04-07-2010, 02:37 PM
(04-05-2010, 04:06 AM)paigenumber Wrote: I find this question so difficult to answer because I have had so many favourites, even within any one genre. To say which is the best overall is nearly impossible.
Personally, I find the writing of older masters much more appealing than authors of today. When I heard people complain of Dickens in my teens, I listened to them and avoided his works. We did not read any of his works in high school so I had no idea. I was very pleasantly surprised when I started his tomes in adulthood. He is definitely one of my favourite authors and I would recommend his works to anyone. Back in high school, I would have said Thomas Hardy was my favourite. I still consider him a great writer.
Mysteries and romances, amongst which Gothics would belong (IMO), are harder to classify and more difficult to choose one or two. You can break them down into smaller subgenres, then you might get somewhere, but then you'd have a big list. Mysteries can be divided into cozies, detective, crime, true crime, romantic, gothic; romances can be historical, modern, gothic, etc. I've loved too many in each of those to point out anyone as my top favourite.
Then there are children's books that would rank as some of my favourites. Even as an adult, I can still look back to Narnia, The Secret Garden and such like, with a degree of sentimentality.
[b]Hey! I like Thomas Hardy also. I think he is very much ignored these days. He is an author that can make me cry AND laugh. In one book he was talking about a man who would "shake hands like he was pumping water" which makes me smile.Another a man was "well into his conversation before he walked in the door" which makes me laugh because I have an Uncle that does the same thing. And there was the mother who bought two of EVERYTHING so her daughter would have something when she married but in the meantime the house had two of everything in it. But the sad parts are VERY sad. I think he was far ahead of his time in some of the subject matter like in "The Woodlanders" a young man having and affair with an older woman. And the "Mayor of Casterbridge" a guy selling his wife to a sailor. I think anyone who has not discovered Thomas Hardy should read his books!