Darryl's Meme: Who are your favorite STILL LIVING novelists?

We had a good response to this meme last year, and now for 2012, we're so early in the year that maybe more and different folks will notice the meme!

The rules are: minimum list is five, maximum is how long you feel like typing.
Person must be alive as you hit "save message".
Please list country of origin and gender.

The point of the meme is to make discoveries about unrecognized trends in your reading. Maybe even get a few pointers on new directions to take in reading...you never know!

Contemp. Fiction
Nancy Clark US/ Woman
Richard Ford US/ Man
Thomas Pynchon US /Man
Anne Tyler US/Woman (formerly, still very fond of)
Margaret Atwood Canada/ Woman (rising as a fave)
Margaret Drabble UK/Woman
Julia Glass US/Woman (rising)
Martin Amis UK/Man
Diane Johnson US/Woman
Charles Baxter US/Man
Andrea Barrett Us/Woman
Michael Ondaatje Canada/Man
Jennifer Egan US/Woman
T. C. Boyle US/ Man
Margaret Drabble US/Woman
Tom Wolfe US/Man
Helen Humphreys Canada/Woman
9 women, 8 men, 12 US, 3 Can, 2 UK

Mystery/Thriller
Kate Atkinson UK /Woman
Tana French Irish/Woman (rising)
Tony Hillerman US/Man
2 women, one man

SF/Fantasy
Lois McMaster Bujold US/Woman
Iain Banks UK/Man (rising)
J.K. Rowling UK/ Woman
Robin Hobb Us/ Woman
Kim Stanley Robinson US/Man
Charles de Lint Canada/Man
Ursula LeGuin (formerly) US/Man
Alastair Reynolds UK/Man
George R.R. Martin US/Man
Ian MacDonald UK/Man (rising fast)
4 women, 5 men, 5 US, 4 UK, 1 Canada

Now I'm talking 'favorite' because when I hear there is a new book I go, "Oh goodie!" and find it hard to wait for the paperback or from the library...... they are not necessarily the world's greatest living writers, I love Alice Munro, for example, but I can't quite call her my favorite as the stories are so dark and difficult. I'm going to include a few who used to be in a fave category but about whom I feel less strongly these days, and a few who are moving ever deeper into the favorite zone....

Obviously I am not holding back.

Ooo, how fun! I'm pretty bad with living authors, though.

1. Terry Pratchett UK/Male
2. Louise Penny Canada/Female (I have a feeling this one will be popping up frequently in this group)
3. Laurell K. Hamilton US/Female (good old-fashioned vampire smut)
4. Ray Bradbury US/Male
5. Kelley Armstrong Canada/Female
6. Mary Roach US/Female

This is harder than I thought...

>2 sibylline: Pynchon! Now, that's one I wouldn't have expected, Lucy, he's so tricksy and you like firm grounding and far reaching so much!

>3 London_StJ: I find it almost impossible. As soon as I think of someone, there are a dozen reasons why they can't go on the list. Mostly because they daid, actually.

In no particular order

1. Margaret Atwood Canada/ Female
2. Amos Oz Israel/ Male
3. Hilary Mantel England/ Female
4. Barry Unsworth England/ Italy _ not sure where he is living now, Male
5. Arthur Phillips US- male
6. Elizabeth Hay Canada/ female
7. Alice Munro Canada/female
8. Alan Furst US/ male

There are more that I like but I am thinking about consistent good books that I like to read.

>5 torontoc: Hi Cirel, Unsworth is 81 this year, can you BELIEVE it? Nothing I know of mentions him living anywhere but Umbria still...any reason to think he's moved back to the UK?

I am always surprised that Alan Furst is from the US. I feel him as a Brit, somehow, just through and through and probably living in a stone cottage on a moor somewhere north of the Orkneys. (IS there anything north of the Orkneys, except maybe Iceland?)

I think that I forgot where Unsworth lived- have to go back to the last book of his that I read- Umbria sounds right, though.
Alan Furst lived in Paris for some time- I recall.

Ooh! Fun! I imagine I'll be back to add more when I have more time...

1. Brandon Sanderson -- USA / male
2. Rick Riordan -- USA / male
3. Orson Scott Card -- USA / male
4. Terry Prachett -- UK / male
5. Louise Rennison -- UK / female

...interesting ...the first four authors to come to mind were male... well, I'll definitely be thinking about this and be back to add sometime soon!

>7 torontoc: Paris? Huh. Never knew that, either.

>8 dk_phoenix: See, Faith? It's already working!

Hm... Definitely easier now than it would have been a few years ago.

Guy Gavriel Kay -- Canada/male
Orson Scott Card -- US/male
Stephen Hunter -- US/male
John Ringo -- US/male
Louise Penny -- Canada/female

Will think some more, but those come to mind as definite favorites.

