Authors I like

It's been said that people know you by the company you keep. When it comes to the authors I admire most, I don't presume to be in their company; rather, I've set up a little shrine in my office where I burn votive candles before their images. Not literally, of course. But here they are:

Leo Tolstoy. War and Peace. Need I say more?

James A. Michener. A tireless researcher, a first-rate writer, and the man who put massive, meaty, satisfying historical novels on the top of the bestseller lists. I've read Tales of the South Pacific, The Source, Hawaii, Chesapeake, Centennial, and The Novel and loved them. Poland, Alaska, and Mexico, not so much. I didn't like The Bridges at Toko-Ri at all because in 9th grade English I was forced to read it; maybe I'll pick it up again. His writing style is workmanlike and nearly transparent: it never gets in the way of the plot or the characters. You breeze through his books by wanting to read just a few more pages at each sitting.

H. Rider Haggard. Author of King Solomon's Mines, She, and dozens of other books, Haggard invented the 'lost world' genre of fantasy fiction. His writing combines rip-roaring action with Victorian uprightness and British colonialism, with a huge helping of the supernatural thrown in. Men everywhere owe him a debt for coining the moniker 'She-who-must-be-obeyed' in reference to our significant others.

More to come later: Pearl S. Buck, Charles Dickens, Boris Pasternak, and others.