My life consists of just this: reading and writing.
I spend my entire day writing with classical or jazz music resting in the background. I spend my entire evening reading with classical or jazz music resting in the background.
As the years have gone by, many clients and acquaintances have asked me which authors have influenced my life, my career and my writing. What I love about this question is the fact that my influences and my favourites continually change as I keep discovering new writers, or the fact that my tastes have changed. (Despite my love of film noir, I likely wouldn’t be caught perusing 1920s or 1930s crime noir when I was 20.)
If you asked me who my all-time favourite author was during my teen years then I would without hesitation respond with Fyodor Dostoevsky or Francois Voltaire. Although I still admire these compelling and talented writers, I have turned to others for pleasure, entertainment, motivation and learning.
For those who have often wondered who my favourite authors are, here you go. These are my 10 favourite writers (in no particular order; I do not care about their personal lives):
- Agatha Christie
- Anton Chekhov
- Honore de Balzac
- Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Raymond Chandler
- Dashiell Hammett
- Woody Allen
- Henrik Ibsen
- Vladimir Nabokov
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Honourable mentions:
- Nikolai Gogol
- Leo Tolstoy
- Henry James
- H.G. Wells
- Franz Kafka
Perhaps this list will change in the next five, 10 or 15 years. Until then, these are the fictional writers that I admire, look up to and strive to be like. Without them, I don’t know where I’d be.
Andrew Moran 