2006 Author Poll

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Originally Posted by starrwriter

Is a Picasso painting "entertainment"?

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Umm ... if I say "yes," will I get a whoopin'?

Shakespeare is damn funny, I don't care what anyone says. And—Lord, I'm a geek, aren't I?—I have laughed out loud more than once while reading Dostoevsky. I wouldn't read "literature" if it didn't entertain me. Granted, each time you crack a book you're taking a gamble, but I've hit pay dirt on more "literature" than I have on so-called "entertainment." It takes a truckload of creative talent to write an intelligent comedy—I would argue more than it takes to write some dry, intellectualized drama. Starr, perhaps you're reading the wrong "literature," because your idea of being well-read seems more like masochism. Maybe I'm just easily amused, or maybe I'm not taking "the classics" as seriously as pretentious literati dictate I should, but with your point of view, I'm surprised you ever read at all!

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Originally Posted by Jay

Voting Winterson saved your bum this time ;)... for a few months until it's time to read him :D
Welcome :wave:

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Thanks for the welcome, Jay! :) And if it helps, it will serve me right when I have to read any of Joyce's books. Dostoyevsky will be a breeze compared to him (*fingers crossed* not Ulysses, not Ulysses...). Nice to see George Eliot in the top 10.

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Originally Posted by byucougs

Hemingway is so over-rated. His characters are so devoid of emotion or feeling.

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....OH...MY.....GOSH........The Hem-man rules!!!! ......and so I voted for him........as well as a russian writer I shall not name for I fear a wicked backlash from unnamed sources..........

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Originally Posted by baddad

The Hem-man rules!!!!

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So, 'Hem-man' makes me think of an old man with a hunched back, whose glasses clinging to the tip of his nose as he toils away till the early hours of the morning, trying to finish the sewing the hems of the evening gowns of the rich but spoilt ladies.

Going twice...

Is it only the top 12 we are choosing or the top 14 scher???
sotha we still hjave a choice next decmber?

:D
*mutters with fingers crossed say14 say 14 say 14* :D

in order of votes most to least the top 12:

1. Fyodor Dostoevsky 30 votes ( how!!)
2. Charles Dickens* 24 votes (humph!)
3. James Joyce* 24 votes ( who?! :confused: )
4. William Faulkner 24 votes ( cant say I can think who this is wait are we talking Birdsong here?)
5. Leo Tolstoy 23 votes (:eek2: )
6. Charlotte Bronte* 21 votes ( as long as its not jane Eyre *shudder* :sick: )
7. Gabriel Garcia Marquez 20 votes ( yoour kidding me right?! )
8. H.G. Wells 20 votes ( I guess I can live with this too)
9. Ernest Hemingway 19 votes ( did want to try somthing by him anyway)
10. George Eliot* 18 votes ( I guess it cant hurt *that much*)
11. Terry Pratchett 17 votes (yay! :banana: )
12. Sir Walter Scott 15 votes ( well I did enjoy ivanhoe)

Pretty much all classics o_o
That's saddening, I will find reading old English and old texts once a month for twelve months rather dull, so yeah, I may join in from time to time... I just can't see all that old stuff being that much fun, not to mention most of that stuff is super overdone, so even if you have never read them before, who doesn't know what most of their books are..

William Faulkner is the gentleman that wrote "The Sound and The Fury," "Light in August", and many other good ones that it is too early in the morning to remember. "Birdsong" is by Sebastian Faulks. It is in my to read pile...

I guess my annoyance is that most of the authors that won, I don't have many books by, so this doesn't help me lower my reading pile at all... sort of defeats my goal for the New Year. Have to see what books are chosen, I may join in sometimes. I just... I am an English major afterall, that list makes me feel like this is for school o_o

Oh my, now this is going to be an interesting year! not!

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Originally Posted by baddad

....OH...MY.....GOSH........The Hem-man rules!!!! ......and so I voted for him........as well as a russian writer I shall not name for I fear a wicked backlash from unnamed sources..........

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You too, Brutus? :smash:
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a1...eys/tomato.gif

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Originally Posted by Kiwi Shelf

Pretty much all classics o_o
That's saddening, I will find reading old English and old texts once a month for twelve months rather dull, so yeah, I may join in from time to time... I just can't see all that old stuff being that much fun, not to mention most of that stuff is super overdone, so even if you have never read them before, who doesn't know what most of their books are..

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I've found that the best way to understand and enjoy an older work is to understand the history around it, otherwise you're sort of displaced so of course your not going to find much interest. Even a short article will do, like something from Wikipedia or Sparknotes. Once I started doing that, I've found greater enjoyment from reading the "old stuff" than from anything else.

And actually, if you want to get technical a lot of it's Early Modern English. Beowulf is Old English (check my sig and imagine other little symbols that I couldn't figure out how to put in there and so had to replace them with modern spellings). Chaucer is Middle English. If I remember correctly Shakespeare actually starts off the Early Modern period and it goes to about the late 1800's.

I don't know why that posted twice...

Yeah, I wasn't being technical, I just mean overdone... Anyways, we shall see, I may join in. Depends on the book choices, but I usually read enough classics in university that the last thing I want to do is read them for fun most of the time. That's not to say I won't, though, so we shall see. :)

The final stand:

1.Fyodor Dostoevsky 30

2.Charles Dickens* 26

3.James Joyce* 24

4.William Faulkner 24

5.Leo Tolstoy* 23

6.Charlotte Bronte* 22

7.H.G. Wells* 21

8.Gabriel Garcia Marquez 20

9.Ernest Hemingway 19

10.George Eliot* 18

11.Terry Pratchett 18

12.Sir Walter Scott* 15

L.M.Montgomery* 11

Angela Carter 10

Gregory Maguire 10

Willa Cather 10

Lois Lowry 9

Choderlos de Laclos 7

Ian McEwan 7

Jeanette Winterson 7

Henryk Sienkiewicz 6

John Gardner 2

Laurie Halse Anderson 2


The top 12 authors will be read during 2006.