Top Ten Tuesday | All-Time Favorite Authors

Top Ten All-Time Favorite Authors

Would you guys believe me when I tell you that this list was actually really hard? ALL-TIME FAVORITE? That’s a huge deal. How do I determine this? Author’s I read and loved when I was a wee thing whose work has stuck with me? Authors I love who are still writing books? Author’s who’ve written my favorite books, but maybe not necessarily authors whose entire catalog I’ve read? THE DECISIONS! So I kind of just threw a list together. I still think it’s a pretty accurate list, though. BUT AHH THE PRESSURE!

It’s only been about four years since I started reading A Song of Ice and Fire, but it’s already assumed a huge role in my fandom life. When I first read these books, I hadn’t started blogging yet and I read nothing else–literally–for almost a year. I completely immersed myself in the world of Westeros and House Stark and dragons and The Wall. Any time the world-building in a book is this good and this consuming, I’ll be that author’s biggest fan for always.

Like there’s any way the author who created James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser wasn’t going to be on this list. You guys know me better than that, I hope. On a serious note, I can pinpoint my love for all things Scottish to the Outlander series. For real. And I love the relationship that Diana has crafted between Jamie and Claire.

I’ve read all of Maggie’s currently released work, and her books are some of my all-time favorites. If you guys can tell me the last time I went more than a week or two without mentioning THE SCORPIO RACES, I’ll be shocked. I feel like I talk about it all the time. Understandable, though, once you’ve read it and met Puck Connolly and Sean Kendrick. I LOVE Maggie Stiefvater. There’s nothing she could write that I wouldn’t want to read.

What do you guys think the odds are of basically every Top Ten Tuesday including J.K. Rowling on it? I think those odds are high. Although she’s on my list of all-time favorite authors, I basically only mean Harry Potter. I don’t really have any desire to read her adult books. Soooo, take from that what you will, but I can’t have this list without J.K. Rowling on it.

Jandy Nelson has written only two books, but they’ve both been so lovely and so heartbreaking and have stayed with me so long that I can’t NOT have her on my list of all-time favorite authors. She cemented her place on this list after just one book!

I’m getting the feeling that a lot of authors on this list are here because their characters are some of the most amazing I’ve ever read, and Patrick Rothfuss is no exception. Kvothe is in a league all his own, but I also love Wil and Simmon and Fela (let’s just pretend that Denna doesn’t really exist, mmkay?). Like GRRM, Patrick Rothfuss is on this list as much for Kvothe as he is for his stellar world-building. If I could live in the world where Kvothe lives, I’d be a happy camper.

I’m getting ants in my pants for something new from Kristin Cashore. GRACELING was one of the first YA books I ever read, and it essentially hooked me. I loved all three books in that series for different reasons, and I’ve been eagerly awaiting the announcement of her next book ever since.

When I try and think of an author who’s a sure thing, Morgan Matson is one that usually comes to mind pretty quickly. I just LOVE her stories and her characters and her everything. I’ve been moved by all of her books, and I just can’t gobble her books up fast enough. GIMME ALL OF THEM.

When I was younger, I didn’t really read a lot of fantasy, which seems crazy because I love it so much now. It’s probably a cliche that Tolkien is on this list but he really deserves a spot. I read The Lord of the Rings in college (*piles on more cliche*) and would, like, stay home on the weekends while my friends went out drinking so that I could read these books in peace. This was also right around the time when the movies were coming out, so I was totally invested. If I’d never read these books, I’m not sure how my love of the genre would exist.

Talk about an author whose work is super poignant and lovely. I don’t think I’ve ever read a Rainbow Rowell book and not been moved by it. I’ve laughed and swooned and cried–basically I run the gamut of feels when I read her stuff. I have just one book from her catalog left to read (THE ATTACHMENTS), and I have to admit that I’m a little nervous about CARRY ON. But one thing that all of the authors on this list share is their instant readability for me: I’ll never not read a book they write. Rainbow is a “no duh” author for me.