Rabrrrrrr
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Tue Jun-07-05 10:29 PM
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List 5 essential novelists in your library |
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For me, the essentials are:
Isaac Asimov Frank Herbert Ernest Hemingway (I mean, really, is there any better?) Neal Stephenson Saul Bellow
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Wickerman
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Tue Jun-07-05 10:31 PM
Response to Original message |
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Thomas McGuane Richard Brautigan Nathanael West Kurt Vonnegut Lorrie Moore
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Rabrrrrrr
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Tue Jun-07-05 10:34 PM
Response to Reply #1 |
3. Ah, Brautigan! Love his stuff. |
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And Vonnegut, of course, also essential.
The others I am not familiar with.
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punpirate
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Tue Jun-07-05 11:25 PM
Response to Reply #1 |
16. Glad to see a West fan... |
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... most people have forgotten him (is Shagpoke Whipple ever more relevant and current than today? :) ).
I'd have to put:
Richard Powers Wm. Faulkner Doris Lessing Wm. Shakespeare Thomas Pynchon
But, asking an English major to limit to five is really too much to ask. :)
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Wickerman
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Wed Jun-08-05 07:09 AM
Response to Reply #16 |
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he died way too young. Would've loved to have seen if he would have maintained his edge what with celebrity creeping up on him. We might have seen irony defined.
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Tyrone Slothrop
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Tue Jun-07-05 11:26 PM
Response to Reply #1 |
17. Damn. Forgot about Vonnegut |
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Edited on Tue Jun-07-05 11:27 PM by Tyrone Slothrop
Just got Ninety-Two in the Shade but haven't read it yet. McGuane comes highly recommended from a friend.
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hfojvt
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Tue Jun-07-05 11:45 PM
Response to Reply #17 |
22. I forgot Vonnegut as well |
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but I am not sure which one of my five I would get rid of.
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swag
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Tue Jun-07-05 10:34 PM
Response to Original message |
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Jane Austen Gore Vidal Haruki Murakami Kathy Acker
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Zenlitened
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Tue Jun-07-05 10:34 PM
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4. Ann Tyler, Margaret Atwood, John Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut, and... |
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... Carl Sagan, because his writing is every bit as awe-inspiring as the best of any of the great novels out there. :)
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Rabrrrrrr
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Tue Jun-07-05 10:37 PM
Response to Reply #4 |
6. Which reminds me - you can buy huge ass fuckin' furniture of every type |
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Edited on Tue Jun-07-05 10:37 PM by Rabrrrrrr
except for one thing: try to find a decent, big enough *&$!&$ bookshelf. Just try it. You can't. The only real bookshelf option is custom built.
Fuckin' America.
"Well, what do you wanna have books for in your house, just takin' up space?"
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fleabert
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Wed Jun-08-05 02:29 AM
Response to Reply #6 |
37. agreed! it really annoys me when the professional organizers on |
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hgtv and tlc tell people, 'okay, you can buy new books, but you have to get rid of one for every one you bring home.' WHAT?!?!?!?!!!
It's called a LIBRARY, and I want my house to have my own personal one, tyvm! Even if it is spread into every room and every nook and cranny I can cram one into! back off my books, none of them are going into the garage sale or the charity truck fuckers!
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NoMoreMrNiceGuy
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Tue Jun-07-05 11:15 PM
Response to Reply #4 |
14. Except for his argument against UFO was weak... |
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How could someone so smart think that beings that could possibly have a civilization a billion years older than our own(yes there are suns out there a billion years older than our own) couldn't figure out a way to cross the universe. Think of how far we have come in the last 10,000 years....now imagine a billion years...think they know a little bit more about physics than we do? There was only 66 years between the Wright Bros and putting a man on the moon...mindboggling right...again think what we could do in a billion years from now...very simple logic really. I think he was paid by the government to do a little disinfo. He was way too bright not to figure out what I've figured out.
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hfojvt
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Tue Jun-07-05 11:47 PM
Response to Reply #4 |
23. my sister got "Contact" for me a long time ago |
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It was on the best-seller list, which I usually consider a repository for fly-by-night trash, but I thought it was quite good. Same with "Demon haunted world" but I never made it through "Broca's Brain"
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AverageJoe
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Tue Jun-07-05 10:35 PM
Response to Original message |
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Okay:
Hemingway (You're right--there's none better) Fyodor Dostoevsky Larry Brown Charles Bukowski Jack Kerouac Richard Brautigan
I couldn't help myself--had to add a sixth. That was the best I could do....
