Darryl's Meme: Who are your favorite LIVING novelists?

The rules are: minimum list is five, maximum is how long you feel like typing.
Person must be alive as you hit "save message".
Please list country of origin and gender.

The point of the meme is to make discoveries about unrecognized trends in your reading. Lots of women authors? Get a copy of Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. Lots of English authors? Pick up an Assia Djebar novel, So Vast is the Prison.

Ready...steady...GO!

Here's my top 20 list (plus two honorable mentions), in no particular order and subject to revision. Several of these authors have lived in different countries, so I've bolded the most important one (IMO).

Mario Vargas Llosa (M, Peru)
Ian McEwan (M, UK)
Ha Jin (M, China, US)
Caryl Phillips (M, St. Kitts, UK, US)
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o (M, Kenya, US)

Jean Echenoz (M, France)
Hilary Mantel (F, UK)
Haruki Murakami (M, Japan)
Kenzaburō Ōe (M, Japan)
Maxine Hong Kingston (F, US)

Edwidge Danticat (F, Haiti, US)
Kazuo Ishiguro (M, Japan, UK)
Elias Khoury (M, Lebanon)
V.S. Naipaul (M, Trinidad, UK)
Salman Rushdie (M, India, UK)

Abdulrazak Gurnah (M, Tanzania, UK)
Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio (M, France)
John Edgar Wideman (M, US)
J.M. Coetzee (M, South Africa, Australia)
Horacio Castellanos Moya (M, Honduras, El Salvador)
Jamaica Kincaid (F, Antigua, US)

Amitav Ghosh (M, India)
Amos Oz (M, Israel)

Shoot, Darryl....i recognize most of those names!

My list is a "work in progress"

;-}

My list is a "work in progress"

Same here, Jude. I'm completely certain that this list will look very different this time next year, especially as I read more books by Assia Djebar, Kamila Shamsie, Roma Tearne, Julian Barnes, and possibly Nicola Barker.

Although I mentioned that my list is in no particular order, my most favorite authors are concentrated at the top, and Mario Vargas Llosa is #1 on the list.

Mary Doria Russell (born 1950) is an American novelist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Doria_Russell

Luís Alberto Urrea (born 1955 Tijuana, Mexico) is a Mexican American poet, novelist, and essayist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Alberto_Urrea

Charles de Lint (born December 22, 1951) is a Canadian fantasy author and Celtic folk musician.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_de_Lint

Sarah Waters (born 21 July 1966) is a British novelist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_waters

Armistead Jones Maupin, Jr.1 (born May 13, 1944) is an American writer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistead_Maupin

Alice Hoffman (born March 16, 1952) is an American novelist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_Hoffman

Christopher Aram Bohjalian, who goes by the pen name Chris Bohjalian, is an American novelist
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Bohjalian

oh no! I forgot ~~ how could I forget....?!?!

Louise Penny (born 1958) is a Canadian author of mystery novels
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Penny

I added a link to their wiki page in case anyone is interested
in finding our more than LT might have ...Don't look for anything fancy from me..

eta

Chris Bohjalian

Haruki Murakami (M, Japan)
Walter Mosley (M, U.S.)
Sarah Addison Allen (F, U.S.)
William Gibson (M, U.S./Canada)
Tracy Kidder (M, U.S.)
Helen Simonson (F, England/U.S.)
Suzanne Collins (F, U.S.)
Cormac McCarthy (M, U.S.)
Andrea Camilleri (M, Italy)
Tracy Chevalier (F, U.S.)

Margaret Atwood (F, Canada)
Mark Frutkin (M, Canada)
Thomas King (M, Canada)
Ian McEwan (M, UK)
Heather O'Neill (F, Canada)
Roma Tearne (F, UK but writes about Sri Lanka)
Douglas Coupland (M, Canada)

It's the "living" piece that's stumpin' me.

