Joe Lansdale

The author whose work I most look forward to reading.

Profane, violent, horrific, with the most totally unexpected plot twists... and often very, very funny. He writes mostly in the conversational style of his naive East Texas and has never confined himself to any one genre.

You’re as likely to pick up a horror story as you are a crime novel. Or a western, or a steampunk extravaganza. My only complaint: he writes so much I can't keep up with him.

Victoria Wood

Because she ‘just’ wrote comedy, most people don't give her credit for her fabulous turns of phrase and a talent for dialogue the equal of Alan Bennett. If you can ever find copies of any of her scripts - such as this omnibus - buy it. Because even on the page, her words are as delightful as they are when spoken on television.

roger ebert

Film critic for the Chicago Sun-Times for over 40 years, a man who genuinely loved films and who never failed to communicate that love. Even when he was knocking a film, he could do it so wittily that you were glad the film existed... to have inspired Ebert's review. (See Stealth.) One of the few critics whose work I read just for the way it's written.

Louis sachar

Holes is my favourite children’s story. I’ve read it three times and I marvel at its pace, its humour and the way its complicated plot clicks so beautifully into place by the final page. It’s a masterpiece.

If none of his other books quite reach that level of perfection - although Fuzzy Mud comes awfully close - that’s fine with me. He’s a wonderful writer.

Gerald Kersh

Little known now. Or so I thought until I checked on Amazon and found recent editions with introductions by Harlan Ellison and Michael Moorcock. So he IS still known, even though I've never drawn anything but a blank look when I mention his name.

Exhaustingly prolific, with a style totally unlike anything I've ever read. In his hands words spin, dive and swoop, hurling you along until you have to put the book down and take a deep breath.

Can’t deny, though, that sometimes he didn’t have so much to say and then hit you with nothing more than style.

So not everything he wrote is wonderful. But when he was on form, he was wonderful.

ross thomas

Another writer not so much heard of these days. But in the 70s and 80s, his crime and spy novels were like nothing else on the market. Cool, detached and clever, with a dry - very dry - sense of humour. In Briarpatch, a woman hands a suitcase full of illicit money to a fixer, to pay for illegal undercover work- and then asks him to sign for it. He does. Which prompts the following exchange:

'Benjamin Franklin,' she said. 'That's funny.'
'Yes. Almost as funny as you asking me to sign for it.'

Bill Bryson

I've been hooked ever since a friend gave me a copy of The Lost Continent. (Although I later found out that I’d been enjoying - and still do - his The Penguin Dictionary of Troublesome Words for at least six years without knowing it was by the same Bill Bryson.)

A Short History of Nearly Everything is my favourite book. (I've read it six times and will very likely read it another six before becoming one with the universe it so vividly describes.) The Thunderbolt Kid's description of an abortive swimming pool dive made me laugh so hard I cried. Notes from a Big Country is a fascinating snapshot of the USA in the 1990s. There’s something wonderful in almost all of them.

He's the only writer whose books I buy in hardback because I can't wait to read them.

Stephen King

After I read Salem’s Lot in 1979, I started buying everything he wrote. I kept on buying all the way up to Cell and From a Buick 8, when it seemed like SK had run out of steam.

Then along came Under the Dome, Joyland and 11.22.63, one after the other (not to mention the short story 1408, which had me looking over my shoulder in daylight - something written stories rarely do.)

He’s since followed them up with Elevation, Holly and Revival. Among others.

So I’ve gone back to buying everything he writes again - except for The Dark Tower. Somehow, I've just never managed to get around to those. At the rate he writes, I probably never will.

K.C. Constantine

Nobody knows much about this man. He never had a website. He rarely gave interviews. He liked his privacy and used a pseudonym for his series of crime novels set in the fictional town of Rocksburg, Pennsylvania.

Although he always made a point of solving the mystery by the end of each book, it’s obvious that he was more interested in the characters and the setting than the actual crime. He had a fabulous ear for dialogue - although I’ve got to admit that sometimes if does tend to overwhelm the story. But you always felt like you were reading about real people in a real world.

He wrote 17 novels. I wish he'd written 17 more.

Simon Winchester

A great storyteller. That's the key attraction for me. His books may not meet the exacting standards of academic history - backed up with footnotes and extracts from documents of the time - but what they do do is bring history alive. You keep turning the pages to find out more. I can't think of a greater compliment.

Favourite writers

Joe Lansdale

The author whose work I most look forward to reading.

Profane, violent, horrific, with the most totally unexpected plot twists... and often very, very funny. He writes mostly in the conversational style of his naive East Texas and has never confined himself to any one genre.

You’re as likely to pick up a horror story as you are a crime novel. Or a western, or a steampunk extravaganza. My only complaint: he writes so much I can't keep up with him.

Victoria Wood

roger ebert

Louis sachar

Holes is my favourite children’s story. I’ve read it three times and I marvel at its pace, its humour and the way its complicated plot clicks so beautifully into place by the final page. It’s a masterpiece.

If none of his other books quite reach that level of perfection - although Fuzzy Mud comes awfully close - that’s fine with me. He’s a wonderful writer.

Gerald Kersh

Little known now. Or so I thought until I checked on Amazon and found recent editions with introductions by Harlan Ellison and Michael Moorcock. So he IS still known, even though I've never drawn anything but a blank look when I mention his name.

Exhaustingly prolific, with a style totally unlike anything I've ever read. In his hands words spin, dive and swoop, hurling you along until you have to put the book down and take a deep breath.

Can’t deny, though, that sometimes he didn’t have so much to say and then hit you with nothing more than style.

So not everything he wrote is wonderful. But when he was on form, he was wonderful.

ross thomas

'Benjamin Franklin,' she said. 'That's funny.'

'Yes. Almost as funny as you asking me to sign for it.'

Bill Bryson

I've been hooked ever since a friend gave me a copy of The Lost Continent. (Although I later found out that I’d been enjoying - and still do - his The Penguin Dictionary of Troublesome Words for at least six years without knowing it was by the same Bill Bryson.)

He's the only writer whose books I buy in hardback because I can't wait to read them.

Stephen King

After I read Salem’s Lot in 1979, I started buying everything he wrote. I kept on buying all the way up to Cell and From a Buick 8, when it seemed like SK had run out of steam.

Then along came Under the Dome, Joyland and 11.22.63, one after the other (not to mention the short story 1408, which had me looking over my shoulder in daylight - something written stories rarely do.)

He’s since followed them up with Elevation, Holly and Revival. Among others.

So I’ve gone back to buying everything he writes again - except for The Dark Tower. Somehow, I've just never managed to get around to those. At the rate he writes, I probably never will.

K.C. Constantine

Nobody knows much about this man. He never had a website. He rarely gave interviews. He liked his privacy and used a pseudonym for his series of crime novels set in the fictional town of Rocksburg, Pennsylvania.

He wrote 17 novels. I wish he'd written 17 more.

Simon Winchester