Auto-Buy Authors – Top Ten Tuesday

It’s another week of Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly meme hosted by the ladies at The Broke and The Bookish. This week’s topic is top ten authors whose books you’d automatically buy. Considering I’m a sporadic book-buyer and I also go to the library frequently, I may have to bend the parameters for this week’s Top Ten Tuesday.

The ladies at The Broke and The Bookish have already allowed some rule-bending: Top 10 authors or genres I’d automatically buy. I’m going to take it one step further and throw in “collections” and “topics,” and you’ll see why.

Authors

1. Joyce Carol Oates – I have a spreadsheet of all her published works, which needs to be updated since The Accursed came out. Several more books have been published since then, and I need to beef up my collection. My list also includes books published under her pseudonym, Rosamond Smith. Total in the collection so far: 29.

2. Past Professors – I know that’s really vague, but if I happen to stumble across a book by a past creative writing professor from my undergrad, I’ll usually snag it (most likely at a book fair).

“Collections”

3. Norton Anthologies – Maybe it’s the English major in me, but I’m a sucker for these anthologies. Short biography of the author, description of the time period and the published work? Yes, please! Total: 8.

4. Norton Critical Editions – See above. It’s great to get additional footnotes and essays in the “Critical” portion of these books. Total: 6.

5. Little Golden Books – This is truly heartbreaking. We probably had at least a hundred Little Golden Books, including Poky Little Puppy. I can’t explain my rationale for doing this, but I donated the whole box, which had other pristine-condition children’s books, to Goodwill. If I could go back in time and stop myself, I would. Now I’m on a mission to rebuild that library.

Genres

6. Historical Fiction – I think I should’ve minored in history because I really like it when books take on the essence an era or decade. Not only does it put the characters’ motivations in perspective, but it gives a good backdrop (only when executed well, of course).

7. Mystery – I’m into good mystery books every once in a while. In terms of contemporary mystery authors, I’ll jump on a Harlan Coben book.

Topics

8. Books about writing – Understanding an author’s writing process can help formulate your own process. I’ve read Life of a Writer: Life, Craft, Art by Joyce Carol Oates, and I’m hoping to get my hands on a few more, perhaps by Stephen King or Anne Lamott.

9. Fictionalized books about authors – Biographies and memoirs are somewhat rare in my collection, however, fiction novels that use real names as characters capture my attention. The Paris Wife, Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald, and Mrs. Poe. The only difficulty is that sometimes it’s tough to separate what’s fact from fiction and not take it too seriously.

10. Books set in France – This double-dips into historical fiction. This doesn’t necessarily mean French literature, even though it could, I suppose. I’m fascinated with France, French architectures and French history, so I’m always ready to jump on a book set in France, like Paris: A Novel by Edward Rutherford (Beware: That book is over 800 pages long and jumps across various storylines and time periods).

 

Who does your top ten include? Do you have ten authors you’d automatically buy books from? If so, how empty is your bank account, like I assume it would be?