Louise Penny (F, Canada)

Colum McCann (M, Ireland)

Ursula k. LeGuin (F, USA)

Ian MacDonald (M, England)

Andrea Camilleri (M, Italy)

Difficult to say

Darcie Friesen Hossack Canadian, F

Andrea Levy UK , F

Drew Hayden Taylor Canadian M

Lawrence Hill Canadian, M

Karin Fossum Norwegian, F

Wayson Choy Canadian, M

Wow this is great fun for stataholics. Left off crime/thrillers for now so I have as my top twenty and I agree that tomorrow it could change:

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - favourite work Half of a Yellow Sun (Nigeria, Female)
Louis de Bernieres - Birds Without Wings (UK, Male)
Melvyn Bragg - The Hired Man (UK, Male)
Andre Brink - Rumours of Rain (South Africa, Male)
Peter Carey - Jack Maggs (Australia, Male)
EL Doctorow - Ragtime (USA, Male)
Sebastian Faulks - Birdsong (UK, Male)
Richard Ford - The Sportswriter (USA, Male)
Hilary Mantel - A Place of Greater Safety (UK, Female)
Timothy Mo - The Redundancy of Courage (UK, Male)
Rohinton Mistry - A Fine Balance (Canadian, Male)
Haruki Murakami - Norwegian Wood (Japanese, Male)
V.S. Naipaul - A House for Mr. Biswas (Trinidad/UK, Male)
Sharon Penman - The Sunne in Splendour (USA, Female)
Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children (India/UK, Male)
Graham Swift - Waterland (UK, Male)
William Trevor - The Children of Dynmouth (Ireland/UK, Male)
Barry Unsworth - Morality Play (UK, Male)
Sarah Waters - Fingersmith (UK, Female)
Elie Wiesel - Night (Israel, Male)

honourable mentions to Ackroyd, Banks x2, Banville, Boyd, Coetzee, Dubus, Gordimer, Grasse, Irving, Kundera, Lessing, McEwan, Mitchell, Pynchon, Styron, Tartt, Toibin, Tyler, Winter and Zafon amongst others.

Made me realise how we are largely creatures of our backgrounds as british/commonwealth writers take up 16 places in my list. Also have 16 males in the list which surprises me a little as I don't knowingly prefer male over female writers.

Thriller top ten - no particular order
Andrea Camilleri (Italy, Male)
Henning Mankell (Sweden, Male)
Jo Nesbo (Norway, Male)
Giles Blunt (Canada, Male)
Stuart MacBride (UK, Male)
Craig Russell (UK, Male)
Robert Goddard (UK, Male)
Mark Billingham (UK, Male)
Arnaldur Indridason (Iceland, Male)
Tom Rob Smith (UK, Male)

Fossum, Jungstedt, Barclay, Kerr, Child all worth an honourable mention.

Hmmm, I'll have to ruminate on this one.

Darryl, I noticed you speak well of Assia Djebar. I saw the three books you have read by her, and none of them is the one I have: So Vast a Prison. I started it a couple of months ago and could not get into it. Maybe I need to try again, or switch to a different book that she has written. Is there one you would recommend?

This is kind of hard, but fun. As of today:

Kate Atkinson, F, England
Margaret Atwood, F, Canada
Paul Auster, M, US
Ann Cleeves, F, England
E.L. Doctorow, M, US
Susan Hill, F, England
Alice Hoffman, F, US
Barbara Kingsolver, F, US
Anne Tyler, F, US
John Irving, M, US
Alice McDermott, F, US
Stewart O’Nan, M, US
Louise Penny, F, Canada
Sarah Waters, F, England

I'm not very international. Most are women, which doesn't surprise me.
It will be interesting to see which authors are the most popular.

Ooof, this is tricky. I'm limiting my list to people who have a body of work, where I've read a large enough percentage of the body of work to have a reasonably well-formed opinion, and where only one or two of those works have been disappointing. For instance, I don't think I've read enough by William Boyd or Mario Vargas Llosa or even Graham Swift, so even though I love what I've read, I couldn't describe them as favorite authors. Then there are folks who've written books that would rank in my top 25 list, but who've only written one so far, or I've only identified one. I've also excluded authors like Michael Cunningham, who wrote one book that blew me away (The Hours) but whose other books have been very underwhelming.

The recently dead are giving me problems, too, For instance, my list would normally include Patrick Leigh Fermor, Rumer Godden, Ryszard Kapuscinksi, Laurie Colwin, etc. whom I think of as "current" authors. sigh. So this list is necessarily imperfect. For instance, I don't like AS Byatt nearly as much as I do Laurie Colwin. But the latter is dead and the former isn't.

