topic Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most? in Book Club

What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

Desert Lily — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 16:55:43 GMT

Please keep responses to authors of Fiction only. : )

William S. Gray influenced me because he authored the "Di** and Jane" series, and I learned to read through those books.

Thomas Wolfe influenced me with his You Can't Go Home Again.

Hemingway influenced me because he broke rules of traditional writing at the time.

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

silkyk — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 16:41:05 GMT

Ray Bradbury.

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

pinkcrystal — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 16:50:41 GMT

Agatha Christie

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

on the bay — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 17:25:39 GMT

Agatha Christie.

In college I started reading her books instead of all the things I was supposed to be reading.😄

After 1 book, I went onto 30 of them and that established my reading all the time from then on.

And probably a love of mysteries.

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

PickyPicky3 — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 17:05:46 GMT

Robert B. Parker (author of Spencer mystery series) who could express so much in a sentence of eight words.

Thomas Hardy (Far From the Madding Crowd) who took three or more pages to describe something at a snail's pace, but I loved every word of it.

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

Sooner — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 17:08:45 GMT

Dickens and Cervantes.

I couldn't choose!

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

GenXmuse — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 17:12:57 GMT

Edith Wharton and

Barbara Kingsolver

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

ALRATIBA — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 17:34:44 GMT

That's a tough question to answer! Influenced me the most? Fiction?

High school was a liberal arts curriculum and I was an English major (Classical Studies minor) in college and have always been an avid reader.

Two that come to mind are Dante Alighieri and Shakespeare.

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

Othereeeen — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 17:33:30 GMT

John Cheever.

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

Dusty1 — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 19:01:55 GMT

Laura Ingall Wilder-Little House On The Prairie

Stephenie Meyer-Twilight

Our 4th grade teacher, Mrs Stotts, had a library in her room that we could borrow from & I read all of the Little House books there & then any book that I could get my hands on!

My teenage niece (at that time) kept talking about the Twilight book & how good it was, but it was just a kid's book & I smiled & nodded.

At some point, this was after all 4 books were published, I started reading Twilight & I was hooked! I couldn't read fast enough.

I know I read all 4 books in record time.

No. They aren't great works of literature, but the story & characters really grabbed me & introduced me to the world of Young Adult books.

Some really great books that i would never have read if it weren't for Twilight.

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

candyagain — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 19:15:34 GMT

Charles Dickens

Louisa May Alcott

author of Nancy Drew

These were the authors I read at an early age. My parents were great readers. So am I.

I remember looking at a little book at my grandparents and what that page looked like before I could read. The urge was strong!

Isaac Asimov

Theodore Sturgeon

Agatha Christie

junior high to high school

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

insomniac2 — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 19:24:13 GMT

PickyPicky, I also adore Thomas Hardy. I've got a good-sized biography of him to read next.

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

insomniac2 — Sun, 21 Mar 2021 20:30:27 GMT

My ultimate favorite author is E.F. Benson. He wrote many whimsical books (the Lucia

series, which I've read a dozen times), ghost stories (many volumes), biographies (Queen Victoria, Charlotte Bronte, Magellan, and more), and outstanding novels.

He's written well over a hundred books. Thanks to ebay and online used book stores, I own almost everything available.

The first book I read by him was in 1962. I have never stopped.

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

BornToShop — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 00:20:57 GMT

I will forever be indebted to the TRIXIE BELDON series by Julie Campbell Tatham (1st 6 Bks) and the rest by pseudonym Kathryn Kenny who literally transformed me as I was growing up to the incredible world of books. I cannot imagine my life without a book/nook open and not reading!

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

RealtyGal2 — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 08:47:03 GMT

James Patterson

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

gardenman — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 11:56:53 GMT

Probably Frederick Forsythe for "The Day of the Jackal" which is arguably the best thriller I've ever read with action on nearly every page. I reread it every summer. Louis La'Mour for his simple, straight-forward story-telling ability. They're two attributes I try to follow in my writing. Keep things moving and avoid too many deviations from the main storyline. I'm not sure he qualifies as a fiction writer, but James Herriott for the heart and humor he put into his stories.

What I try to avoid are issues like those in Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables" where when describing the color of bricks in one chapter he goes into a seemingly never-ending description of a massive battle that had taken place where the blood of the combatants had stained the field and the bricks of that building had their unique color from the blood-stained clay. By the time you get back to the main story of Jean Valjean you pretty much have forgotten who he was and wonder why he's in this story of a massive battle.

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

teganslaw — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 12:57:09 GMT

Edgar Allan Poe. He got me interested in mysteries, thrillers and types of poetry. Because of his writings, I tried other authors in those kinds of genres.

I read "Les Miserables" and thought most of the book was interesting, but there were parts which had nothing to do with Jean Valjean. I skipped over those long diversions. I read that authors during that period got paid by the words written, so that's probably why many novels at that time were so immense.

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

violann — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 13:04:46 GMT

@BornToShop wrote:
I will forever be indebted to the TRIXIE BELDON series by Julie Campbell Tatham (1st 6 Bks) and the rest by pseudonym Kathryn Kenny who literally transformed me as I was growing up to the incredible world of books. I cannot imagine my life without a book/nook open and not reading!

I also totally loved the Cherry Ames books.

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

violann — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 13:15:34 GMT

WhenIwas inHS I LOVED taking standardized tests (of anything), but I usually banged through them and had to sit being bored during the extended lengths of time allocated for completing them.

One day while taking one of them in the school library, I turned around and grabbed "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn", by Betty Smith.

It became my favorite book, and after reading it, I read everything I could find that she'd written.

I also loved Betty MacDonald "The Egg and I", "Onions In the Stew", "The Plague and I" and several others. Her light hearted and sometimes very funny writing has fallen into ill repute for several reasons, some very legitimate, and I myself don't consider several of her topics in any way acceptable, but I guess it's fair to say that they did in fact influence me, if only for their negativity.

In kind of the same vein, I loved all of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, but I think I remember even as a kid cringing a bit at some of her biases.

Re: What FICTION Author Influenced You The Most?

ALRATIBA — Mon, 22 Mar 2021 14:31:13 GMT

@insomniac2

E F Benson is the younger brother of Robert Hugh Benson - also a noted author. You can check out his background on WIKI.

I think R H Benson's best known work is Lord of the World - a fantastic read. A rather prophetic book considering what's currently going on in the world.

From the blurb at Amazon:

Popular young adult books such as The Hunger Games and Divergent, as well as literary classics such as Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins and Cormac McCarthy's The Road, have created a growing interest in dystopian novels. In one of the first such novels of the twentieth century, Robert Hugh Benson imagines a world where belief in God has been replaced by secular humanism. Lord of the World describes a world where Catholics are falling away and priests and bishops are defecting.

If you have a Kindle or a Kindle app - you can download 11 of his books for $1.99.