Saturday, August 14, 2010

Literary Heroes

by
Scott D. Parker

(With all the new marriages around here, I'll go ahead and give a shout out to this, my 11th Anniversary. Thus, nothing earth-shattering today, just a revisiting of an old blog list.)

A couple of years ago, I blogged about my literary heroes. I decided to review the list and update where appropriate.

In no particular order:

Ian Fleming (for James Bond...the books) [Currently reading Goldfinger]
Edgar Rice Burroughs (for Tarzan and John Carter)
Anthony Bourdain (for being as sharp with prose as with a knife)
Erle Stanley Gardner (for crafting novels in exquisite fashion)
George Pelecanos (for Hard Revolution and Derek Strange trilogy)*
Dennis Lehane (for Mystic River and Darkness, Take My Hand)*
Ernest Hemingway (for For Whom the Bells Toll and short fiction)
Hammett (for The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man)
Chandler (for Philip Marlowe)
Elmore Leonard (for Out of Sight, and the Carl Webster stories)
J. D. Robb (for Eve Dallas' saga)
Ken Bruen (for The Guards and The Dramatist)
David McCullough (for Truman, John Adams, 1776)
Michael Chabon (for Yiddish Policeman's Union and his love for great stories)
J. K. Rowling (for Harry Potter)
Stephen King (for Green Mile, The Stand, Salem's Lot, Bag of Bones)
Orson Scott Card (for Ender's Game)
Max Collins and Charles Ardai (for Hard Case Crime and Gabriel Hunt)
Ted Chiang (for literate SF)
C. S. Lewis (for Narnia)
J. R. R. Tolkien (for The Lord of the Rings)
Timothy Zahn (for his Star Wars "Thrawn" trilogy)
Carlos Ruiz Zafon (for The Shadow of the Wind)
Jim Dale (for his audiobook readings of the Harry Potter stories)
Scott Brick and Jonathan Davis (for their audiobook readings that bring books to life)
Doris Kearns Goodwin (for her history books and on-screen insights)
David Brooks (for his social books and his NY Time columns)
Don Winslow (for The Dawn Patrol)
Dan Simmons (for Hyperion)
Jonathan Franzen (for The Corrections and How to Be Alone) [Looking forward to his new book]

What are some of your literary heroes?

6 comments:

David Cranmer said...

Happy Anniversary!

Partial list: Ernest Hemingway, Raymond Chandler, Agatha Christie, and Edward Bulwer-Lytton. (Ok, not the last one but I feel sorry for the guy.)

Jerry House said...

Gorman, Crider, Pronzini, Lansdale, Max Allan Collins, Fredric Brown, Bloch, J. D. Carr, Queen, Derleth, Gaiman, Manly Wade
Wellman, Bruen, Wodehouse, Westlake, Craig Rice, Pohl, Jornbluth, Kuttner and about twelve zillion others. Oh, and Carl Hodges, for Naked Villainy.

Best wishes to you and your wife.

Jerry House said...

Ummm. I think Jornbluth is C. M. Kornbluth's evil twin brother. Stupid computer! Stupid fumble fingers!

Stephen B. said...

Some dozens of authors have graced by bookshelf and a few I've come back to for repeated reading -- Douglas Adams, Bradbury, Farmer, Asimov, Joe R. Lansdale, Max Collins, John D. Macdonald, Alan Moore, Harlan Ellison, Lester Dent, Donald Westlake, short fiction by Ray Bradbury, Lovecraft, Howard.

Graham Powell said...

I'm glad someone else mentioned Pronzini. Others I admire: John Dickson Carr, Rex Stout, Pelecanos, Lehane, Elleston Trevor, Loren Estelman... I guess that's enough for now.

Oh, and echoing what Jerry said, my condolences to your wife.

Rusty James said...

American authors have been blessed with cheap alcohol and balls; European and Russian authors, with rich parents and an audience; Canadian, Australian, and S. American author's, with crazy.

I love them all - 'cept the shitty ones, of course.