Narrative non-fiction:
Timothy Garton Ash, M, UK The File
Alexander Stille, M, US (I think) The Future of the Past
Ian Buruma, M, Dutch/British Occidentalism, Voltaire's Coconuts
Stephen O’Shea, M, Canadian/US Back to the Front
William Dalrymple, M UK From the Holy Mountain
Tony Horwitz, M, US Confederates in the Attic
Slavenka Drakulic, F, Croatia Cafe Europa
Joseph Epstein M, US Snobbery
Paul Fussell M, US The Great War and Modern Memory
Thomas Mallon M, US Yours Ever
Adam Hochschild M, US King Leopold's Ghost

"Serious" fiction
Milan Kundera, M, Czech/France
VS Naipaul (mostly for Enigma of Arrival, Among the Believers), M, Trinidad/UK
Joseph Boyden, M, Canada
William Trevor, M Ireland/UK
Linden Macintyre, M, Canada
Helen Dunmore F, UK
Hilary Mantel, F, UK
Jean Echenoz, M, France
Andre Brink M, South Africa
AS Byatt F, UK
Paul Auster, M, US
Julian Barnes (for his short stories and Flaubert's Parrot, as well as non-fiction), M, UK

Playwrights:
Tom Stoppard, M, Czech/UK
Michael Frayn, M, UK

Light Fiction:
Kate Atkinson, F, UK
Lev Grossman, M, US
Trisha Ashley, F, UK (her earlier chick lit)
Elizabeth Pewsey/Edmondson (for the Mountjoy series), F, UK
Emma Darwin, F, UK
Jasper Fforde, M, UK
Gilbert Sinoue, M, Egypt/France
Sebastien Japrisot, M, France
Sharon Kay Penman, F, US (but not her first and not her most recent books)

Mysteries:
Colin Cotterill, M, UK/Thailand
Murray Davies, M, UK
PD James, F, UK
Martin Walker, M, UK
Rennie Airth, M, UK
Val McDermid, F, UK
CJ Sansom, M, UK
“Hannah March”, unknown!
David Downing, M, UK
Ann Cleeves, F, UK

One book only:
Toby Lester, The Fourth Part of the World - M, US
Tim Parks, Medici Money M, UK
Bella Pollen, The Summer of the Bear, F, UK
Tahmima Anam, The Good Muslim, F, Bangladesh
Tom Rachman, The Imperfectionists, M, US
Emma Larkin, F, UK Finding George Orwell in Burma
Mohsin Hamid, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, M, Pakistan
Laurent Seksik, Les derniers jours de Stefan Zweig, M, France
Yiyun Li, The Vagrants, F, China
Daisy Hay, Young Romantics, F, UK
Pascal Khoo Thwe The Land of Green Ghosts, M, Burma/UK
Rosemary Sullivan, F, Canada Villa Air-Bel
Philipp Blom, M, Germany/Austria, The Vertigo Years

It's tricky.... Some authors aren't on this list, but I'll always buy their books. Ishiguro isn't here because there are two of his I haven't read, and one that I didn't like, etc, etc. Margaret Atwood, because some I love and some I found unreadable.

I didn't bother posting poets, as I realized that most of the ones I love are dead.

Wow Suzanne - mightily impressed with such a thought out list. Not sure Ms.' Atkinson and Penman will be happy at being termed light fiction but I know what you mean. Glad to see Brink and Trevor on your list - the former has been very unfairly overlooked when it comes to such lists for too long in my opinion.

Paul, I was blown away by A Dry White Season and The Wall of the Plague as well as some of Brink's essays. Need to read a bit more of his fiction, though. Sharon Penman is one of the most level-headed people I know in the historical fiction community and I don't think she'd be rattled at all -- her novels aren't literally light (hundreds & hundreds of pages & years of research) but nor does she set out to make them transcend the HF genre. With Atkinson, I admit I was thinking more of her Jackson Brodie books, I admit.

I suspect that Philipp Blom and Tahmima Anam will end up making it onto my "best" list; ditto Toby Lester, whose second book is due out over the winter.

Nice lists, everyone! For what it's worth, my main criterion for a favorite novelist is that I have to have read at least three of their novels and rated them 4 stars or higher. If I didn't do this my list would be very long and unwieldy.