>9 richardderus:: No kidding! Now I'm looking at my shelves thinking "huh... I might add that person and that person too, but that means...!" The things I'm learning...! It's also making me think about the tone & pacing of the books these authors are writing, and what the main characters tend to be like. I think I may have a distinct preference for a certain level of character development vs. relationship development vs. action vs. introspection... whaddaya know... I love this meme already. :)

Well, I may miss a few, but this is who springs to mind. Not in any particular order.

Hilary Mantel UK/F
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o Kenya/M
Mario Vargas Llosa Peru/M
Karl Marlantes (based on one book) USA/M
Bonnie Jo Campbell USA/F
Jennifer Egan USA/F
Jaimy Gordon USA/F
Nicole Krauss (based on one book) USA/F
Amy Bloom (for her short stories, not her novel) USA/F
Alice Munro (mostly short stories, not novels) Canada/F
Shirley Hazzard Australia/F
James Salter USA/M
Vikram Seth India/M
Paula Fox USA/F
Emily Barton USA/F
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Nigeria/F
Mavis Gallant (short stories) Canada/F
Jennifer Haigh USA/F
Denis Johnson USA/M

Michelle Moran US/Female
Sarah Addison Allen US/Female
Diana GabaldonUS/Female
Patricia Briggs US/Female
Neil Gaiman UK although lives in the US/ Male
Terry Prachett UK/male (better get him on the list now)
Carlos Ruiz Zafron Spain/Male

Ok I could have listed more female authors but I must look into this because it looks like my favorite male authors are all dead something I did not realize or that my male to female author ratio is 603 female 239 male according to my stats here on LT but my dead to alive ratio is very different so this is something I need to investigate!More later!

David Almond UK/male
Louise Penny Canadian/female
John Green US/male
Peter Pohl Swedish/male
Anton Quintana Dutch/male
Julian May US/female

note: I am always waiting for the Dutch translations, in case of mrs Penny only the first two books are translated :-(

I fear that I am terribly terribly mainstream in my favorites!

Stephen King USA/Male
John Grisham USA/Male
Patricia Cornwell USA/Femail
Kelley Armstrong Canada/Female
Michael Connelly USA/Male
Diana Gabaldon USA/Female
James Patterson USA/Male
Kathy Reichs USA/Female
JR Ward USA/Female

Newest favorites found this year through LT are:
Louise Penny Canada/Femail
Guillermo del Toro Mexico/Male
Nancy Atherton USA/Female

Richard -- I'm a Pynchon freak from wayyyyyyyyyy back.

CJ Cherryh US/female
Laurie R. King US/female
Beverly Cleary US/female
Mercedes Lackey US/female
Colleen McCullough Australia/female
Sharon Kay Penman US/female
Wendy Pini US/female
Gail Riplinger US/female

(anyone notice a pattern here???)

Sam Gipp US/male
William Grady US/male
Spencer Quinn US/male (aka Peter Abrahams)
Peter S. Ruckman US/male
Tom Wolfe US/male

Margaret Atwood Canada/Female
Bill Bryson US/UK/Male
Kazuo Ishiguro Japan/Male
Philip Pullman UK/Male
David Sedaris US/France/Male
Sarah Vowell US/Female
Carlos Ruiz Zafron Spain/Male
Markus Zusak Australia/Male

Narrowing it down to living authors shrunk my list down way more then I thought it would. Interesting!

I'll get started, but then I have to run be a responsible adult.

Rose Tremain/UK/Female
Margaret Atwood/Canada/Female
Barbara Kingsolver/US/Female
Richard Powers/US/Male
Neal Stephenson/US/Male
Haruki Murakami/Japan/Male
Margaret Drabble/UK/Female
Iain M. Banks/UK/Male
Sheri S. Tepper/US/Female
Connie Willis/US/Female
China Miéville/UK/Male
Alistair Reynolds/UK/Male

I started reading others' lists and that made me think of more for mine... so this is longer than I thought it would be. Fun! I also added genre. I hope that's okay.

Margaret Atwood/Canada/Female (Fiction-multiple)
Patricia McKillip/US/Female (Fantasy & Sci Fi)
Robin McKinley/US/Female (Fantasy)
Ursula Le Guin/US/Female (Fantasy & Sci Fi)
Terry Pratchett/UK/Male (Fantasy)
Neil Gaiman/UK/Male (Fantasy)
Rick Riordan/US/Male (Fantasy)
Connie Willis/US/Female (Fantasy & Sci Fi)
China Mieville/UK/Male (Fantasy & Sci Fi)
Sarah Addison Allen/US/Female (General Fiction)
M. T. Anderson/US/Male (Fiction-multiple)
Bill Bryson/US/Male (Non-fiction)
Anne Fadiman/US/Female (Non-fiction)
Cornelia Funke/Germany/Female (Fantasy)

So, at 6 males and 8 females, my gender balance seems okay -- but wow, some American author dominance happening here and, though we aren't tracking ethnicity, caucasian author dominance as well. Hmmm. Also, I knew that I read and followed a lot of fantasy, but I suppose this brings it home.

