Favorite Author (dead and still with us) (1 Viewer)

zoom man

Founding member
Irving Stone
Richard Ford
Richard Price
Pete Hamill
Paul Auster
Steinbeck
Mr Hemingway
and more that I can't think of right now
 
that's easy:
Spanish:
Fiction: Cortázar
Poetry: Lorca

Non-Spanish:
Fiction: Dostoievsky
Poetry: Bukowski [this may change as soon as I hand the diss.]

An unsurpassed, masterful, crazy creator:
Nietzsche.


I've spoken :D
 
are there books, are there novels by her bed?

claire rabe
jonathan safran foer
hemmingway
vonnegut
adams (doug)
*completely blanks on author of Stranger in a Strange Land*
collins (billy)
baum (frank)
eggers

i think that's all that i have currently stacked up on the floor next to the bed. There's others but they're not in circulation right now.
 
Hunter Thompson
Mark Twain
John Fante
Lester Bangs
Theodore Geisel
That Bukowski guy
Herman Hesse (or his English translators)
PJ O'Rourke
etc.
 
Ha! Well, I'm surprised anyone else even knows the name. He was a passionate motherfucker, and it came across in his writing. Not everyone's cup of vodka, but it worked for me. I was young and impressionable in the CREEM days.
 
Excellent thread - love a wee list now and again.

Richard Yates.
Harry Crews.
John O'Hara.
Hemingway.
Celine.
Carson McCullers.
Dostoevsky.
Palahniuk (for Fight Club).
Knut Hamsun.
Kevin Canty.
Dan Fante
and his Da.
Charles Willeford (not the Moseley novels)
John Horne Burns (for The Gallery).
Harper Lee (for To Kill A Mockingbird, naturally as it's her only book).
oh yeah and Bukowski.

I know there is more or going to be more.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hey Mjp, thanks for naming Lester Bangs and PJ O?Rourke. I didn?t know about them and googled

- Bangs isn?t even translated in german, but I?ll probably order one of his books.

- And while researching PJ O?Rourke (who is translated) I found "How to Drive Fast on Drugs While Getting Your Wing-Wang Squeezed and Not Spill Your Drink" online and really liked it. I?ll have to buy his too.
 
I'm not surprised that Lester Bangs hasn't been translated, he was a marginal figure here. A music writer, basically, but his style was unique in his day, and he had that fire in his belly, for sure.
 
Not to get all pedantic or anything, but I believe?grammatically speaking?
the thread?s title ?Favorite Author (dead and still with us)? is sufficiently
ambiguous to be interpreted as: ?Favorite Author ([those that are] dead and [also
those which are] still with us [, among the living])? as well as your version:
?Favorite Author (dead and still with us [in our minds and hearts])? The only
person who can resolve this dilemma is the thread?s author, zoom man. So,
zoom man, will you please weigh-in here and define what your intent was?

SD
 
Hi,
I took it as living and dead. If not, then a bunch of the writers mentioned will be suprised to know that they are dead...

Set us straight, Zoom Man.....
Bill
 
SD, Bill: you're both right - guess i sounded pedantic myself - sorry...

also i'm guilty of not paying attention - yes there would be quite a few surprised deceased in the lists above... my bad as you might say over there :)
 
The Reports of My Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated ......
Indeed Mr Twain, :)
I hate it when that happens....

And in regards to the Thread of this title,
Well, I'm taking the fifth here,
And staying with Mark Twain->

It is better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than to open it and remove all doubt.:D
 
It's always good to like one's own work. (If one doesn't, who will?) I haven't read your book yet, but it looks interesting. (And I say to hell with what they think of your spelling.)

SD
 
Cheers, Sam.

The only words I spell my own way are: "alot" & "redd"...and sometimes spell motherfucker mutherfucker...and even though I state this clearly in the front pages of TVF and I&P, some reviewers just can't let it be...

Yea, I absolutely adore my books, some more than others, but they all impress the hell outta me. They are exactly the books I spent many years looking for at the bookstores & libraries but never found. It then dawned on me that it was up to me to write them.
 
