Top Ten Favorite Authors

Another Tuesday, another top 10 list, hosted by the people over at The Broke and the Bookish.  This week's topic is top 10 favorite authors.  I love this topic.  I guess it's a bit obvious and I know I personally have gone on and on about a couple authors, but I'm happy to go on some more.

1. Christopher Moore - He is a recent addition to my favorites list but he quickly jumped to the top of the list.  I had a couple friends that kept telling me to check him out and for whatever reason I just said "yeah yeah yeah" and didn't get around to it.  I read You Suck, not realizing it was the second in a series and I liked it but wasn't running out to find more.  Then I read Lamb and it is my favorite book.  I can't help laughing out loud while I read it.  Gets me some interesting looks in public.  So far I've written about 1 of Moore's books, Fool on this blog (here and here).
2. Jasper Fforde - Like Moore, I was introduced to Fforde by a family friend who read his book The Eyre Affair for a book club and thought I'd enjoy it.  I liked it but didn't really fall in love with his work until I read the next book in the Thursday Next series, Lost in a Good Book.  From that point I have devoured his other work.  I've read the whole of the Thursday Next series at least 5 times and I've read the 3 books in the Nursery Crime series at least 3 times.  I've been semi-patiently waiting for Shades of Grey to come out in paperback. (If you want to check out my Eyre Affair posts go here, here and here.)
3. Bill Bryson - Oh look, another author I was introduced to by a friend.  I'm no good at stumbling on amazing authors on my own.  Anyway, an old roommate of mine was a big fan and I read his book Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe.  It's wonderful.  I love Bryson's sense of humor and he can make anything worth reading.  I've even read his science book A Short History of Nearly Everything a few times.  Bryson is one of my go-to authors when I can't think of something I want to read.  I've read his books a million times and I love it every time.
4. Shakespeare - I love Shakespeare.  I had some great high school English teachers that did an excellent job introducing me to his work and I've loved it since then.  A Midsummer Night's Dream and Othello are among my favorite of his plays.  And it's not just the plays but all of the Shakespeare related works.  The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) by the Reduced Shakespeare Company is my favorite play and I love Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.  Check out my post about Othello here.
5. Kurt Vonnegut - My dad bought me Slaughterhouse Five one year for my birthday and I loved him since.  Breakfast of Champions is my favorite of his books.  Eliot Rosewater and Kilgore Trout are my favorite characters and I love that they show up over and over again.

Well crap.  Again I try to do this Top Ten and not only can I come up with 10 of my favorite authors but none of them are women.  It's not that I don't like female authors, it's just that I can't say any of them are my favorites. As for my favorites, I tried to come up with authors who have multiple works that I'm a big fan of.  And this is really the end of that list.  So once again, I fail the top ten.  But I'm posting it anyway because the 5 I do have are quality!