>11 labfs39: Lisa, I'm ashamed to say that I haven't read any of the three books by Assia Djebar that I own. I started to read Children of the New World last year, but couldn't get into it (I think I was distracted by work responsibilities). Based on what others have said I think I'll enjoy her writing, and I'll start reading her novels early next year.

I suspect that André Brink and William Trevor will ultimately make my favorites list (wishing continued good health for the 83 year old Mr Trevor). I want to read more by Sarah Waters, Colum McCann, Margaret Atwood, Cormac McCarthy, Lawrence Hill, Timothy Mo, Rohinton Mistry, Nadine Gordimer, Doris Lessing, A.S. Byatt, David Grossman and Julian Barnes; I have at least one book by each of them in my library already. I'm eager to read The Good Muslim by Tahmima Anam, and I'll probably get to it next month.

One more potential top 25 candidate for me is the Norwegian author Dag Solstad, whose work has only recently been translated into English. I've read the two currently available books, Novel 11, Book 18 and Shyness and Dignity, and loved them both. His latest translated book, Professor Andersen's Night, will be available in the US on November 3.

Oh, I'd probably add Colm Toibin, M, Ireland to the "serious fiction" list -- everything I've read of his I've loved.

I too am struggling with the "living" bit - and the answer changes all the time. The best way of choosing, I thought was to look at the books that get read straight away - the ones that never linger in the TBR pile. So..

Louise Penny, (F, Canada)
Lois McMaster Bujold, (F, Canada)
David Weber, (M, US)
CJ Cherryh, (F, US)
J.D. Robb, (F, US)

Mmm....mostly female, series abound, no-one from the UK.
*Wanders off to think about it*

I'm struggling, what have I been reading all my life, surely they can't all be dead?
There are so many more I'd like to have added but I've only read and/or they've only written 1 or 2 books. This list reflects writers whose work I try to read soon after publication, or who I've discovered in the past couple of years and intend to read their entire backlist.

Michael Chabon (M, US)
Neil Gaiman (M, UK)
Paul Auster (M, US)
David Grossman (M, Israel)
Amos Oz (M, Israel)
Shifra Horn (F, Israel)
Patricia Grace (F, New Zealand)
Maurice Gee (M, New Zealand)
Iain (M) Banks (M, UK)
Julian Barnes (M, UK)
Peter F Hamilton (scifi, M,UK)
Ian Rankin (crime, M, Scotland)
Robert Wilson (crime, M, UK)

YA writers:
Jostein Gaarder (M, Norway)
Margaret Mahy (F, New Zealand)
Philip Pullman (M, UK)
Mal Peet (M, UK)
David Almond (M, UK)
Aidan Chambers (M, UK)
Margo Lanagan (F, Australia)
Melina Marchetta (F, Australia)

My list is also a work in progress, in no particular order, and based largely on works I've read in the past several years. In some cases, the choice is based on a single novel (or groups of short stories, although I realize this is supposed to be novelists), but in most to many. So caveats aside:

Mario Vargas Llosa, M, Peru
Ngugi wa Thiong'o, M Kenya
Hilary Mantel, F, England
Vladimir Sorokin, M, Russia
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, F, Nigeria
Vikram Chandra, M, India
Jennifer Egan, F, USA
Jaimy Gordon, F, USA
Bonnie Jo Campbell, F, USA
Jennifer Haigh, F, USA
Amy Bloom, F, USA, short stories
Mavis Gallant, F, Canada, short stories
Alice Munro, F, Canada, short stories
John le Carre, M, England, for his earlier not recent work
Phillip Roth, M, USA, also for his earlier not recent work
James Salter, M, USA
Karl Marlantes, M, USA
Vikram Seth, M, India
Nicole Krauss, F, USA , based on one novel, Great House
Denis Johnson, M, USA
Joseph O'Neill, M, Ireland, USA
Peter Matthiessen, M, USA, based on one trilogy, Shadow Country
Colum McCann, M, Ireland, USA, based on one novel, Let the Great World Spin
Tim O'Brien, M, USA, uneven
Paula Fox, F, USA
Shirley Hazzard, F, Australia, USA

