“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English.”

Julie tagged me for this!

1. Who’s your all-time favourite author, and why?

I. Uh. I don’t have one. Strange, I know, but I’m one of those people who fall in love with books, or perhaps a series of books, instead of authors. Sure, every now and then comes an author that impresses me so much that I’ll greedily read all his/her works, but I don’t really have an all-time favourite. I’d expect an “all-time favourite” to be an author I had loved all the books he or she had written, and would read the books over and over. Maybe I’m setting my standards too high. Who knows, maybe I’ll find one, one of these days.

2. Who was your first favourite author, and why? Do you still consider him or her among your favourites?

Enid Blyton, perhaps? Simply because her books for younger children are easy to read and we had a lot of them when I was growing up. (Books I read at the age of earlier than six probably didn’t have authors — they’d be one of those set books about the Wise Owl or Sesame Street, I think.) I haven’t read any of her books in ages; I have no idea how well they would’ve stood the test of time. I won’t say she’s a favourite right now, but I’ll always have fond memories of her books. Well, at least until I reread them. Hopefully I won’t have one of those “wow, I can’t believe I used to like these!” moments everyone gets every now and then.

3. Who’s the most recent addition to your list of favourite authors, and why?

Dorothy Dunnett. The woman made me read six books about a historical period I never even bothered about before (her first book I read, The Game of Kings, starts in 1547 Scotland), made me struggle through snippets of poetry and quotes in French and historical characters I am not familiar with and a complicated plot and I ended up loving every moment of it. I ended up sleep-deprived by the time I finished all six books. I am generally a fantasy/science fiction sort of girl, so pegging a series of historical fiction novels as my favourite books so far for the year came as a surprise to many people, myself included. Now I’m tentatively poking through the historical fiction shelves, trying to find something comparable to her Lymond Chronicles.

Why? The characters and the plot, of course, and I like the fact she doesn’t coddle her readers. Didn’t grasp something? Too bad: go look it up (my new best friend: Wikipedia!), double back a hundred pages, reread that passage again. Curiously enough, I enjoyed doing so. And her attention to detail is fascinating. I have no background whatsoever about the period she writes about, yet I got sucked into her world.

She’s also the first author in ages who’s sent me desperately searching for a forum discussing her works, partly because of the complexity of the books, and partly because the end of book four almost killed me and I wanted to vent. I can’t remember the last author who provoked such a reaction from me.

4. If someone asked you who your favourite authors were right now, which authors would first pop out of your mouth? Are there any you’d add on a moment of further reflection?

Dorothy Dunnett is the first name that comes to mind. I’d add Diana Wynne Jones if you let me think long enough. Probably Neil Gaiman if you let me think even longer.

5. Tagged:

I’ll have skip this — I have no idea who to tag. If you answer this meme let me know? I’ll hop over and read it; it should be interesting!