At the start of every month I ask my Facebook followers to suggest some writing prompts and challenges and then I post the one I chose at the end of the month. For the second time I was most tempted by a non-fiction challenge from Becky Bekstar Paroz: What are your top 5 favourite authors ever? This question led me to creating more than one list and turned out to be the most expensive blog post I have ever written. Read on to find out why!

Top 5 Authors:

1. Stephen King – for his character driven stories, writing style, sheer volume and reliability and unforgettable horror! He really is the master and I got hooked on his writing aged 12.
2. Charles Bukowski – for his raw, honest, beautiful words about everything. The only author’s words I have tattooed on me. I picked Ham On Rye up in a book shop one day having never heard of Bukowski. That soon changed as I worked my way through his novels, short stories and poems.
3. Chris Whittaker – for the best, flawed, beautiful, heartbreaking and memorable characters you will ever come across. Plus his writing style and incredible plots.
4. SE Hinton – for inspiring me to keep writing as a teenager, for characters I fell in love with, for teaching me the skills of creating believable characters you root for.
5. Kate Rigby – for being my favourite indie author with a huge and varied catalogue of gritty, character-driven books.

Top 5 books:

1. The Catcher In The Rye – JD Salinger – one of the only books I can read time and time again and still get something new from
2. Watership Down – Richard Adams – for inspiring me to write as a child
3. The Outsiders – SE Hinton – for luring me away from animal stories and making me want to write about harder hitting topics
4. Ham On Rye – Charles Bukowski – for being the book that introduced me to one of my favourite writers and poets.
5. IT – Stephen King – for just being utterly epic and a book I could read again and again forever.

Top 5 Need to Read More From authors

1. Amy Reed – Nowhere Girls and The Boy and Girl Who Broke The World are two of my favourite books so I need to read more of her. After I wrote this post I ordered Invincible.
2. Alice Feeney – recently read and loved Daisy Darker, so have just bought Sometimes I lie.
3. Andrew Michael Hurley – I had The Loney for years begore I got round to reading it and after that quickly devoured the intensely creepy Starve Acre. I’ve just ordered Devil’s Day and I can’t wait. His writing and settings are so atmospheric.
4. Amy Engel – I was blown away by the disturbing The Roanoke Girls, then mesmerised by The Book Of Ivy and heartbroken by The Familiar Dark. I need more!
5. Sarah Pinborough – I absolutely loved 13 Minutes a few years ago then recently fell in love with The Death House. These are both YA books. I then tried one of her adult books, Insomnia, so have just bought A Matter of Blood to try!

(Thanks to this list I ended up ordering four books from four of these authors, hence this turning into an expensive blog post!)

Top 5 Everyone Should Read These Books

1. The Hate U Give – to have a better understanding of racism
2. Nowhere Girls – to have a better understanding of misogyny
3. The Outsiders – to have a better understanding of class inequalities
4. Tender Is The Flesh – to think about how we treat animals
5. The Forcing – to face the frightening future of climate change.

Top 5 Books that are as good or better than the TV show/movie

1. Lockwood and Co series – Season One was amazing and had me so hooked I bought the first book in the series. The writing is superb, and I’ve read the first three!
2. I’m Thinking Of Ending Things – the book was strange but brilliant. For me, the movie was just strange.
3. The Walking Dead comics – in some ways as good as the TV show, in many ways better
4. All The Bright Places – I just much preferred the book! The movie was just missing something.
5. Any Stephen King adaptation – many of them are brilliant but none of them will ever match the books!!