Nonfiction Authors

Luc Sante, M, Belgium/USA, especially Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York and slightly less to The Factory of Facts
Patti Smith, F, USA, based on one book, Just Kids
Ian Frazier, M, USA, for nonfiction, not humor, especially for Travels in Siberia and less so for Great Plains
Anne Applebaum, F, USA, based on one book, Gulag
Susan Solomon, F, USA, based on one book, The Coldest March: Scott's Fatal Antarctic Expedition
David M. Kennedy, M, USA, based on one book, Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945
Francine du Plessix Gray, F, USA, based on one book, Them: A Memoir of Parents

A few of my favorite fiction writers have also written wonderful nonfiction, including Vikram Seth's Two Lives, a memoir about his great-aunt and -uncle; Paula Fox's memoir, Borrowed Finery; and Joseph O'Neill's Blood-Dark Track; and Karl Marlantes' What It Is Like to Go to War.

Sadly, Rebecca, Saramago is dead... As I realized when I put him on my list

I'm tempted to put Marlantes on my list, but it would be solely on the strength of the book I've just read, as I haven't tackled Matterhorn yet. Still, I'm convinced when I do it will be superb.

I might not be following all the rules ;-). I'm including authors who have only written a single book in their career, because I feel that if that is all they ever write, I will still think of them as a favorite author. Sorry Darryl!

In no particular order

Fiction:

Mary Doria Russell, F, US
Connie Willis, F, US
Jacques Poulin, M, Canada (writes in French)
Olga Grushin, F, Russia/US
Neal Stephenson, M, US
Ha Jin, M, China/US

Memoirs:

Azadeh Moaveni, F, Iran/US
Art Spiegelman, M, US

One book wonders:

Mark Mustian, M, US (The Gendarme)
Karl Marlantes, M, US (Matterhorn)
James A. Levine, M, UK (The Blue Notebook)
Jean Kwok, F, China/US (Girl in Translation)
Eowyn Ivey, F, US (The Snow Child)

Nonfiction debut authors:

Anne Applebaum, F, US (Gulag: A History)
Barbara Demick, F, US (Nothing to Envy)
Candice Millard, F, US (River of Doubt)

Childrens:

Jeanne Birdsall, F, US (The Penderwicks series)

Authors whose other works I am actively seeking in translation

Phillippe Claudel, M, France (have only read Brodeck's Report)
Carmine Abate, M, Italy (... The Homecoming Party)
Dominique Fabre, M, France (... The Waitress was New)
Yoko Ogawa, F, Japan (... The Housekeeper and the Professor)

Whom am I forgetting? I know I'll think of several right after I post the message.

Lisa, an interesting factoid re Anne Applebaum - she actually did write a book before Gulag, that I like even more. It's Between East and West and it's a combination history and travelogue of the European borderlands, cities where someone could say he was born in Austria Hungary, went to school in Poland, attended college in Germany and was married in the Soviet Union, without ever leaving his home town. Oddly, I met someone at dinner Tuesday who turns out to know her, and we had great fun discussing both books.

Thanks, Suzanne, I didn't know that. I will definitely look for it as I thought Gulag was well-researched and well-written. Between East and West sounds just as fascinating.

#21 Oops! Will fix when not on iPhone

#22 Agree about Applebaum. Will add some nonfiction writers tomorrow.

Oooh, tricky!

Here's my list:

Toni Morrison, F/US
Barbara Kingsolver, F/US
Joyce Maynard, F/US
Andrea Levy, F/UK
Jane Gardam, F/UK
Joyce Carol Oates, F/US
Donna Tartt, F/US
Zadie Smith, F/UK
P.D. James, F/UK
Margaret Atwood, F/Canada
Amy Tan, F/US

So, clearly I'm Anglophone-centric and I prefer women authors. There are so many authors others have mentioned who are on my to-read list but I just haven't gotten there yet: Murakami, Lively, Nadine Gordimer, etc.

