The Writers


Note: I admire their writing. A number of the below appear to have been utterly devoid of other virtues.
"Let's write literature in which we don't dumb it down. Let's 'smart' it up. "
-Gene Wolfe

Gene Wolfe
R. A. Lafferty
Marcel Proust
Evelyn Waugh
Flannery O'Connor
Charles Dickens
Robert Aickman
Vladimir Nabokov
Jack Vance
Walker Percy
Muriel Spark
Avram Davidson
Samuel Johnson
James Boswell
G. K. Chesterton
T. S. Eliot
Tim Powers
Robert Frost
J. R. R. Tolkien
C. S. Lewis
John Crowley
Robertson Davies
Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
Patrick O'Brian
Hugh Kenner
Flann O'Brien
Cormac McCarthy Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Anthony Trollope
Dororthy Sayers
Ezra Pound
Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II)
Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI)
Willmoore Kendall
Pauline Kael
Thomas Merton
John Courtney Murray
William Pene Du Bois
Mark Steyn
Dave Sim
Russell Hoban
Laurence Sterne
Jeff VanderMeer
Angela Carter
John Derbyshire
Tom Wolfe
Louisa May Alcott
Jane Duncan
Bruce Sterling
Malcolm Muggeridge
Jean Rhys
Kenneth Morris
Mark Helprin
Lloyd Alexander
Jane Austen
Jorge Luis Borges
Italo Calvino
John Ruskin
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Umberto Eco
Steven Pinker
Michael Bishop
Wilfrid Sheed
Iain (M.) Banks
Wallace Stevens
Virginia Woolf
Graham Joyce
Joseph Mitchell
Raymond Smullyan
M. R. James
Paul Fussell
Joyce Carol Oates
Christopher Dawson
Paul Claudel
Caroline Stevermer
William Faulkner
Mark Twain
William Butler Yeats
James Thurber
Dave Barry
William Morris
Thomas Kenneally
Mike Royko
Ralph McInerny
Calvin Trillin
Simon Winchester
Emma Bull
John Webster
Christopher Marlowe
H. P. Lovecraft
David Mitchell
Emily Bronte
Charlotte Bronte
Baron von Hügel
David Lodge
Annie Dillard
James Joyce
Kingsley Amis
Rebecca Ore
William Browning Spencer
Soren Kierkegaard
Paul Johnson
Helen Cresswell
James Weldon Johnson
Barry Hughart
Hugh Lofting
Eric Newby
Cory Doctorow
Lynne Truss
Virginia L. Grattan
Robert Parker
A. J. P. Taylor
Patrick F. McManus
J. M. Coetzee
Henry James
John Kennedy Toole
P. G. Wodehouse
Rex Stout
Samuel Beckett
J. G. Ballard
Lewis Carroll
Stanislaw Lem
Jose Ortega y Gasset
Shusaku Endo
Keith Roberts
Robert Benchley
Greer Ilene Gilman
Algis Budrys
Ted Chiang
Jonathan Carroll
C. J. Cherryh
Etienne Gilson
Jacques Maritain
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Christopher Buckley
Russell Kirk
Saul Bellow
Haruki Marukami
Nicholas Wade
P. D. James
St. Louis Marie de Montfort
Orson Scott Card
John Le Carré
John Betjeman
E. R. Eddison
Neal Stephenson
M. John Harrison
George Bernanos
Olvier Sacks
John Berryman
Charles G. Finney
Shirley Jackson
Graham Greene
Joyce Cary
Lord Dunsany
Victor Davis Hanson
David Foster Wallace
Mordecai Richler
Marshall McLuhan
Richard Henry Dana
J. K. Rowling
Robert Grudin
Romano Guardini
Guy Consolmagno
Jacqueline Winspear
James Herriot
James Cozzens
Richard P. Feynman
Avery Dulles
Sherwood Anderson
Simone Weil
Christopher Hitchens
Edward Abbey
Katherine Dunn
Edgar Rice Burroughs
Joanna Russ
Daniel and David Hays
E. T. Bell
Norton Juster
John Bellairs
William Goldman
Poul Anderson
Greg Bear
Sylvia Townsend Warner
L. Frank Baum
Dan Simmons
Samuel Florman
Robert Gover
P. C. Hodgell
Frank Herbert
Jane Smiley
Ellen Kushner
Hilaire Belloc
Florence King
John M. Ford
Walter M. Miller, Jr.
J. M. Barrie
Kenneth Grahame
H. Rider Haggard
C. S. Forester
James Branch Cabell
Wendell Berry
Dana Gioia
Sean Stewart
Rudy Rucker
Tracy Kidder
Alice Turner
Gerard Manley Hopkins
William Gibson
Walter Mosley
Lawrence Wright
Roy Campbell
Josef Pieper
Richard Brookhiser
Jaroslav Pelikan
Edgar Allen Poe
Richard McKenna
Henry Petroski
Peter Kreeft
Ford Madox Ford
Olaf Stapledon
John Scarne
Peter Dickinson
Thornton Wilder
Charles Williams
Tony Hillerman
Pamela Dean
Mervyn Peake
Peter Carey
Yves Meynard
Elmore Leonard
Patrice Kindl
Brian W. Kernighan
Rob Pike
Andreas Zeller
J. F. Powers
Alfred Bester
Eleanor Estes
Rumer Godden
Diana Wynne Jones
Bradley Denton
Jonathan Lethem
John Henry Newman
Edmund Burke
Alexander McCall Smith
Donn Kushner
Roger Scruton
Clark Ashton Smith
W. H. Hudson
Blaise Pascal
Ray Bradbury
Michael Mashall Smith
Russell Baker
Alasdair Gray
Ronald Knox
John Bunyan
Ursula K. LeGuin
Daniel Clowes
Francois Mauriac
John Hawkes
Alexander Dumas
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Hans Urs von Balthasar
Eric Voegelin
Karl Barth
Willa Cather
Plato
Emmuska Orczy
Milorad Pavic
Aristotle
Aristophanes
Homer
Nathaniel West
Herman Melville
Charles Babbage
Somerset Maugham
Robert Graves
James P. Blaylock
Howard Waldrop
Ernest Hemingway
Susan Cooper
Thomas Pynchon
Peter De Vries
Robert Coover
Thorne Smith
Sue Grafton
Marilynne Robinson
Robin McKinley
Walter Jon Williams
Patricia McKillip
Erich Maria Remarque
A. S. Byatt
Alastair Reynolds
Lois McMaster Bujold
Thomas Hardy
Pat Cadigan
James D. Doss
John Updike
Franz Kafka
Max Beerbohm
Ernest Bramah
Damon Runyon
A. A. Milne
Jerome K. Jerome
David Gelernter
Don Rosa
Donald Knuth
Martin Gardner
Dogulas Hofstadter
Robert Louis Stevenson
T. H. White
Robert Irwin
Marianne Moore
Rudyard Kipling
Joseph Conrad
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
St. Thomas Aqunias
St. Augustine
St. Teresa of Avila
St. John of the Cross
St. Thomas More
St. Hildegard of Bingen
St. Therese of Lisieux
Dante
William Shakespeare
Neil Gaiman
Alan Moore
Frank Miller
Tom Stoppard
Kurt Vonnegut
Frank Sheed
Dava Sobel
Greg Egan
John Mortimer
John Fowles
Connie Willis
John Kessel
Peter S. Beagle
Fritz Leiber
John McPhee
Harlan Ellison
Terry Pratchett
S. J. Perelman
Christopher Priest
Dave Langford
Christopher Lasche
Gardner Dozois
George Alec Effinger
George Will
Ken MacLeod
Boethius
Robert Bork
Patrick O'Leary
E. C. Bentley
Herge
David Niven
Rhys Hughes
Isaac Asimov
Robert Heinlein
Robert Nisbet
Isaac Watts
Garth Nix
Nicholas A. Basbanes
John Barnes
E. B. White
Donald Barthelme
Robert Silverberg
Cordwainer Smith
Robert Fitzgerald
Hilda van Stockum
Edward R. Tufte
Brain W. Aldiss
James Patrick Kelly
Terry Bisson
George MacDonald
W. P. Kinsella
Donald Kingsbury
W. H. Auden
Samuel R. Delany
Douglas Adams
Aldous Huxley
George Orwell
Vernor Vinge
Frances Gies
Scott McCloud
Steven Brust
Philip K. Dick
George Schuyler
F. Scott Fitzgerald
James H. Schmitz
Ben Mezrich
Iain Pears
Scott Rosenberg
Steve Squyres
Rick Bass
Kim Stanley Robinson*
Mark Frost
Martha Grimes
Lawrence Block
John Clute
John D. MacDonald
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Gore Vidal
Agatha Christie
Ellis Peters
Elizabeth Peters

