I would have to say Cormac McCarthy.

For me, it'd be Roberto Bolaño.

Abdulrazak Gurnah, the Tanzanian author, is my choice.

So many!

Roddy Doyle
Elizabeth Strout
Rose Tremain
Kate Grenville
Lori Lansens
Kazuo Ishiguro
Jhumpa Lahiri
Geraldine Brooks
Anita Shreve
Elizabeth Taylor

Lots of new to me authors in '08. Lovin' it!!!

Message edited by its author, Dec 24, 2008, 10:53pm.

Most definitely Kazuo Ishiguro.

Just off the top of my head, I'd have to say Jhumpa Lahiri.

I'm with kidzdoc, Abdulrazak Gurnah (no touchstone).

Just discovered Elizabeth Brundage.....loved her work in The Doctor's Wife.

For me one would be Brent Monahan. His The Book of Common Dread/a Novel of the Infernal and The Blood of the Covenant: A Novel of the Vampiric were such a fresh and different look at the standard vampire story. I'm surprized he's not more read. He has also written historical novels and mysteries, which may be why he is not more widely read he's not easily pigeon holed to one genre.

Another would be Zola, Emile after reading his La curée I've decided to read more of his books in his 20 volume series collectively known as Rougon-Macquart Novels.

Message edited by its author, Dec 25, 2008, 7:54am.

Armistead Maupin without a doubt.

Easy. Salman Rushdie, hands down. Wow.

>teelgee- I'm in agreement with you, this was tough to nail down because there was such an abundance but I'll go with:
Jhumpa Lahiri & Huraki Murakami

Terry Pratchett is the winner

Runner Ups:
Cormac McCarthy
Joe Hill
Susanna Clarke
John Connolly
Bill Bryson

My favorites are Alan Gordon, Arnaldur Indriðason, and John Scalzi.

Neil Gaiman, Anthony Powell, A.S. Byatt and Patrick Suskind

If I had to pick one, it'd probably be Gaiman, though.

OH! and Sarah Waters, how could I forget Sarah??

I'll second ktleyed's choice of Kazuo Ishiguro. Oh, and Toni Morrison. Can't believe I've waited so long to read either of these authors.

Roberto Bolano and Haruki Murakami - neither touchstone working?!

>17 mckait -- I discovered Sarah at the tail end of 2007 or she would have been included in my list. I've read 3 of her books now and will happily read anything she's written! I think I read she'll have a new one out in the spring. Ooo, maybe one of us could get an ARC!

I second (third?) Sarah Waters. Tipping the Velvet was unbelievably good, and I talked my book club into reading Fingersmith during 2009. I'll probably cheat and read it early. ;o)

Lynn Flewelling. I just wish I'd known how much I was going to enjoy her books when I saw her at ConBust.

I'm also jumping on board the Sarah Waters and Kazuo Ishiguro bandwagons. I also really loved Sandra Worth and am going to be reading the rest of her work in the next few months.

dfreeman - don't start Fingersmith until you have a chunk of reading time. You won't want to put it down and it's a bit of a chunkster. I just finished Affinity a couple weeks ago, it was wonderful, and The Night Watch is on schedule for January.

I read a lot of new authors, but I would have to say the ones I would now read everything else they have written are:

Cormac McCarthy
Jhumpa Lahiri

and, the I can't believe it took me this long but now I love her..

Jane Austen

touchstones?? it really can't find them for those two??

Message edited by its author, Dec 25, 2008, 8:33pm.

Dave Eggers for his book What is the What

I think I might choose Carolyn Chute. All I've read so far is her first book, The Beans of Egypt, Maine, but I'm anxious to read more.

I think I'd put Sara Gran's Dope above The Beans, but Dope is Gran's only noir novel, at least as far as I can see, although I do intend to try her other work. But Chute's other works are definitely of great interest.

I'd have to say Neil Gaiman and Isabel Allende.

Ismail Kadare
Yukio Mishima
Javier Marías
Ivo Andrić
Camilo Jose Cela

Message edited by its author, Dec 26, 2008, 12:39pm.

Many, I'm happy to say.

Ditto kidzdoc and akeela on Abdulrazak Gurnah -- thanks to avaland for introducing me to him.
Joseph O'Neill for Netherland and Blood-Dark Track
Jennifer Haigh for The Condition
Robertson Davies for The Deptford Trilogy
Ivo Andric for The Bridge on the Drina
Elizabeth von Arnim for The Enchanted April
Denis Johnson for Tree of Smoke
Richard Price for Lush Life

A very sweet Lter offered me these links for video to
Affinity

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/0oYqf....
Second here : http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/t9qkl....
Last one here : http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/wgVwY....

I only have two this year: Ysabeau S. Wilce and Sarah Monette.

Eh, mckait, when I go to those links I get a funny website in what looks like Chinese or Korean.

click tee..

i hesitated too... in fact the first part didn't work.. the second part did ,...

Everything worked fine for me. The research results are here : http://so.tudou.com/isearch.do?kw=affini...
Just watch A before B or 1 before 2, etc (common sense I think).

