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...

PixelAteMe - how could I have forgotten Jean Plaidy! I worked my way through pretty much every book she ever wrote when I was a teenager as my tiny local library seemed to have them all.

As a child Marcel pagnol ( not much kids' literature in France). As a teenager in the 80s I had a big girl crush on Lisa Teran de saint Aubin( anyone remember her?). Along the way Orwell, Zola, Helen Simpson, Emmanuel Carrere, Julian Barnes, some Ian McEwan. Probably loads of others whom I can't quite recall.
For light reading I quite like Emma straub.
Or private eye!

Oh yes I read loads of Enid blyton without even knowing it. It's called " le club des cinq" in French.

Milly Johnson, Cathy Glass, Sophie Kinsella, Jill Mansell, Dorothy Koomson. As a young girl I was obsessed with Jacqueline Wilson. I never really liked Enid Blyton books, I found them really boring.

Yy to Enid Blyton as a small child.

Judy Blumenthal as an older child/young teen.

I then got into Christopher Pike - teen horror stuff. Used to borrow books from boys in my Science class.

Ian Rankin as an adult. Philip Roth maybe.

Judy Blume. Bloody autocorrect. Arghhh!

Forgot Jane Costello, I've read all hers.

As a child, Monica Edwards, Arthur Ransome, CS Lewis, Edward Eager, Noel Streatfield, Dodie Smith and every ‘pony’ book the library had.

As a teenager, Agatha Christie, Gerald Durrell, Dorothy L Sayers Ed McBain and Jean Plaidy were my most frequent re-reads.

As an adult, Jane Austen, Ellis Peters’ Cadfael, Terry Pratchett, Patricia Wentworth and more recently Mary Wesley. Jodi Taylor’s Chronicles of St Mary are obviously destined to be added to the list.

Enid Blyton. Rosamunde Pilcher. Jean M Auel. Barbara Erskine. Kit Berry.

Enid Blyton - I loved the school stories but my absolute favorite was the Valley of Adventure.

Elinor M Brent-Dyer - the Chalet School books have probably had the biggest influence over me as a child and an adult.

I read tons of Agatha Christie, Laurie Lee, Jean Plaidy and whatever I could get my hands on.

I love Jilly Cooper, Bill Bryson and PD James.

My absolute favourite is Susan Howatch, particularly the Starbridge novels.

I was going to say Jean plaidy too. Great historical novels. And also Robert Jordan for his wheel of time series. But then love all the chick lit by Sophie Kinsella.

Stuart MacBride
Diana Gabledon

Like everyone else loads of Enid Blyton, later had a boarding-school story phase and read a lot of second-hand Angela Brazil books which were great fun romps. Also had a phase of reading ancient Ethel M. Dell books which were melodramatic romances from the 20s and 30s (?), for some reason there were loads in second-hand shops at one time. I've read every Dickens novel, masses of P.G. Wodehouse (brilliant when life is a bit stressful), Colette's novels and stories. I had a phase of reading Stephen King and still think his depiction of small-town life is amazing. I gave up on his later work and now can't decide which to try. Also read lots of feminist crime such as Sarah Paretsky, Sarah Dreher (?), Marcia Muller and vintage crime such as Dorothy L. Sayers.

Also read all but one of the Persephone Press Dorothy Whipple reprints.

My absolute favourite is Susan Howatch, particularly the Starbridge novels.

I love this series! Also read all of Jean Plaidy, Agatha Christie, Wodehouse (well the jeeves and lord emsworth ones), Stephen King - came to him late, Ruth Rendell ... and of course Trollope - the great Anthony and his descendant Joanna too. Norah Lofts is one of my favourite authors. I think Gads Hall and The Haunting of Gads hall is one of my favourite books.

I am a member of a library which doesn't sell off older books - they stay in the stacks forever. I am having a ball going through out of print books from Dodie Smith, E.M Delafield, Norah Lofts and others

Enid Blyton, Elinor M Brent-Dyer, Angela Brazil as a child. As an adult, Anthony Trollope, George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, Edith Wharton; from contemporary authors, Kate Atkinson, all the Shetland books (can't remember author). Agatha Christie. Lawrence Block (American crime).

Richmal Compton (Just Wiliam) and Georgette Heyer in terms of pure number of reads. I was a young teenager and got them off my mum's shelf.

pallisers I am delighted to 'meet' a Starbridge fan - I don't know anyone in RL who reads them.

I picked up Glittering Images years ago mainly because I'd enjoyed Cashelmara so much. I spent the next few months engrossed!

Strangely, I'm spending the summer rereading them.

I love Jon Darrow and his relationship with Nevill Aysgarth.

Setphasers pleased to meet you :) I'd read the cashelmara/penmarric ones and loved them because of the mirroring of the plantagenets etc (thanks to Jean Plaidy, I was a big fan of the plantagenets!) but I think Starbridge and the nicholas Darrow books are way better. I picked up Mystical Paths in a thrift store in Boston just after I had moved here and was hooked immediately. I've just started re-reading them too because of this thread.

Movablefeast I loved the “Just William* books too, and was also a massive fan of the Jennings books by Anthony Buckeridge. The Bobby Brewster books by H.E. Todd were also brilliant. They were all staples of my childhood reading.
I wonder if they would still appeal to children now, or are they simply too far removed from the modern world?

Isabel Allende

PixelAteMe well I was reading them in the late 70s when I was 10-12 and absolutely loved them and were already 30-40 years old by then. I got the books on CD read by Martin Jarvis and my kids loved them, we still listen to them on long car rides .

Movablefeast I read them in the late 60s, and never felt they were particularly of a different era, whereas Enid Blyton occasionally (in some books, not all) definitely belonged to a world that had already gone.
I’m pleased your children enjoy those books even today - I shall look out for some for my grandson.