(and a little bit of music)

Johann Sebastian Bach
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Georg Frederic Handel
Domenico Scarlatti
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Frederic Chopin
Antonio Vivaldi
Arcenglo Corelli
Georg Philipp Telemann
Jean Sibelius
Felix Mendelssohn
U2
Dire Straits
R.E.M.
They Might Be Giants
Buddy Holly
Leonard Cohen
The Smiths
The Cure
Supertramp
The Police
The Cars
The Rolling Stones
The Beatles
Van Morrison
The Who
Cream
The Band
The Pretenders
Barenaked Ladies
Bob Dylan
John Prine
The Byrds
The Flying Burrito Brothers
Mark Knopfler
The Notting Hillbillies
Radiohead
Bruce Springsteen
Steely Dan
Aimee Mann
Gillian Welch
Alison Krauss and Union Station
Elvis Costello (and the Attractions)
The Pixies
Elliott Smith
Pink Floyd
Led Zeppelin
The Connells
Cibo Matto
Toad the Wet Sprocket (ok, only really one album)
My Bloody Valentine
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Coldplay
Live**
Moby
Paul Simon
Brian Setzer
The Sundays
Tom Waits
Uncle Tupelo
Son Volt
Jay Farrar
Wilco
The Shins
Jeff Buckley
Lucinda Williams
The Jayhawks
Broken Social Scene
Arcade Fire
Interpol
Depeche Mode
Modest Mouse
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Sufjan Stevens
Iron and Wine
Talking Heads
The Flaming Lips
Placebo
Spoon
Neko Case (and her Boyfriends)
A. C. Newman
The New Pornographers
The Dave Matthews Band
The Killers
Slowdive
The Decemberists
Laurie Anderson
Belle & Sebastian
Blondie
Liz Phair
Billy Joel
Fountains of Wayne
The Beach Boys
Kyler England
Frank Sinatra
Johnny Cash
Chet Atkins
Willie Nelson
Louis Armstrong
Ella Fitzgerald
Duke Ellington
Thelonius Monk
John Coltrane
Miles Davis

(* not the Mars trilogy)
(** Mental Jewelry--the rest ages quickly)
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