Here are my favorites, in no particular order (with the exception of #1 and #2):

George R.R. Martin (Bayonne, NJ, USA/Male)
J.K. Rowling (England/Female)
Suzanne Collins (USA/Female)
Christopher Moore (USA/Male)
Margaret Atwood (Ontario, Canada/Female)
Barbara Kingsolver (Annapolis, Maryland, USA/Female)
Neil Gaiman (UK/Male)
Philip Pullman (Norwich, England/Male)
Amy Tan (USA/Female)
Ursula Hegi (Germany/Female)
Laura Hillenbrand (Fairfax, Virginia, USA/Female)

With the exception of Barbara Kingsolver, Ursula Hegi, Laura Hillenbrand and Amy Tan, I guess it's pretty obvious that I'm a fantasy/sci fi "fan girl"... :)

I love reading these lists!

Favorite novelists (in alphabetical order)

Kate Atkinson (F/UK)
E.L. Doctorow (M/US)
Louise Erdrich (F/US)
John Irving (M/US)
Barbara Kingsolver (F/US)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (M/Colombia)
Cormac McCarthy (M/US)
Alice McDermott (F/US)
Ian McEwan (M/UK)
Toni Morrison (F/US)
E. Annie Proulx (F, US)
Amy Tan (F, US)
William Trevor (M/Ireland/UK)
Anne Tyler (F/US)

What strikes me about this list is that, with a few exceptions, I could have come up with it 15 years ago, and that tells me a lot about how my reading habits have changed. I used to identify favorite authors (apparently trending towards female Americans, and certainly Anglo-centric)) and read everything they wrote. Now I read more widely, but I rarely read more than one book by the same author, no matter how much I liked the first one (they just go onto the massive TBR pile or wishlist).

So I've made a separate list for authors I've loved, but have not read enough of to label "favorite." Usually that means I've read one book.

Carol Shields (F/Canada)
Joseph Boyden (M/Canada)
Aminatta Forna (F/Sierra Leone)
Chimamanda Adichie (F/Nigeria)
Andrea Levy (F/UK)
Isabel Allende (F/Chile)
Salman Rushdie (M/India/UK)
Zadie Smith (F/UK)
Hilary Mantel (F/UK)
David Mitchell (M/UK)
Jennifer Egan (F/US)
Chang-Rae Lee (M/Korea/US)
Jenny Erpenbeck (F/Germany)
Nadine Gordimer (F/South Africa)
Julian Barnes (M/UK)
Junot Diaz (M/Dominican Republic/US)
Kazuo Ishiguro (M/Japan/UK)
Michael Chabon (M/US)
Ha Jin (M/China/US)
Kamila Shamsie (F, Pakistan/UK)
Marilynne Robinson (F/US)
Ann Patchett (F/US)

ETA to change "Helen" Atkinson to Kate. These are the names of my two daughters and absentmindedness must have kicked in.

In my top ten (bottom two are a tie), all but two are female and all are from the US (though two live elsewhere now.) I'm going by the number of times I've read or reread their books in the last five years. Also, all are genre writers.

Lackey, Mercedes (F, US)
Hamilton, Laurell K. (F, US)
Robinson, Spider (M, US - lives in Canada)
Bishop, Anne (F, US)
McCaffrey, Anne (F, US - lives in Ireland)
King, Stephen (M, US)
Bujold, Lois McMaster (F, US)
Kenyon, Sherrilyn (F, US)
Harris, Charlaine (F, US)
Putney, Mary Jo (F, US)
Carey, Jacqueline (F, US)

Brooks, Geraldine (F, Australia) is the only non-genre writer in my top 50 at #48.

I've added some nonfiction favorites to my post #20, almost all based on only one book.

Rebecca, I would love to know the titles of the nonfiction books you added to your list. I have a feeling I would add many to my TBR!

>28 AnneDC: I love reading these lists!
Me too!

The "alive" component of this is stumping me, Ill have to come back with my list :)

Interesting to me too, Megan..

Also loving reading the lists and pondering my own - makes me realise how many of my favourites are dead - and like others, I wonder if it is possible to call an author a favourite on the strength of only one book.

#31 Done! I've added titles for the nonfiction books and also for the fiction where I based my "favorite author" ranking on one book in my post #20.

Ok, here goes. My list is select but the love is intense.

