Summer Blog Challenge: Day 67

Today's Challenge: Talk about your favorite author. 

I love to read and what I read depends on my mood and my schedule. For example, at the end of a busy day I will grab a magazine instead of a novel. Some days I may choose Rachael Ray, some days I choose National Geographic, and some days I grab Time. On a leisurely day, I might read an entire novel. Again, which novel would just depend on my mood. I could grab an easy to read Dean Koontz mystery but I might sit down with my copy of Paradise Lost instead. Or maybe I will choose to read in the Bible.

So you see, the point of telling you all that, is to help you understand why it is so very hard for me to answer this question. Who is my favorite author? Oh, today's favorite or yesterday's? Or tomorrow's?

The first author that popped into my head when I read today's challenge was John Milton. I love that Milton is challenging to read because I know that it's only because he was absolutely crazy brilliant. From the beautiful and heartfelt "Lycidas" to the complicated Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, I find Milton never ceases to amaze me with his words. There are very few things I have read more than once, but I have referred back to these works many times and I always see something new or remember something I had forgotten.

Then I thought, "wait a minute." Because what about Shakespeare? Who doesn't love Shakespeare? Romeo and Juliet is the most famous play ever, after all. And if you like a good love story, you have to love his sonnets. Shakespeare must have been a man of many emotions, because he wrote so many wonderful comedies, but then the same man wrote Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra.

But then I thought about how much I enjoy reading all of James Michener's novels. Now that man is a great storyteller. I can only imagine how much research must go into each of his novels to make them so historically accurate and so detailed. Of the modern authors I have read, I think Michener would have to be my favorite. I loved Caribbean and I fell in love with it's colorful characters. Reading Alaska only reaffirmed my desire to go there one day. And Centennial was so engrossing and so tragic. I read it twice, ten years apart. Really all of his novels are sad tales of how we humans destroy the places that were once so wild and magical and beautiful, but the characters are still so touching, so realistic, so real.

What do you love to read? Who is your favorite author? Is it easy for you to decide or are you in love with so many of them like me?