Authors & Books
Ranker.com creates lists using the wisdom of the crowd, the votes of its audience. Here are The Best Writers of All Time, and commentary from yours truly:
1. William Shakespeare: Hundreds of years later, his work is produced around the world in practically every language known to man.
2. Fyodor Dostoevsky: His big four are magnificent. No novel had more influence on me than Crime and Punishment.
3. Leo Tolstoy: I would place him lower, as both War and Peace and Anna Karenina, as magnificent as they are, are bloated by issues of the era that are tedious today.
4. Charles Dickens: Would rank him third. His work continues to be adapted to the screen. How many versions of A Christmas Carol are there?
5. J. R. R. Tolkien: Since I have not read any of his books, he would not make my list.
6. Homer: Although I enjoy screen adaptations of his work, I find both The Iliad and The Odyssey tough going.
7. George Orwell — Although Animal Farm and 1984 have been so influential, I would not rank him this high.
8. Edgar Allan Poe: Amazing legacy of poetry and prose.
9. Mark Twain: I’d rank this rock star of his day fourth.
10. Victor Hugo: Les Miz is a great story that suffers the same bloat as Tolstoy’s work. I’ve never read The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but I love the 1939 movie version starring Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara.
11: Oscar Wilde: I prefer his brilliant quotes to his literature. Here’s one: “True friends stab you in the front.”
12: Plato: Influential to this day.
13: Dante Alighieri: Not a fan of The Divine Comedy.
14: Alexandre Dumas: The Three Musketeers has the best plot of any novel I’ve ever read.
15: Ernest Hemingway: A terrific body of work. Not only is For Whom the Bell Tolls a great novel, it is a textbook on the use of theme.
16. C. S. Lewis: I’ve read only The Screwtape Letters and don’t remember anything about it, so he wouldn’t make my list.
17: Miguel de Cervantes: I was disappointed by Don Quixote — both times I read it.
18. Franz Kafka: Not a fan.
19: Arthur Conan Doyle: How many adaptations of Holmes and Watson have been produced? A true phenomenon.
20: Jane Austen: I’d rank her much higher on the strength of Pride and Prejudice alone, one of the treasures of western civilization.
Vote here: https://www.ranker.com/list/best-writers-of-all-time/ranker-books?
Speaking of books, here’s a new one by one of the small fry caught in the collusion witchhunt:
My thanks to the young man who bought a work of non-fiction and James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans; and to Lafayette H.S. alum Ralph, who purchased five works of non-fiction, including The Wisdom of Rabbi Nachman, an unusual choice for an Italian-American. I hadn’t seen him in a long time — with good reason. He moved to Staten Island. He was on his way to watch his son play baseball. The kid must be talented, as he starts for one of the premier programs in NYC — Tottenville H.S..
My Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Vic-Fortezza/e/B002M4NLJE
FB: https://www.facebook.com/Vic-Fortezza-Author-118397641564801/?fref=ts
Read Vic’s Stories, free: http://fictionaut.com/users/vic-fortezza
