IT'S A BIRD, A TRAIN, A MEME! FIFTEEN AUTHORS IN FIFTEEN MINUTES

Something.
On Facebook I and several other people got dished a quandum.

15 in 15:
"The Invitation Guidelines: Don't take too long to think about it. Fifteen authors (poets included) who have influenced you and that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag at least 15 of your friends, including me, because I'm interested in seeing which authors you choose. To do this, go to your Notes tab on your profile page, paste the rules in a new note, cast your 15 picks and tag people in the note."


Okay. Here goes:
Dovbear, Gerbrand Adriaenszoon Brederode, Johan Fabricius, William Faulkner, Rudyard Kipling, James Legge, Wyndham Lewis, Meng Ke (孟軻), Vladimir Nabokov, Chaim Potok, Mary Renault, Tjali Robinson (aka Jan Boon, Vincent Mahieu), Phillip Roth, Jonathan Sacks, Rabbi Pinky Schmeckelstein, Shen Fu (沈復), Sun Wu (孫武), Su Shi (蘇軾), Joseph Telushkin, Tennessee Williams, Marguerite Yourcenar.

Yes, that is more than fifteen. I am easily influenced.

And note that I left out the author of the Song of Songs, which is Solomon's (Shir Hashirim Asher LiShlomo), even though that has probably influenced me more than almost anything else (I am, after all, a perverse man), primarily because I'm not at all certain who the author was.
And neither are you.


NOW SHOW ME YOURS!

I am particularly aiming this at Midianite Manna (Tzipporah) and Search for Emmes (e-kvetcher). As well as the Amphibian.


For reference purposes, here are the results from some other people.

Steffy Chou:
CS Lewis, Alice Walker (hate the bitch), Ken Kesey, JK Rowling, Vladimir Nabokov, Helen Gurley Brown, Germaine Greer, Harry Kemelman, Richard Brautigan, Jade Snow Wong, Banana Yoshimoto, Kawabata Yasunari, Tanizaki Junichiro, Takahashi Rumiko, Judy Blume.

Moshe HaKohen mi Oakland:
John Steinbeck, Jonathan Sacks, Oliver Sacks, Primo Levi, Amos Oz, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Benny Morris, Elie Weisel, Chaim Potok, Dorothy Sayers, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Russell Baker, Thomas Szasz, Murray Rothbard.

David B. in Chicago:
Naguib Mahfouz, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Bernard Cornwell, Thomas Wolfe(Original), C.S. Lewis, Thomas Merton, Yosef Baer Soleveitchik, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Marc Angel, David Hartman, Gilbert K. Chesterton, Isiaiah Berlin, Andre Brink, Nadine Gordimer, Max Lucado.

Steven H. also in Chicago:
Tom Wolfe, Hunter Thompson, Doris Lessing, Mark Twain, Kurt Vonnegut, Joyce Carol Oats, Herman Wouk, Mike Royko, Dorothy Parker, Hemingway, Bob Woodward, Jay Mcinerney, Phillip Roth, John Keegan, Dostoevsky.

The instigator of this shtuss, Frank in the East Bay:
Tom Robbins, Shakespeare, James Baldwin, William Faulkner, Bram Stoker, T.S. Eliot, Robert Burns, Kate Simon, Douglas Adams, Violet Blue, D.H. Lawrence, Anthony Bourdain, Emily Bronte, Sam Harris, Roger Zelazny.


Please do feel free to join the fun. If you read, we want to hear about it.



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