I took this from Reading in Bed. I think, dear reader, you could save a lot of time on this blog if you simply read Reading in Bed, since I take the memes she does and I read the books she reviews (much more competent reviews than my own) and basically am just a creepy internet follower/stalker, so maybe you should be reading her. Like right now. Go and read it (but maybe open it in a new tab in case you still want to read here).
So I made a list of the ten ten authors I own the most books of. Since I have five Billy bookcases, plus another bookcase in Tesfa’s room, plus books strewn around the house, plus no organisation to our books whatsoever, this took a little work. I included books that are Geoff’s because Geoff is always saying that they aren’t my books and his books, but they are our books. He says it a lot. Underlined books in the lists below are books I have not read, so likely astute readers can determine which books are our books but less so mine.
Honourable Mentions (5 $$\le x \le 7$$): Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (5), Graham Greene (5), Michael Ondaatje (5), John Irving (5), Robert J. Sawyer (5), Anton Chekhov (5), Judy Blume (5), Lloyd Alexander (5), Mo Willems (5), Margaret Atwood (6), Douglas Adams (6), Minette Walters (6), Warren Ellis (6), Mordechai Richler (6), Robertson Davies (7), Jim Benton (7).
And I have to do twelve authors, just because I have four authors with eight books each.
12. George R. R. Martin (8 books): Fevre Dream, A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, A Feast for Crows, A Dance With Dragons, Windhaven (with Lisa Tuttle), Dreamsongs Bundle Volumes I and II;
11. Douglas Coupland (8 books): JPod, Microserfs, Generation X, The Gum Thief, Shampoo Planet, Polaroids from the Dead, Worst. Person. Ever., Life After God;
10. Neil Gaiman (8 books): The Doll’s House, Dream Country, Seasons of Mists, A Game of You, Brief Lives, Endless Nights, Coraline, Fortunately The Milk;
9. John Le Carré (8 books): The Honourable Schoolboy, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, The Constant Gardener, A Small Town in Germany, Our Kind of Traitor, Three Complete Novels (Call for the Dead, A Murder of Quality, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold), Absolute Friends, A Delicate Truth;
8. Philip K. Dick (9 books): The Man In The High Castle, The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford, Eye in the Sky, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich, Minority Report, Galactic Pot Healer, Ubik, Solar Lottery, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?;
7. Joseph Conrad (9 books): Under Western Eyes, Nostromo, Three Short Novels, Lord Jim, Suspense, Chance, Heart of Darkness, The Nigger of the Narcissus, The Secret Agent;
6. Dr Seuss/Theo LeSieg (10 books): Ten Apples Up On Top, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, Fox in Socks, In a People House, Dr Seuss’ ABCs, Hop on Pop, Green Eggs and Ham, Horray for Diffendoofer Day (with Jack Prelutsky), And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins;
5. Beverly Cleary (11 books): Henry Huggins, Henry and Beezus, Beezus and Ramona, Ramona the Pest, Ramona the Brave, Ramona and Her Father, Ramona and Her Mother, Ramona Quimby Age 8, Ramona Forever, Ramona’s World, Dear Mr Henshaw;
4. Roald Dahl (11 books): Tales of the Unexpected, Someone Like You, Ah Sweet Mystery of Life, The Wonderful World of Henry Sugar, Matilda, Fantastic Mr Fox, The BFG, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Twits, The Witches;
3. CS Lewis (11 books): Mere Christianity, Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, The Horse and His Boy, The Magician’s Nephew, The Last Battle;
2. William Shakespeare (12 books): The Norton Shakespeare, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Twelfth Night, Troilus and Cressida, Two Gentleman of Verona, Much Ado About Nothing, King Lear, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Late Romances (Pericles, Cymbeline, A Winter’s Tale, The Tempest), Titus Andronicus and Timon of Athens, Three Tragedies (Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear), Othello;
And….
1. Agatha Christie (55 books): Yeah, I’m not writing all of those out. Come over to my house and I’ll show you the shelf if you’re really interested.
Comments
Holy Moly — I didn’t realise you were such an Agatha Christie fan! I’ve never read any of her books, but then I’m not big on murder mysteries (except for Brother Cadfael, and that’s mostly because of the whole medieval monk thing). Still, a fascinating list, and a good spectrum of authors.
(also, I’ve started reading Charles Yu’s ‘How to Live in a Science Fictional Universe’ and while it’s a bit too melancholic for me to really love it, it is quite good. And his writing style — esp. his method of description — reminds me a lot of the way you write!)
Author
I read most of them when I was eleven-ish. They’ve just tagged along with me since then. Every now and then I’ll pick one up at a garage sale and add it to my pile, but I remember the mysteries for a lot of them, so I don’t know when/if I’ll ever read them again.
Also, Charles Yu yays! Mucho awesome.