Favorites

It was difficult to decide which authors are my favorites because I have more favorite works than I do actual writers. I find myself more attracted to time periods and how certain works are reflections of those periods. For example, The Great Gatsby is one of my favorite novels, but F. Scott Fitzgerald is not my author of choice.

I do enjoy Shakespeare, but anyone that has had a class with me before knows that I think Shakespeare was a hack. The only play he wrote that I like, Titus Andronicus, was probably his worst. Shakespeare was a businessman. He wrote plays to sell them and possibly act in them. That's what makes him interesting. He was also part of an underground culture that is now considered "high art." The theatres of the late 1500's were in the worst part of town and to see a show was relatively cheap. What makes Shakespeare great (to me) is that he had a formula that not only worked, but is still used in theatre and cinema today.

Mark Twain comes to mind when thinking about authorship. I would not claim him as my favorite, but I do enjoy his satirical wit and use of language. Pudd'nhead Wilson is his most interesting work (to me) because of the irony of the outcome of the switched boys as they matured to men. I also find it fascinating that Mark Twain referred to himself as an inventor, not a writer. With as much as he had written one would think he would qualify himself as writer.

Although I do not read "for fun" very often anymore, when I have the opportunity I like to read novels by Janet Evanovich. She writes a series about a female bond enforcer from New Jersey. Her characters cannot seem to get out of their own way as life happens to them. Her books are an easy read and I fondly refer to them as "bubblegum for the brain." They are a funny break from real life!