spot wrote: Different authors for different days, of course. John Grisham works well, on a beach holiday, he has an interesting perspective on small-town American ways and how they've disintegrated over the last few decades. He constructs pretty plots and paragraphs.
JP Donleavy, definitely yes, and Frank Delaney. I'd put Tom Paulin and Frank McCourt there too. McCourt exaggerates but his heart goes into his writing. Paulin is just amazing. OK, Will Self's writings too, in the same small pile here.
So, I found three I agreed with out of those mentioned so far. Those listed that are simply not on are Tad Willams, for twee twaddle; Minnette Walters because I hate books that concentrate on negative aspects of life, Greg Bear because he's not prepared to work more into his plots before he cuts down another ten forests by publishing, and Robert Ludlum, Ken Follett and Frederick Forsythe for their dismally uninspired use of language.
So, here's my list - my favorite authors in the sense of the ten writers I'd most like to take on holiday if I hadn't read all they'd written already, and the book to start on if you've never come across them before:
David Brin, "The Practice Effect"
Terry Pratchett, starting from the beginning
Douglas Adams, "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency"
Seamus Heaney, "Beowulf: A New Verse Translation"
Magnus Magnussen's Penguin translation of Burnt Nyal
Christopher Logue's translations from the Iliad -
http://slate.msn.com/id/2082824/ discusses a bit of it
Bill Bryson, "The Lost Continent"
Sir Norman Davies, "The Isles"
Clive James, "The Silver Castle"
Claude Cockburn, "Bestseller: the books that everyone read, 1900-1939"Frank Delaney's new book ''Ireland'' a good read. Time-Warner books