Cormac McCarthy, USA
Naomi Klein, USA
Alain deBotton, UK
Gretel Ehrlich, USA
Tim Winton, Australia
Christopher Hitchens, UK, (then USA)
Richard Ford, USA
Jonathan Franzen, USA
Barbara Kingsolver, USA
Owen Marshall, NZ

Here's my list, would probably read everything these authors would ever publish. And yes there are quite a few authors who only have one book so far so I can't in honestly call them a favourite but the first one was excellent ie: Helen Simonson's Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Sharon K. Penman F, USA
J.K. Rowling F, UK
Barbara Kingsolver F, USA
Diana Gabaldon F, USA
Connie Willis F, USA
A.S. Byatt F, UK
Bill Bryson M, USA
E. L. Doctorow M, USA
Wally Lamb M, USA
Neil Gaiman M, UK
Geraldine Brooks F, Australia
Curtis Sittenfeld F, USA
Joyce Carol Oates F, USA
Charlaine Harris F, USA
Kazuo Ishiguro M, UK
Margaret Atwood F, Canada
Jennifer Donnelly F, USA
Sarah Waters F, UK
Andrea Levy F, UK

Like everyone else I'm struggling to think of living authors where I've read more than one of their books but here goes (in no particular order):

Clare Tomalin F, UK
Vikram Seth M, India/UK
Terry Pratchett M, UK
Jasper Fforde M, UK
P. D. James F, UK
Barbara Kingsolver F, US
Louise Penny F, Canada
Scarlett Thomas F, UK
C. J. Sansom M, UK

which is fairly strongly skewed towards British authors...

Favourite Authors - Have Read Multiple Works:
Margaret Atwood, F, Canada
Anita Rau Badami, F, Canada/India
Lawrence Hill, M, Canada
Jhumpa Lahiri, F, US/India
Cormac McCarthy, M, US
Ian McEwan, M, UK
Michael Ondaatje, M, Canada
J.K. Rowling, F, UK
Kamila Shamsie, F, Pakistan
Sarah Waters, F, UK

Authors I Loved Based on One Book - Have More of their Work to Read:
A.S. Byatt, F, UK
Lisa Moore, F, Canada
Colm Toibin, M, Ireland

Authors With Brilliant Debuts - Eagerly Waiting for Book #2:
Eleanor Catton, F, NZ/Canada
Irene Sabatini, F, Zimbabwe

I clearly enjoy the literature of my own country!

I love these kinds of lists. Here are my favorites:

Fiction:

Ian McEwan - M - UK
Louise Erdrich - F - US
Kate Grenville - F - Australia
Joseph Boyden - M - Canada
Helen Dunmore - F -UK
Kate Atkinson - F - UK
Jhumpa Lahiri - F - US
Peter Matthiessen - M - US
Helen Humphreys - F - Canada
Wayne Johnston - M - Canada
Bonnie Jo Campbell - F - US
Mary Doria Russell - F - US
Louise Penny - F - Canada
Richard Russo - M - US
Hilary Mantel - F - UK
Barbara Kingsolver - F - US
Andrea Levy - F - UK

Non-fiction:

Erik Larson - M - US
Timothy Egan - M - US

I'm seeing a lot of Ian McEwan in these lists! That's it, I'm going to try one of his.
Isn't Helen Garner Australian? Or maybe she just loves there?

I thought this would be easy, but oh, no, it wasn’t. What criteria to use? Did I have to like all their books? Did they have to be really “good”, or just fun to read? How many must I have read? What if I liked them at the time, but suspected I wouldn’t now? What if gut feel says I will like them more and more, but I’m not sure yet? I decided the critical thing was that I had read enough to know I liked their work, and I would be really happy to read another right now.

I started with ones where I have read several books, rated them all highly, and want to read more. Then I added some where I’ve one really good one and am fairly sure I will like them even better when I’ve read more. Then I added a couple I just like to read, even if their books have been more 4-star than 5-star for me. And I decided to keep it strictly to 10, to avoid just listing all the good authors I have read. So here, for now, is my list of top 10 favourite living authors, in order of how much I am currently liking them, not in order of the rules above:

Jenny Erpenbeck (F, Germany)
Richard Ford (M, USA)
Mario Vargas Llosa (M, Argentina)
Caryl Phillips (M, UK)
Mohsin Hamid (M, Pakistan)
George R.R. Martin (M, USA)
Kate Atkinson (F, UK)
Rohinton Mistry (M, India/Canada)
Michael Chabon (M, USA)
Jonathan Franzen (M, USA)

There is, though, another list, the ones I don’t know enough about yet, any of whom could push some of these off the list. These include Ian McDonald, Elizabeth Moon, China Mieville, Mary Doria Russell, David Malouf, Chita Banerjee Divakaruni, Joseph O’Neill and Kader Abdolah. I have set myself the task for 2012 of reading more by each of these, and also by some of the “weaker” ones on the actual list, to make a decision.