Cindy Crabb and Kurt Vonnegut (I am way behind)

Tracy Chevalier

Steve Hockensmith would have to be my favorite new to me author. Holmes on the Range was fantastic.

I also really enjoyed:

Tana French - In the Woods
Maureen Ash - The Alehouse Murders
Christopher Golden - Straight on 'Til Morning
Robert Spiller - The Witch of Agnesi

Message edited by its author, Dec 26, 2008, 10:52pm.

New authors of 2008 that I wouldn't mind reading again:
Joyce Carol Oates
Dianne Setterfield
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Beverly Swerling

My favorite new authors this year are Jodi Picoult and Jennifer McMahon.

Steve Erickson
Elena Ferrante
Barbara Michaels
Kathryn Davis
Claudine Herrmann

Message edited by its author, Dec 28, 2008, 1:55am.

This year I discovered Richard Russo who has been around for a while. I read Empire Falls & have ordered Bridge of sighs

AJ Jacobs

Terry Pratchett
Margery Allingham
Helene Hanff
Anne Bronte

*hangs head in shame* At least I got round to them eventually.

Message edited by its author, Dec 27, 2008, 4:21pm.

My new 2008 Authors that are favorites

Colin Cotterill
Neil S. Plakcy
Leonie Swann
Joey W. Hill
Robert Goddard
Elizabeth George
John Meaney

A couple more:

Walter Jon Williams
William Gibson

Message edited by its author, Dec 27, 2008, 5:53pm.

Nicola Barker
Gregory David Roberts
Steve Erickson
Simon Ings
Jiang Rong
Rabih Alameddine
Aleksander Hemon
Roberto Bolano
Natsuo Kirino
Salvatore Scibona

Roberts & Bolano vie for first place.

Salman Rushdie and Daphne Du Maurier

For me it would be Jhumpa Lahiri.

New discoveries this year:

J.M.G.Le Clezio
Raymond Queneau
Chris Adrian
Orhan Pamuk
R.K.Narayan
Harry Mathews
Luc Sante

If I had to pick one: Stefan Zweig

Without a doubt Gregory David Roberts

David Mitchell (author of Cloud Atlas)
Markus Zusak
Barbara Kingsolver

Message edited by its author, Dec 28, 2008, 1:22pm.

Jorge Luis Borges comes in top, followed closely by
Pat Barker and G.K. Chesterton.
I'm also planning on reading more Arturo Perez Reverte and Evelyn Waugh.

Truman Capote
Ursula Le Guin
Mary Stewart

Message edited by its author, Dec 28, 2008, 10:06pm.

Marc Llewellyn

Chaim Potok was the favorite. Second was Ryszard Kapuscinski.

Authors which were new to me this year that I may keep an eye out for more of their work. . .

Laura Restrepo, author of Delirium
Julia Leigh, author of Disquiet
Henning Mankell, author of many mysteries, four of which I've read this year.

LT authors Tim Jones and Rob Shearman, authors of short fiction collections Transported and Tiny Deaths respectively.

Debut authors Jesmyn West, Sadie Jones and Jason Brown (their first books are Where the Line Bleeds, The Outcast, and Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work, respectively.

YA author Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu, author of The Shadow Speaker (who just won a Wole Soyinka award for her latest book).

I discovered Mo Yan, the wonderful Chinese writer. And SantaThing even noticed.

Yan will make the touchstone work. How strange.

#56: Thanks, avaland! Authors new to me whose work I most enjoyed in 2008 include:

Prose

Junot Diaz - for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Elizabeth Jane Howard - for her autobiography Slipstream and the four-volume Cazalet Chronicles
Viktor Pelevin - for A Werewolf Problem in Central Russia

Poetry and Prose

Helen Lowe - I haven't read her novel Thornspell yet, but enjoyed both her short fiction and her poetry

Poetry

Johanna Aitchison for A Long Girl Ago and John Greening for Fotheringhay and Other Poems

C.L. Wilson

Marcel Proust. Runners up are Ben Okri, Angela Carter, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, and John Fowles.

Magnus Mills - unfortunately I've now read his five full novels and am waiting to see if he will write anymore.

I also enjoyed the two books each I read by Kazuo Ishiguro and Graham Swift and will probably read more of their work this year.

Charlie Huston
Cormac McCarthy
William Kotzwinkle
Chuck Palahniuk

What is with I can NEVER get an author touchstone to work?? Am I missing something? It's

bracket bracket author bracket bracket

right? or am I wrong?

Shalom Auslander - although that's kinda cheating, because Foreskin's Lament was one of the last books I read in '07.
Anne Fadiman - for delighting book lovers with her essays.
Arnaldur Indriason - for his excellently paced and plotted mystery.
Alexander McCall Smith - for his wonderful, always enjoyable, The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series.
Duane Swierczynski - for his adrenalin-fueled romps.

Linda Holeman
R.D. Wingfield
Jim Fergus
John Shors
Geraldine Brooks

These were all authors that I enjoyed for the first time in 2008.

For me it would be Bill Bryson for A Walk in the Woods, The Mother Tongue, and I'm a Stranger here Myself

#63 - that's how they are supposed to work - and, once in a while, they actually do!