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Aristus
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Tue Jun-07-05 10:37 PM
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Harlan Ellison Mark Twain Alexandre Dumas fils J.R.R. Tolkien Anthony Burgess
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Rabrrrrrr
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Tue Jun-07-05 10:41 PM
Response to Reply #7 |
9. Ooh, Ellison! Yes! Brilliant, incredible writer |
Aristus
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Tue Jun-07-05 10:46 PM
Response to Reply #9 |
10. I'm going to see him in September at a FantasyCon thing |
alarcojon
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Tue Jun-07-05 10:40 PM
Response to Original message |
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Dostoevsky Richard Wright Nabokov Rushdie Camus
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shugah
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Tue Jun-07-05 10:47 PM
Response to Original message |
11. in no particular order |
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charles dickens anne rice j.r.r. tolkien diana gabaldan thomas hardy
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PassingFair
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Tue Jun-07-05 10:51 PM
Response to Original message |
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Dickens Anthony Burgess Sommerset Maugham Thomas Hardy Philip K. Dick
wow, 5 is tough, didn't get to mention a hundred others. I really like the British ACK! I really NEED to add George Orwell. If I don't stop now I'll..................................
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hfojvt
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Wed Jun-08-05 12:07 AM
Response to Reply #12 |
24. seeing Dickens reminds me of what Howard Fast has Altgeld say: |
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"When I put Clemens and Tolstoy together, it's because one has found the soul of America and the other knows the soul of Russia, but Dickens never went deeper than the soul of a shopkeeper. I've never been to England, but, my god, I find no smell of it in Dickens, no taste of it, no love of it, no real hope for it either, and I want a writer to give me that, and to give me people who love and hate and suffer and dream sometimes, like the poor devils in my lawbooks, or like the men and women in Tolstoy and in Mark Twain, not paper cutouts pasted over with so much fancy trimming that never an inch of flesh shows through, if there is any flesh..." The American Howard Fast 1946 p. 206
I find that Howard Fast and Michael Collins tell stories from a working person's (or maybe I mean Marxist) perspective.
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PassingFair
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Wed Jun-08-05 11:17 PM
Response to Reply #24 |
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"the soul of a shopkeeper". To each his own, and "keep the aspisdistra flying".......
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Redneck Socialist
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Tue Jun-07-05 11:01 PM
Original message |
Only five? Ack, that's tough... |
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Melville Faulkner Kesey Cormac McCarthy TR Pearson
Honorable Mentions
Glen Cook Charles DeLint William Gibson Neil Gaiman JRR Tolkien
I guess I'll stop there before I list just about every author on my book shelves.
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SnohoDem
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Tue Jun-07-05 11:01 PM
Response to Original message |
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E. Hemingway J. Steinbeck J. Irving R. Heinlein P. S. Buck
but that's like the 10 best movies or whatever. Ask me tomorrow and the list will be different.
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Tyrone Slothrop
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Tue Jun-07-05 11:24 PM
Response to Original message |
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Martin Amis James Joyce Thomas Berger Umberto Eco Dashiell Hammett
And an honorable mention (since he's only written two): Jeffrey Eugenides
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Robeson
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Tue Jun-07-05 11:28 PM
Response to Original message |
18. OK, first, Gore Vidal. Then.... |
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...Arthur C. Clarke William Faulkner Robert Graves Ray Bradbury
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leftofthedial
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Tue Jun-07-05 11:33 PM
Response to Original message |
19. well . . . the list might change month-to-month |
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tony hillerman robert crais kurt vonnegut john nichols christopher moore
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mykpart
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Tue Jun-07-05 11:34 PM
Response to Original message |
20. Y'all are all so danged intellectual. |
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Here's my list:
Stephen King Anne Rice Dean R. Koontz Mary Higgins Clark Andrew Greely
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hfojvt
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Tue Jun-07-05 11:41 PM
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21. Hemingway is the worst |
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he tells a good story, but then he does not know how to end it, so he kills off all his characters or dumps a big bucket of sh*t on them. Maybe that is the point, but it ends up being pretty depressing reading for me. My five Poul Anderson Clifford Simak Dean Koontz Daniel Quinn John Brunner
Imagine that, almost totally sci-fi.