Charles Buokwski - very accessible, he's an open window, a courage teacher, grandfather wise!

Charles Simic - Mysterious riddlers of absolute genius! He flirts and dangles with ordinary life and the metaphysical possibility.

E E Cummings - creative mavrick par excellence...joy mongering dancer!

Alasdair Gray (Scottish)
- Polymorphous pervserse...dark intelligent waffler for and of Glasgow City! A true Creative innovator.

James Ellroy - Spills all the beans and takes full responsibility for the mess! Hard, caustic, true to the bone, fascinating.

Walt Whitman - Posh old noter of every fragment of Life! Great enumerator of a lost america....hopeless romantic, lover, yuppy, queer, and pure genius.

Italo Calvino (Italian) - Hyper-imaginative narrative voyager! Read this man. His stories are little chess puzzles, little rubex cubes, little logical dances of the imagination! Inspired and lights candles in the mind...

(American literature dominates my bookshelf...Scotland has some great writers...but not enough...hopefully it will have me in the future)
 
Jeeeesus Christ, Olaf, what an articulate, succinct, literate young human you are! (This is a complement, I hope you know; as best as I can muster.) And I see I have a rival for the title of chief flummerist and wielder of true polyglottery (a title I gave myself, by the way; it?s not official). Welcome, and I look forward to seeing your words.

SD
 
Cheers SamDusky, just thought I'd quickly rattle out a wee list of some of the writers that I read most of...Surely my dyslexia was more than apparent? haha.

Flummerist? - I can't find this word...is it a hyprid between: Florist and Flumist? i.e. flower arranger and nasal sprayer! haha!

take care sir.
nice to meet you
electronically speaking :)
 
Melissa Sue said:
*completely blanks on author of Stranger in a Strange Land*

i think that's all that i have currently stacked up on the floor next to the bed. There's others but they're not in circulation right now.

To the sweetest pirate in all of Bukdom (love the eyepatch),

That's Robert Heinlein; and Stranger is, IMHO, his best work; especially when he's speaking of making love to his two sixteen year old clones towards the back (if memory serves, it's been a few decades since read...) With this vignette he established himself as the rival of Bukowski for the title of premier Dirty Old Man of the 20th century (myslef being excluded from the running, due to affiliate issues).

SD
 
Living Authors:
Clive Barker
Bret Easton Ellis
Chuck Palahniuk
Don DeLillo


Dead:
Buk
Raymond Carver
Stig Dagerman
Giovanni Papini
 
Olaf said:
Cheers SamDusky,
....
Flummerist? - I can't find this word...is it a hyprid between: Florist and Flumist? i.e. flower arranger and nasal sprayer! haha!

take care sir.
nice to meet you
electronically speaking :)

Flummerist: a word I concocted as a personification from the noun Flummery, meaning ostentatious, flamboyant language; which I take always to be a great and good compliment, as I like nothing more than a wild turn of a ripping phrase and a fun usage of the language (what else is it for?) And in praise of Buk, who is the absolute master of it. I acknowledge you as one on their way to riffing with the best of them. Keep up the word-trippin?; it?s the best game in town. I always want to read language that astounds.

See ya,

SD
 
you know, the Spanish satirist Quevedo used to do that quite a lot back in the 15th century, making up a new word from two popular words -usually with opposed meanings. I studied this guy in highschool so I can't recall all of them, but there's one I do remember:
"Diabliposa" which comes from "diablo" (devil) + "mariposa" (butterfly). It would translate as "Devilfly" or "Buttervil", I guess.
I hate sonnets but Quevedo wrote them down in a way they didn't sound pretentious at all. He also was a master of the famous "picaresca" style.
 
I always like to find myself in the best of company (Yes, I may have an inflated sense of self, but I am only humbly following the master, Buk. And I assume anyone discerning enough to be on this site is genius. Let the flames engulf me.)

Do you know of any web places where Quevedo's work is translated? (I'll take a look.)

