It's so hard to narrow it down. If I were gonna pick just one, it would probably be John Crowley (Little, Big) by a whisker. May be the best book I ever read. Scott Turow. Charles Dickens, for the wonderful language. Thomas Hardy, for his exposition; the incomparable John Varley, the amazing Tim Powers (may actually be first), Richard Powers (no relation, far as I know), John LeCarre, Barbara Tuchman, Sebastian Junger; Malcolm Macdonald, a British author who writes historical fiction. Connie Willis (To Say Nothing Of the Dog, Passage), William S. Gibson, Joanna Russ, Ursula K. LeGuin. There's a wonderful cyberpunk book called Vacuum Flowers by a guy named Michael Swanwick; it's great. Edward Gorey, for the pictures. Wallace Tripp, likewise; if you have small kids, you really oughtta find a copy of Granfa Grigg Had a Pig or A Great Big Ugly Man Came Up and Tied His Horse to Me. Heck, find copies even if you don't have kids. (What can you say about a guy who draws a mouse taking off a pair of boots and saying "My feet hurt. Gad, how I hate anthropomorphism!) Theodor Seuss Geisel, for his wonderful earlier work like McElligot's Pool, To Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street, and If I Ran the Circus; you can have most of the later stuff. Rita Mae Brown, John Brunner. Roger Zelazny for his early work; don't care for the Nine Princes in Amber series. Heinlein for the early work as well. Larry McMurtry. I have an indescribable book by one of the Theroux, Alexander I think, called The Shinocephalic Waif; it's one of my personal treasures. Dee Brown. Martin Cruz Smith, for Gorky Park and Polar Star. These are some of the top tier. There are many, many more. Did I mention Robert D. Kaplan (Balkan Ghosts, The Ends of the Earth, Eastward to Tartary)? Oh my goodness, almost forgot Robert Louis Stevenson! regards, Bman