My favo(u)rite writers:
[...Erich Maria Remarque...]
Agree with you there,
All Quiet on the Western Front for me is the best novel of the 20th century, it got heavily criticised for being too simple and plain to be of literary merit, when it's the stark simplicity that makes it so brilliant and devastating to read.
Would add:
George Orwell
Graham Greene
John Steinbeck
Arthur Miller
Somerset Maugham
DH Lawrence
Charles Dickens
Thomas Hardy
Iris Murdoch
Alisdair Gray
Iain Banks
HS Thompson
Germaine Greer
Love mostly the writers of the twenties and thirties, they wrote about love and despair (inseparable obviously) who wants to read about happy love? that's just weird. But also big ideas and concerns outwith themselves, I suppose they had a lot to be concerned about; ww1, the depression, tyranny, ww2, it certainly made for great writing and though most of it is dark and bleak you always get the sense, at the end, that they knew life was a gift.
A complaint I have with later writers is their concerns seem to revolve around themselves, their image, have they got the right lifestyle and where is their next iphone, drug fix coming from. I know it's not all like that, but I worry that all the best literature is in the past, that's probably wrong of me.I need to read more modern fiction.