SD
 
SamDusky said:
Flummerist: a word I concocted as a personification from the noun Flummery, meaning ostentatious, flamboyant language; which I take always to be a great and good compliment, as I like nothing more than a wild turn of a ripping phrase and a fun usage of the language (what else is it for?) And in praise of Buk, who is the absolute master of it. I acknowledge you as one on their way to riffing with the best of them. Keep up the word-trippin?; it?s the best game in town. I always want to read language that astounds.
My God, Flummery also suggests - wieghtless empty talk! Of this I am o so guilty...but I suppose in the context you speak of...it's not meant to belittle...indeed, you are committiing double Flummery when you say...'I acknowledge you as one on their way to riffing with the best of them.'

Well thank you kindly but I'm just a 23 year old man touch giddy in the head...but if I keep my pen going who knows where it might lead! Take care for now!

;)colin
 
You have indeed surmised correctly that the definition of ?flummerist? that I use is on the positive side, but I also consider the art of ?Humbuggery? (not the other kind), ?empty? or ?useless? language as the height and pinnacle of the art of true communication. I say we have to slit the bonds that hold us to the grind wheel that turns all communication into instructions on how to use a VCR, DVD or can opener. The language of ostentation, puffery, wild abandon and convolution is where true art lies (or lay, I always like to mix these two up), and in the seminal writing of Bukowski (meaning he was full of seaman (sic) when he wrote?a fecund mind of the highest order, and the most potent poet of the last century, and probably this one, also) he conveyed a hard truth that can only be gotten to with a love of soaring language and his depth of feeling. His writing is as important as the First Amendment of the U. S. Constitution, in my HO. And, as my wifey says, it?s a good seduction tool?to be read prior (try it; it works).

So yes, in summation: (you got me started?I know you weren?t expecting this long-winded answer, but I?m trying to finish a piece of writing that has me stuck, and this is a good way to let off the steam); people like Buk and you and me and the brothers and sisters here, from what I?ve read of the articulate minds of the others on this site, are engaged in writing and not wiring bombs; and that answers the madness of life so much better. Riff on, young man, the Buk is at your shoulder.

SD
 
Here, here! :) I laughed several times reading your reply...but your encouragement is recieved well and good! Thank you. I have just finished watching a programme on the Iraqi war and the 'lack' of balanced reporting...largely because all the reporters and the army are stuck in the Green Zone and the 'real' Iraq situation is in the Red Zone...now more than ever are sincere words needed to cut through frigid-linear perspections at Home and Abroad - on every subject, not least of all, War.

Take care. Keep the pen rolling.

p.s. what are you writing?
 
okay now take heed to this list...I'm not one to toot my own horn of my literature interests but TOOT TOOT

BUK...of course

Celine, for The Journey To The End Of Night

Chuck Palahniuk, for Choke and Fight Club

John Fante, Ask The Dust and Wait Until Spring, Bandini

Fydor Dosteyovsky(sp), I don't like all of his work but Notes From The Underground and The Idiot are oldies but goodies.

Hermann Hesse, Demian

Ezra Pound for Cantos and just all around INSANE POETRY

Sylvia Plath although i thought The Bell Jar horrid

Anthony Burgess for A Clockwork Orange (the nadsat language is amazing)

Hunter S. Thompson of course

J.D. Sallinger for Catcher in the Rye, and if you havent read it you should

Carl Sandburg

Carson McCullers, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter

Ken Kesey for One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest

Henry Miller for The Air Conditioned Nightmare and The Smile At The Foot Of The Ladder

D.H. Lawrence

Stephen Cranes poetry

LI PO's poetry just because he was a drunken poet and fell into water and drown trying to catch his reflection on a drunken night. Check out Drinking Alone By Moonlight


the list goes on and on so I'll spare you the time.
 
Hi,
Anyone here read Selby?

Also, if you are interested, check out "and the ass saw the angel" by Nick Cave. Very dark and disturbing book....

Bill
 

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