Edited to (hopefully) make the list easier to read. Turns out genre really clutters things up. :)

I found it really hard to find all living authors...so many of my favorites are no longer living. :(

This is indeed quite hard, especially limiting it to true favorites, rather than just "I liked their stuff". But I did finally come up with five:

Vladimir Voinovich: male, Russia
Terry Pratchett: male, UK
Neil Gaiman: male, UK/US
DM Cornish: male, Australia (only 3 books to date and still makes my list!)
Miyuki Miyabe: female, Japan

This list was hard for me to compile. I never realized I have so many books by dead people.

Maggie Stiefvater, female, American (YA)
J.K. Rowling, female, English (YA/Children)
Brian Selznik, male, American (Children)
Alison Weir, female, English (Historical Fiction)
Gail Carson Levine, female, American (Children)
Neal Shusterman, male, American (YA)
Scott Westerfeld, male American (YA)

I'm guessing at the nationalities, but I hope I'm right about them all.

In no particular order, just as they come to mind:

Ian McEwan--British/male
Helen Humphreys--Canada/female
Roddy Doyle--Irish/male
Rose Tremain--British/female
Pat Barker--British/female
Ali Smith--Scottish/female
Jude Morgan--British/male
Lorrie Moore--American/female
Joan Silber--American/female
Rachel Seiffert--British/female
E. L. Doctorow--American/male
Jhumpa Lahiri--'American'/female ("I wasn't born here, but I might as well have been." Technically, Bengali, born in London,raised and lives in the USA.)
Jane Harris--Scottish/female
Ha Jin--American/male (born in China)
William Trevor--Irish/male
Nadeem Aslam--British/male (born in Pakistan)
Margaret George--American/female
A. S. Byatt--British/female
Mary Gaitskill--American/female
Kate Grenville--Australian/female

It comes as no surprise to me that I read mostly writers from the UK and more women authors than men. Several have dual (and in one case triple) citizenship, however.

Jon Clinch U.S./male
Hilary Mantel UK/female

I'm separating those two out for top of the list honors, because they both astonish me with every new book I read.

Jay Parini U.S./male
Edwidge Danticat Haiti/female
Tim Winton Australia/male
Howard Norman Canada/male
Abraham Verghese India, Ethiopia now living in U.S./male
E. L. Doctorow U. S./male
James Lee Burke U.S./male (gritty fiction, may be past his prime)
Barbara Kingsolver U.S./female
Pete Hamill U.S./male
Sue Grafton U.S./female ( After 22 letters she is still keeping her alphabet series fresh, and hasn't "jumped the shark" or started phoning it in, as so many successful writers of series fiction seem to do.)

These two have yet to be published, but I've read a novel in draft by each of them, and let me tell you----watch for them one day!

Laura Koons U.S./female
Holly Wendt U.S./female

I put these in alphabetical order by gender. Hard, considering I do like a lot of dead authors.

Howard Bahr US/M
James R. Benn US/M
Bernard Cornwell UK/M
Robert Harris UK/M
Peter Mayle UK/M
Larry McMurtry US/M
Alexander McCall Smith UK/M
Will Thomas US/M

Susan Wittig Albert US/F
Toni Bentley US/F (Her books about ballet, that is)
Lindsey Davis UK/F
Ruth Downie UK/F
Zoe Ferraris US/F
Doris Kearns Goodwin US/F
Naomi Hirahara US/F
Helen Humphreys UK/F
Lilian Nattel US/F
Sigrid Nunez US/F
Jacqueline Winspear US/F (born in the UK)
Padma Viswanathan (Canadian, lives in the US, Indian (south) descent)

Definitely more female than male. I was surpised at the number of U.S. authors as I thought I read more UK writers. Thanks for this fascinating little study.

Susan Wittig Albert US/F
Jan Karon US/F
Terry Pratchett UK/M
Alexander McCall Smith UK/M
David G. McCullough US/M
Lynn Johnston US/F
Jeanne Birdsall US/F
Trenton Lee Stewart US/M
Mo Willems US/M
David McCullough US/M
Jacqueline Winspear US/F (born in the UK)
Bill Barnes US/M

My top favorites were all women from the UK and were children during WWI... None still alive, alas.