>67 timjones: Thanks for verifying! I was starting to doubt myself!

Phlox, I have heard so many good things about Bill Bryson.. I have picked up two of his books, and they are sitting on a shelf waiting patiently...I look forward to them. ( seriously, no touchstone?? gak!)

#69 A Short History of Nearly Everything taught me chemistry.... after I failed it twice in high school.

David Sedaris. After it took me so long to find him, I read three of his books this year and went to a reading of his when he came into town.

I would have to say George MacDonald.

Close runners up were George Eliot, Stuart MacBride and Susan Barker.

(Edited to fix touchstones - well, to attempt it anyway...)

Message edited by its author, Jan 7, 2009, 11:59am.

If I had to pick one, I guess it would be Bill Bryson. I read A Walk in the Woods and The Mother Tongue this year; the former made my top nonfiction list and the latter was a close runner up.

Joseph Boyden would have been what I 'SantaThing'd,' had i opted to. (Next year!) Haven't yet read his Through Black Spruce, but his Three Day Road was a great experience. I should check first, but I believe he's from Northern Ontario, I think is of the Cree first nation, and teaches English in Louisiana. Three Day Road, his debut novel, was blushingly blurbed by the likes of Jim Harrison, Louise Erdrich, and Isabel Allende. It's a stunning contrast between reserve/bush life in northern Canada and the trenches of WWI through the eyes of a Cree sniper. Truly a taut read with appalling and refreshing imagery.

Message edited by its author, Jan 16, 2009, 11:24pm.

the big ones for me last year were...
william burroughs,
john williams ie stoner,
Kerouac,
and Kate Ó Brien

and i already have one for '09
A. M. Homes

Bill Bryson fans.. read In a Sunburned Country immediately! It was my favorite out of all of his books :)

Oh! Whoever mentioned Haruki Murakami, read Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World! Read it in college and had forgotten all about it until now. You won't be disappointed. For those of you who mentioned Isabel Allende, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jorge Luis Borges, talk to me!! I could go on for days!!

My favorite was the eccentric Christopher Moore, and possibly Rick Riordan in young adult fiction.

Message edited by its author, Jan 18, 2009, 1:08am.

#77, MissTeacher: I didn't put Borges because his fiction has been among my favourites for years, but I read his poetry for the first time this year, and I like that a lot as well - see

http://timjonesbooks.blogspot.com/2008/0...

for a review

Rebecca Solnit - A Field Guide to Getting Lost

To my previous comment, I'd have to add Ricardo Piglia and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I can see why Marquez' influence so dominates Spanish-language fiction. Piglia taught me some fascinating new ways to look at a story.

New to me late in 2008 were Candice Proctor (although not for her romance books, but for her Sebastian St Cyr mysteries which she writes under the name C.S. Harris but somehow the touchstones don't work with that name... go figure.

New to me late in 2008 were Candice Proctor although not for her romance books, but for her Sebastian St Cyr mysteries which she writes under the name C.S. Harris but somehow the touchstones don't work with that name... go figure.

New authors in fiction arena: Lee Child, Stephen Hunter, and Michael Connelly

David Liss and the father/son Shaara

#78 and #80: I love Borges' poetry! It's what got me interested in him in high school. Thanks for the mention of Ricardo Piglia...I've heard of him once before but now I think I'll check him out.

Stephenie Meyer and Sarah Dessen.

Cormac Mc Carthy?
Ian McEwan?
Henry Roth?

I've read one book by each until now. I'll have to wait until I've read another to decide.

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Mari Jungstedt (The Inner Cicle)
Leighton Gage (Buried Strangers)
Karin Alvtegen (Missing)

Vernor Vinge
and
R.A. Salvatore (actually I've read his Star Wars stuff before, but I'm just getting to the Drizzt books. They're darn good!)

ETA: touchstones are touchy, as usual!

Message edited by its author, Apr 18, 2009, 2:31pm.

Alice Hoffman for me! I fell in love with her magical books after I read The Ice Queen - now I've also read The Blackbird House and Skylight Confessions, and have more waiting to be read.

I also read A.M. Homes for the first time - I loved This Book Will Save Your Life - but having only read the one book so far I can't really elevate her to favourite status yet...

Message edited by its author, Apr 19, 2009, 2:17pm.

Kazuo Ishiguro and Charlaine Harris.

Xiaolu Guo. I just finished A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers and absolutely could not put it down.

Message edited by its author, Apr 19, 2009, 8:06pm.

Fav. new to me authors from last year's reading listed with the book I read...
Sir Walter Scott - Ivanhoe
Daphne du Maurier - Don't Look Now
Connie Willis - To Say Nothing of the Dog
Terry Pratchett - The Wee Free Men

I've already noted a few favs from this year and there's still so much reading time left. Ain't life grand! :D

I've been reading a lot of new authors lately. However, on the basis of his first book, which I finished yesterday, Brent Weeks definitely has potential. I read Way of the Shadow which is the first book in a trilogy, and I am impatient to get my hands on the other two.

Message edited by its author, Apr 26, 2009, 10:09pm.

Henning Mankell is amazing. Each book grips me and takes me into it. I still have 3 more to read.