15 Favourite Writers in 15

Inspired by: A friend who tagged me with this on Facebook

The rules were: The first 15 authors/writers (poets and cartoonists included) who've influenced you that you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

My list includes (in no particular order): Part I

1.      P. G. Wodehouse

What more can I say about Mr Wodehouse, except that he’s the best there is for two types of writing: English and humour. I was introduced to him by a long-lost friend when I was still in college and I still remember the first book I read by him. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the Jeeves series, nor did it have any stories on our poor old Bertie. It was ‘The Adventures of Sally’ that had me hooked from day one. Gold in mine.

Since then, I have read and re-read many books by Wodehouse and my fave so far are the Jeeves series and the Psmith series, although I find it really hard not to mention Imperial Blandings omnibus in the same breath.

I have often heard that people may like him or just plain hate him. And that may even be true. You need to be patient with the plot lines and the daftness of it all. What you must look out for are the idiomatic pearls that he scatters along the way. With him, it’s definitely not the destination but the journey that needs to be cherished.

 

2.      Bill Bryson

The most famous line attributed to this writer is ‘I come from Des Moines. Someone had to.’ from his book The Lost Continent. This trend of thought encapsulates most of the writing from Bryson. He continues in this vein whether he’s talking about the Australian outback in Down Under or his years growing up in Iowa surrounded by corn fields in The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.

What I like most about him though is his understated and subtle humour. Humour is more humourous when it is least forced. And Bryson is an ace at that. And when it is combined with a travelogue, the fun just multiplies.
       

3.      Jane Austen

I can never read the works of li’l miss prim-n-propah slouched on the sofa or resting on a comfortable bed. To understand her, I need to sit upright on a chair with the book perched on the table. Also because I have an omnibus with all of her six novels in one book – The Complete Works of Jane Austen – which makes it difficult for me to hold it up in bed.  

I don’t mean to offend Miss Austen or her admirers. All I’m saying is that if you don’t have complete concentration, you’ll end up reading the same lines over and over again. Whatever her personal life may have been, she had a really vivid imagination for her time and was a very good storyteller. Yeah, her plots got a little repetitive, and yeah her main characters are always women. But she wrote what she knew and she wrote it well. My favorite of course, despite the millions of remakes in Hollywood and Bollywood, will always be Emma.    

4.    Thomas Hardy

My earliest memory of Hardy is of the title of one of his books, Far from the Madding Crowd, except that I didn't know it was a book and that it was from Hardy. I later learnt that the title of this particular book was inspired by a poem written by another Thomas, of the Gray kind.

I liked Hardy instantly because he uses simple language and understands the basic human nature very well. The superficial simplicity of the pastoral setting (the English countryside) in his works are deceptive. Hardy was in fact very well-read and knew his subject thoroughly. Also, the way he makes his characters speak in the local dialects are fun to read: ‘She’s a very vain feymell – so ‘tis said here and there.’ 

5.      Jon Krakauer 

I had heard so much about his non-fiction book Into Thin Air from mountaineering friends that I finally decided to read it and picked up my copy from a quaint little book shop in Darjeeling. And it was worth every word, and more. Krakauer is a hardcore journalist, a mountaineer and a nature enthusiast and his books are like reportage – very well researched and painstakingly detailed.

I absolutely loved two of his most popular non-fiction works, both tragedies incidentally which shouldn't reflect anything about me by the way – Into the Wild and the one mentioned above. I could actually feel the pain he felt for the characters. Beautiful. It’s a must even for an armchair mountaineer such as myself.


...contd.