There’s a game what’s been goin’ ’round the hinternet for a few weeks. Oye think the rules is as follows. Name 15 Authors that you love, or have impacted you. Don’t think about it a whole lot, just do it, as Nike advises. So, here’s my list. What’s yours?
Note: Mine is for Fiction
Old Reliables
C.S. Lewis
J.R.R. Tolkien
P.G. Wodehouse
Patrick O’Brian
Wendell Berry
Alan Paton
Orson Scott Card
Umberto Eco
William Shakespeare
Ray Bradbury
Arthur Conan Doyle
Recent Stallwarts
N.D. Wilson
Andrew Peterson
Jeffrey Overstreet
Jonathan Rogers
Now how’s about yourself? I refuse to tag you (unless we’re playing freeze tag).
N’ary a single female on the list! What gives?
Nothing gives! I did this fast, didn’t think about the gender of the authors for one second. I have too much respect for women in general and women who are authors specifically to patronize.
C.S Lewis
J.R.R. Tolkien
Arnold Lobel
Annie Dillard
L.M. Montgomery
Jane Austen
Wendell Berry
John Piper
Emily Post
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Jean Birdsall (The Penderwicks)
Alice and Martin Provensen
Louis Untermeyer… who gets onto the list as the compiler of that stalwart classic which no home library should be without, A Treasury of Great Poems
Joan Aiken
Jeri Massi
I love this. It’s like getting out all my old Baseball Cards. Except these authors are still worth something.
1..Fyodorovich Dostoevsky (Fyodor or Fido, sometimes Frodo, to his friends)
2..Charles Dickens (What the Dickens!)
3..C. S. Lewis (But I’ve never read Narnia!)
4..Flannery O’Connor (Come on brother, here’s a woman 🙂
5..Tolkien (BIG FEET trump evil)
6..Ernest Hemingway (Old Man and the Sea)
7..John Steinbeck (Beautiful writing)
8..Leo Tolstoy (For his tomes)
9..P. G. Wodehouse (Discovered him last year)
10..Jane Austen (Brave enough to admit it 😉
11..Dorothy Sayers (Funny lady)
12..Marilynne Robinson (Solid)
13..Leif Enger (Good stories)
14..Bill Watterson (Calvin & Hobbes)
15..Nikolai Gogol (Funny man)
And:
16..Jonathan Rogers (I enjoyed his Charlatan’s Boy)
15 + 1, right?
This will probably be harder than I think. In no particular order, except that they’re numbered. But number does not equal higher standing.
1. C.S. Lewis
2. J.R.R. Tolkien
3. J.K. Rowling (yes, Harry Potter had that much of an impact on me)
4. N.D. Wilson (funny how they all use initials)
5. Jerry Bridges (Trusting God was a life changer for me)
6. J.I. Packer (Knowing God, also a life changer)
7. Andrew Peterson
8. A.S. “Pete” Peterson
9. Jonathan Rogers
10. John Piper
11. Kevin DeYoung
12. C.J. Mahaney (No relation, plus his last name is Mahaney, mine’s Mahoney. Big difference.)
13. Agatha Christie
14. Charles Spurgeon
15. D.A. Carson
I’m actually glad I go by J.J.. Based on the above list my success as a writer is pretty much secured. A sure thing I would say.
I forgot to add H.G. Wells. Great old timey sci-fi.
Wow, lots of great choices. So many goodn’s. Some of them I’ve not yet read, but plan to. Others I’ve never heard of and am assuming are made up (because then I’m not discovered as the ignoramus I actually am). Emma, you have a few mysterious ones to me. 🙂
Though, I do love the Treasury…
Here’s my list (sorted by number of books I have read by that particular author):
C.S. Lewis
Wendell Berry
Orson Scott Card
Walter Wangerin, Jr.
Frederick Buechner
Brennan Manning
JRR Tolkien
George MacDonald
Annie Dillard
NT Wright
Marilynne Robinson
Andrew Peterson
Jane Austen
Kenneth Boa
Dallas Willard
1. CS Lewis
2. Timothy Keller
3. Paul David Tripp
4. Jerry Bridges
5. Eric Metaxas (Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer chronicler)
6. Lucy Maud Montgomery
7. Jane Austen
8. George McDonald
9. Sir Walter Scott (Ivanhoe!)
10. S. Morgenstern (Inconceivable, I know, but the Princess Bride book is even more funny than the movie)
11. Andree’ Seu (WORLD mag and beyond)
12. Fyoder Dostoevsky
13. Leo Tolstoy
14. Jan Karon (Mitford books-brain candy)
15. Many of the new (to me) authors who are part of the Rabbit Room community.
Well, SD, I’m honored to have made your list. Especially since GK Chesterton and Charles Dickens didn’t. I’ve been trying to tell people that I’m way better than either of them, but you’re the first person to have the vision to believe it.
I am a little concerned, however, that Andrew Peterson comes ahead of me on the list. I’m thinking maybe you were trying to do reverse alphabetical order and got mixed up?
Oh, I’m gonna have to break the rules. Seeing others’ lists jogged my memory banks. G.K. Chesterton, sentence master extraordinaire, must be added. I admit it… I didn’t get The Man Who Was Thursday, but I enjoyed the riotous adventure. George MacDonald, likewise. And Andree Seu… it’s been a while since I was a regular World Mag reader, but back then she caught my attention and won my heart as essay writer numero uno.
No fair. You guys are thinking too hard, especially Jonathan Rogers, author and blogger at http://www.jonathan-rogers.com.
And now, for a scolding.
You’re supposed to do it fast and not think about how many Saudi Arabians you’re including or which giants you have scorned, or whether you’re ahead or behind of Andrew Peterson.
You people are WAY too thoughtful! Why can’t more ignernt, backwerd peopul like me read this blog?
🙂
Also, I love Andree Seu as well.
If I did think about it longer, I could probably very quickly add 15 more names to the list and one of them would definitely be George Orwell.
But you still aint explained why Andrew Peterson was ahead of me on the list.
Oh, sorry. It totally slipped my mind. It’s because he’s better, that’s all.
Flannery O’Connor
Mark Helprin
Annie Dillard
Mark Twain
J.R.R. Tolkien
C.S. Lewis
Philip Yancey
Hergé
Ray Bradbury
Kurt Vonnegut
William Shakespeare
Anne Lamott
E.B. White
James Lileks
That’s 14 . . . who am I forgetting? 🙁
I think you forgot Jellybean Highfive.