appetite for sci-fi/fantasy is limited,

My new discovery is Henry Porter, a Guardian journalist, who is writing spy fiction for our time. His latest, Firefly, is very good.

And non-fiction too.

As a child/teen
Paula Danziger
Whoever wrote the babysitters club
Virginia Andrews
Jackie Collins

As an adult
Jonathan Kellerman
Harlan Coben
Tess gerritsen
Karin slaughter
Mo hayder
James Patterson
Stephen king
Linwood Barclay

Also read most of sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Started as a late teen and still working my way through

Definitely Enid Blyton.

I have read masses of Noel Streatfeilds, culminating in the recently- discovered Gemma series. Some children's literature is absolutely wasted on the young!

I have read every single Agatha Christie. In fact I've been reading some of them again (I love them for the social history aspect too) and couldn't remember who the murderer was

I have read every Anne Tyler and every Miss Read.

Have read all of many authors, but their output isn't on the same scale as your Blytons and your Christies.

Enid Blyton
Kate Atkinson
Marion Keyes
Bill Bryson
Jean Plaidy (as a teen)
Victoria Hislop

Enid Blyton
Harold Robbins - back in the day
Peter James, Roy Grace series is fantastic

Forgot Agatha Christie!

Jilly Cooper

Irmafayelear I've just finished reading Noel Streatfeild's A Vicarage Family which I found in a 2nd hand bookshop. It's based on her own childhood and def worth a read.

As a child, Enid Blyton. As an adult Peter Robinson's DCI Banks' series.

LaceandChintz is that the one where the girl has bread and butter with hundreds and thousands at a party during Lent then has to confess to her vicar father? And her sister has a massive piece of cake and gets away with it due to her overly dramatic apology?

Stephen King by a far old country mile

Kate Mosse, Susan Howatch, Terry Pratchett, JK Rowling, Jane Austen, Bronte sisters

BevBrook that's the one. I think there are more, about her as she gets older. I'll have to try and get hold of them.
Whoever up thread said many children's books are wasted on children was so right!

LaceandChintz - I have The Vicarage Family on my “yet to read” shelf. These are usually books that I can’t bear to read as then I will have read them (!) and worthy books that I should have read but can never quite find the right moment (eg Middlemarch). I suppose I could join that irritating mass of people who say,”Oh, I don’t have time to read,” but I have had decades to read Middlemarch but remain scarred by having to have ploughed through Mill on the Floss for A Level. One reason for disliking GE is that she always seems to be lauding tall, dark girls (when I am short and fair). I can remember as a teenager being annoyed she was trotting out the dumb blonde thing.

Must have read hundreds of Enid Bottom books as a child. As an adult, definitely Agatha Christie. I've read just about all the Poirots and Marples and many of the others. Also her autobiography is a great read.

Argh, Enid Blyton not Bottom! What an autocorrect.