Well, I stuck strictly to *favourite* authors, & didn't include authors some of whose works I've read & are very good, etc. Otherwise, yep, I could have included Somerset Maugham, Graves, Silverberg, Dumas, the guy who wrote The Red Badge of Courage (now *there's* an ACWar novel!), Philip K. Dick, John Holdstock, Austen, Peake, & many more besides. The ones I listed I go back to time & again.

I certainly wouldn't include Heinlein or Dickens though. Like Kate I enjoyed them in my teenage years, but then found I didn't like the way he wanted to keep moralising all the time (not quite as bad as Piers bloody Anthony got, perhaps). Plus his social attitudes, let's say, have dated rather badly! As for Dickens, I do read one from time to time, but I'm always astonished at his enormous reputation. He has the most appalling plots, founded on constant unlikely coincidences (often of relation), combined with the worst of Victorian verbosity.

As to books I can't get through, yep, I've false started on Moby Dick two or three times, but another one is Don Quixote. I normally don't have a problem with older writing styles, but I just cannot get going on that one!

Oh, & with all due respect to Shakespeare, I'd class him as a playwright, not an author - out of bounds, surely?! *bg*