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mitchum
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Wed Jun-08-05 12:09 AM
Response to Original message |
25. Twain, Flaubert, Selby, Cather, Hammett |
Lone_Wolf_Moderate
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Wed Jun-08-05 12:13 AM
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26. Faulkner, Orwell, Twain, Hemingway, Steinbeck, |
Hatalles
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Wed Jun-08-05 12:15 AM
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27. Oh, I've got plenty but if I must narrow it down to five... |
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Edited on Wed Jun-08-05 12:17 AM by Hatalles
Here they are, in no order whatsoever:
1. George Orwell 2. Richard Wright 3. Charles Dickens 4. Charles Johnson 5. Edward Said
Ah... and just took another look at my bookshelf and I can't leave this one off...
6. Toni Morrison
Drat... took another look and because I already have Said on here, I can't leave off...
7. Noam Chomsky
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Heidi
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Wed Jun-08-05 12:28 AM
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28. Don DeLillo, Richard Ford, Isabel Allende . . . |
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Umberto Eco, William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac . . . about a jillion others.
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mark414
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Wed Jun-08-05 12:30 AM
Response to Original message |
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Flannery O'Connor
Sylvia Plath
Jack Kerouac
Bret Easton Ellis
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MuseRider
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Wed Jun-08-05 12:54 AM
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OK, lets see if I can decide.
William Faulkner Isaac Asimov Norman Mailer Alice Walker
and just for fun
Stephan King
At least that is what I would say today.
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Seneca
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Wed Jun-08-05 12:58 AM
Response to Original message |
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1. Miguel de Cervantes 2. Mark Twain 3. Jack London 4. James Baldwin 5. Ken Kesey
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DrZeeLit
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Wed Jun-08-05 12:58 AM
Response to Original message |
32. It's late.... or early.... and |
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my list is...
Kingsolver Clavell Gabaldon Shakespeare Updike
three for fun, one forever, one for USA....
but 5 isn't even enough I must own 2,000 books oi
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cestpaspossible
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Wed Jun-08-05 02:15 AM
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33. Pynchon, Kozinski, Maughm, Greene, Spinrad |
petronius
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Wed Jun-08-05 02:24 AM
Response to Original message |
34. Iain Banks, P.G. Wodehouse, |
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Patrick O'Brian, Rex Stout, Raymond Chandler (today, anyway).
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fleabert
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Wed Jun-08-05 02:26 AM
Response to Original message |
35. I collect Oscar Wilde books, but othewise I am a ho for books, I will |
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read anything really. except right wing shit.
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EstimatedProphet
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Wed Jun-08-05 02:28 AM
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36. Philip K. Dick, Walter Jon Williams, John Brunner, Sinclair Lewis, |
REP
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Wed Jun-08-05 02:35 AM
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38. G.B. Shaw, Twain, Toole, Kornbluth, Nabakov |
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Okay, they're not all novelists and one only wrote one novel (John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces*) but they're all essential.
*The Neon Bible doesn't really count
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non sociopath skin
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Wed Jun-08-05 02:42 AM
Response to Original message |
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Charles Dickens James Joyce Gore Vidal Thomas Hardy Emile Zola
The Skin
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SKKY
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Wed Jun-08-05 03:59 AM
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40. Ok, no comments. It's my list, not yours... |
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Herman Hesse Stephen King Caleb Carr Hemingway Michael Crichton
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NMMNG
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Wed Jun-08-05 04:35 AM
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Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, George Orwell, Upton Sinclair, Ray Bradbury
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Hippo_Tron
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Wed Jun-08-05 04:51 AM
Response to Original message |
42. I like Hemingway and I don't like Hemingway |
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Hemingway is one of those existentialist authors that tells those who base their life off of religion, that their life is meaningless. On the other hand, he also says that life is meaningless no matter what. I guess I need to be more depressed to fully appreciate Hemingway.
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Lannes
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Wed Jun-08-05 06:25 AM
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43. In no particular order |
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John Updike
Tom Wolfe
Earnest Hemingway
Toni Morrison
Ray Bradbury
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khashka
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Wed Jun-08-05 07:22 AM
Response to Original message |
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Robert A. Heinlein Jane Austen Iain Banks Poppy Z. Brite Dorothy Allison
But honourable mentions go to: Kate Orman and Paul Cornell
Khash.
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Burma Jones
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Wed Jun-08-05 07:40 AM
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46. Vonnegut, Hemingway, Robertson Davies, J.K. Toole, Tolkien |
bertha katzenengel
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Wed Jun-08-05 07:42 AM
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Sinclair Lewis Sue Monk Kidd Betty Smith Rita Mae Brown Charles Dickens
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enigmatic
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Wed Jun-08-05 11:21 PM
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Charles Bukowski Sherwood Anderson Harry Crews Jack Kerouac John Steinbeck
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