Favorite Non-Fantastic Writers

[Coír Draoi Ceítien]

I've been making a lot of posts on fantasy via the blog, but I'm also aware that there are a lot of other writers in other genres - or, more particularly, no genre at all. I'm curious if anyone has any favorites outside of genre. When you're not reading fantasy, if you do so, who are the writers who you find the most enjoyable? Who do you keep coming back to as an example of what it means to be a truly good writer? Who keeps you the most entertained, the most moved, the most in love with the written word?

It's a bit of a difficult question for myself, since I prefer fantasy and speculation over realism and the like, but just to try it out, I think one of my particular favorites is going to be Robert Louis Stevenson. I've already read a bit by him (some of which I will have to reread to refresh my memory), and I feel that he's a writer who just really knew how to write, how to tell a really good story for story's sake, and not get hung up on particulars or forms or conscientious art - it just came naturally. Based on what I've read of The Jungle Book, I think I might also be particularly fond of Kipling; I'll have to read more. Having read several of his fantasy/horror stories, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is also captivating; I'll have to read the Sherlock Holmes stories to make doubly sure.

It's not that I HATE realism, of course, because if I were to pick just one example of an exemplary writer, it would be Harper Lee. To Kill a Mockingbird is a "perfect" book - in quotations because something truly perfect may be quite unobtainable. But it's a book I would definitely read more than once. I actually tried reading it again - I ALMOST finished it, but it was a library book, and I ran out of time; I have since acquired my own personal copy. It's simply a classic in every sense of the word.

So what are yours? Any thoughts?

[Raven]

Hmmm. . .

When looking for a non-fantasy book, I usually look for something that has history, travel, foreign or ancient cultures, and things like that. I like 18th and 19th century sailing stories, historical fiction or historical non-fiction or contemporary fiction from that era. I like historical works -- like a nonfiction book about Genghis Khan, for example, which I read not too long ago in addition to a non-fiction book about Japanese culture from the perspective of an American English teacher and a historical non-fiction book about a sea voyage from New England to California in the 1800s.
I tend to focus on the book more than the author, but as far as non-fiction authors, I made it a point to finish the Leatherstocking Tales by James Fennimore Cooper, and I finally read the last of them either early this year or last year. I actually like George MacDonald's non-fantasy works a lot, as well. In the relatively recent past I've read Dracula, The Phantom of the Opera, and Frankenstein but those are arguably fantasy.
I read very little fiction set in a contemporary setting -- in fact, I'm not sure I can remember the last fiction book I read with a contemporary setting. It might have even been a college assignment from my original undergrad years.
Basically, I love history and culture, and I will read either fiction or nonfiction if it strikes me as worthwhile along those lines.