Memory meme

Written by Natalie Bennett
Published February 22, 2005

An excellent meme, via Purple Pen ...

Which authors have you read more than ten books by?

Mine are (or those I can remember thus far, roughly in the order in which I read them) ...

Enid Blyton
Arthur Ransome
Elyne Mitchell (particularly her brumby books. (Brumbies are wild horses.)
Ruby Ferguson (of the "Jill" pony books)
"Jean Blaidy"
Zane Grey (and probably several other writers of Westerners I've now forgotten)
Patrick O'Brian (and probably several writers of war novels of varying eras whose names I've forgotten)
George Macdonald (Yes the Flashman series; I'm bring brutally honest here - and I was only about 13)
Alastair MacLean
James Michener
Agatha Christie
Isaac Asimov
John Steinbeck
James Herriot
Dick Francis
John Francome
Peter Corris
Sue Grafton
Ellis Peters
Colleen McCullough
Lindsey Davis
Anne Perry
Dorothy L Sayers
Elizabeth Peters
Kerry Greenwood (on whom I posted here)
Marele Day (a rather good Australian writer of feminist detective stories))
Peter Ackroyd

Obviously, the way to sell lots of books is to write long series of detective novels or thrillers, or at least that is what this list would suggest.

Natalie is the editor of My London Your London, an independent cultural guide featuring theatre, gallery and museum reviews, and also blogs at Philobiblon, on history, culture, Green politics and all things feminist. She's the founder of the Carnival of Feminists, and Managing Editor and Books Editor on Blogcritics.
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Memory meme
Published: February 22, 2005
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Section: Books
Writer: Natalie Bennett
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#1 — February 22, 2005 @ 08:02AM — Aaman [URL]

Ooh, awesome - here's my first cut.

Terry Pratchett
Stephen King
Enid Blyton
Isaac Asimov
Salman Rusdhie
R K Narayan
Robert Jordan (finish the series, dammit!)
John Le Carre
Philip K Dick
Arthur C Clarke
Larry Niven (and collab.)
Arthur Conan Doyle
Alan Moore
Anne Rice
Harry Turtledove
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Michael Moorcock
Kahlil Gibran
Anonymous

#2 — February 22, 2005 @ 08:41AM — Eric Olsen

wow, ten is a lot - I tend more toward "representative samplings." It also depends on how you define "books." Probably I've read ten or more by Updike, Bellow, Vonnegut, Roth - really have to think about that one

#3 — February 22, 2005 @ 10:41AM — DrPat [URL]

Love this meme! My list in no particular order (yes, Aaman, first draft here, too):

  • Isaac Asimov
  • Ayn Rand
  • David Weber (Honor Harrington)
  • Sheri Tepper
  • C.J. Cherryh
  • John McPhee
  • Robert Heinlein
  • James Michener
  • Anne McCaffrey
  • Harry Harrison
  • Frank Herbert
  • Bill Bryson
  • Harry Turtledove
  • John Brunner
  • John Norman
  • Warren Murphy
  • Phillip K. Dick
  • Charles Sheffield
I'm sure there are more, they just slip my mind right now! (Probably they're still in boxes in the basement...)

#4 — February 22, 2005 @ 10:51AM — Mark Saleski [URL]

do books by "Anonymous" count?

;-)

#5 — February 22, 2005 @ 11:01AM — DrPat [URL]

do books by "Anonymous" count?

Of course! In fact, I have a collection in a dusty box downstairs, all penned by "A.G." (I think it means "anonymous guy"), which I bought one at a time from an adult bookstore on East Colfax in Denver, at a time when such things were cheap, such shops carried only books and magazines, and I was not yet married.

Should have added "A.G." to my list...

#6 — February 22, 2005 @ 11:09AM — Mark Saleski [URL]

i'm having a tough time coming up with a list. ten is definitely a lot!

stephen king
jack kerouac
kurt vonnegut

that's it.

#7 — February 22, 2005 @ 17:05PM — Natalie [URL]

Yes anonymous counts as one, whatever sort of anonymous that is :-) So I guess I should add that too.

(And I suspect historically, back in the 19th and earlier centuries, Anonymous is often female.)

#8 — February 22, 2005 @ 17:07PM — Mark Saleski [URL]

yes, wasn't Anais Nin an early 'anonymous'? sort of, anyway.

#9 — February 22, 2005 @ 18:19PM — Nick Jones

I think one of the Bronte sisters published under the name "Ellis Bell(e?)".

Stephen King
Harlan Ellison
Phillip K. Dick
Gore Vidal
Charles Bukowski
Peter Straub
Alastair MacLean
Whoever wrote the Executioner series (1970's)

#10 — February 22, 2005 @ 20:58PM — Angela Chen Shui [URL]

This is hard... not remembering names, but this is what I got so far..

Enid Blyton
William Shakespeare
T. Lobsang Rampa
Agatha Christie
Hardy Boys's author
Nancy Drew's author
Neale Donald Walsch
Godfrey Ray King
Richard Bach

#11 — February 22, 2005 @ 21:46PM — mpho [URL]

Like Eric, I'm not much of a serial monogamist when it comes to books, tending go more for "representative samples." I doubt I've ever read ten books by any single author, considering five to my marker. Those would include

Toni Morrison
Lawrence Durrell
Hermann Hesse
John Steinbeck
Fydor Dostoevsky
Jonathan Lethem
James Baldwin
Gene Wolfe

strange list if I do say so myself. Aside from Lethem, I haven't read any of these authors in years and wouldn't even say that any of them are that representative of what I read nowadays.

and if graphic novels count
Neil Gaiman (The Sandman)
Los Bros Hernandez (Love & Rockets)

However, that's as an adult. Childhood: the Hardy Boys (hated Nancy Drew), Little House on the Prarie, and the like.

Great post!

#12 — February 22, 2005 @ 21:47PM — mpho [URL]

oh, I forgot Kerouc and Hunter S. Thompson! How could I forget?

#13 — February 22, 2005 @ 21:54PM — Eric Berlin [URL]

Wow - 10 is a ton by any one author...

My list:

Elmore Leonard
John D. McDonald
Robert B. Parker
Stephen King
Ben Bova
Jack Kerouac
Tom Clancy
John Grisham
Harry Turtledove
Steven Saylor
Nelson DeMille

#14 — February 22, 2005 @ 23:42PM — Nick Jones

Oops - how could I forget Carl Hiaasen and the Hardy Boys?

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