Finally, I wondered how my taste had changed over the years, and in particular since coming onto LT – 5 of my top 10, and most of my “possibles” are ones I hadn’t heard of pre-LT. Looking back, authors that would have made the list when I was younger (or even just a few years ago) include Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, A.S. Byatt, Don DeLillo, John Irving, Ursula LeGuin, Cormac McCarthy, Ian McEwan, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Anne Michaels, Toni Morrison, Annie Proulx, Thomas Pynchon, Philip Roth, Vikram Seth, Graham Swift. In some cases I am just “done” with them, others I might still read, so they still have a chance!

I see that my list now is much less US-focussed than my earlier lists might have been, and I’ll be interested to see if that trend continues. I also see I don’t have many women in my top 10, so I am going to pay particular attention to mentions of new women writers, especially non-US/UK ones, on LT over the next year.

The Orange longlist is a good place to look out for new to you women writers, often lots of debuts and in fact the winner this year was a first timer. I really liked The Memory of Love on the shortlist and Lyrics Alley which didn't. Forna lives in the UK, her father was from Sierra Leone and she spent her childhood between a boarding school here and Freetown. Aboulela lives in the Sudan I think but also has family and spends time here. Her book though is very much about a Sudanese/Egyptian family in the 1950s - a very privileged one but it's set there not here or in Europe.

Given your list above and what else I know, have you tried Hisham Matar - In the Country of Men and Anatomy of a Disappearance? (I liked his first book much more than the second, and I think Darryl and someone else - Suzanne? - expressed similar views.)

A lot of my best guys are dead - I would have included Ariana Franklin, but she thoughtlessly died this year - so I'm going with:

George R.R. Martin (M, USA)
Tracey Chevalier (F, US)
Bernard Cornwell - (M, UK)
Elizabeth Chadwick - (F,UK)
Diana Gabaldon - (F, US)
and
Nathaniel Philbrick - (M, US)

#42 Another good place to look for female authors is Belletrista, an online magazine whose focus is "celebrating women authors from around the world. Belletrista was founded by one of our very own LTers, and several others submit reviews.

Yes, the first Hisham Matar is vastly superior to #2, which feels like a retread -- coming of age of young boy/young man; issues with vanishing father; oddly absent mother figure; families tied up with political conflict in the Middle East.

>42 JanetinLondon: I like a lot of yours Janet, might have to check out the others on our list as well....this is a good resource.

#43, #45 - Thanks for the suggestions!

#47 - Megan, I want to try some of yours, too, since we do have a fair number in common. In particular, can you recommend a best starting point for Gretel Ehrlich and Owen Marshall?

Ok, so here's a list of those still living fiction authors of whom I've read more than one book and have either rated individual books very highly or am generally very excited when a new book of theirs comes out.

Barbara Kingsolver - (F, US)
Hilary Mantel - (F, UK)
Louise Penny - (F, Canada)
Ian Rankin - (M, UK)
Amitav Ghosh- (M, India)
Penelope Lively - (F, UK)
Michael Morpurgo (children's) (M - UK)
Kate Atkinson - (F, UK)
Alan Garner - (M, UK)
Margaret Atwood - (F, Canada)
Rose Tremain - (F, UK)
Terry Pratchett - (M, UK)
Iain Banks - (M, UK)
Ursula Le Guin - (F, US)

There are others who may well become favourite authors but if I've only read one of theirs so far I've not included them. These would broaden the geographical scope somewhat - with authors like Moshin Hamid, Kamila Shamsie and Chimananda Adichie possibly being added, as well as increasing the relatively low proportion of male authors if I add David Mitchell and Cormac McCarthy, of whom I've also only read one so far.

I don't read enough non-fiction to have a list of favourite authors, but on the strength of what I've read so far by Claire Tomalin, Janet Soskice and Francis Spufford.