If you could write books like anyone, who would you emulate? (best, Follett)

[GypsySoul22]

Originally Posted by maggie2101

J.K. Rowling

Me, too...I'd love to emulate her success. I could use a few million right now!!

[sgresident]

I like John Jakes and the way that he can take a cast of characters and move them through a generation. also, Jeffrey archer.

[Mooseketeer]

Really hard to choose but I would love to be as brilliant a writer as Chekov, Steinbeck, Oscar Wilde, Guy de Maupassant, Emile Zola, Toltoy, and Arthur Miller. Even a tiny speck from the shoe sole of their writing skills will do !

[Thyra]

Definitelly Barbara Tuchman...Not fiction, but she has a way of making history come alive!

[golfgod]

"Mark Twain". because I don't think anyone short of Shakespeare could turn a phrase so well. Also because at least one other author said he wrote "the most important sentence ever written in English"

George V. Higgins, because his writing makes you feel like you're in the room with his characters as they discuss their capers.

Bill Bryson, for easy readability and his way of turning a phrase. Always makes me laugh.

golfgod

[60'sGal]

Anne Rivers Siddons. No one can tell a tale of the deep South and the Lowlands like she can. She reads like a lazy river.

[cap1717]

Barbara Kingsolver, Shirley Jackson, Rex Stout, Steig Larsson, Michael Pollan

[Bunjee]

J.G. Ballard and Andre Malraux were capable of some bracing imagery, Ballard especially for its boldness and purpose. But I'd likely be choosing between Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Conrad, both able to conjure complex meaning in a language not native to them. It's pure literary imagination borne in human wisdom. For his humor and the intricacy of his themes, though, I think I'd ultimately go for Nabokov.

[bjh]

Originally Posted by ShadowCaver

So, bjh - what about you?

Probably Bill Bryson for the combination of information and humor.

[Coolhand68]

Elmore Leonard...no one does dialogue quite like him.