While you are waiting for me to read The Epic of Gilgamesh, here’s something to think about. Who are your top dozen storytellers? Not necessarily the twelve best authors, or the authors you would expect to see on a classic literature site. Be honest – who are the twelve authors you re-read every year, or can’t put down?

Mine are (in alpha order)

• Richard Adams : Watership Down, The Plague Dogs : pinnacle of animal fantasy and builds its own mythology
• Jane Austen (yes, I know, but she is GOOD)
• Edgar Rice Burroughs : Tarzan, A Princess of Mars : sexist, racist, pulp trash, but he took me places I could never have imagined – perhaps an acquired taste?

• Agatha Christie : she defined the classic whodunnit, then screwed it around to make it unpredictable : try The Murder of Roger Ackroyd or Murder on the Orient Express.
• Charles Dickens : biting and funny
• David and Leigh Eddings : I have lost count of how many times I have read Pawn of Prophecy

• George Eliot : Silas Marner – simply brilliant. The single book I thank my high school education for.
• Washington Irving : nearly every word is magic
• J. K. Rowling : revolutionised childrens’ lives in the last decade by making reading fun again, deserves the praise

• Matthew Reilly : the nearest thing to riding a rollercoaster in your living room/study/bedroom
• Laura Ingalls Wilder : Little House on the Prairie series – not quite autobiography, but fascinating and heartwarming – try it!
• P. G. Wodehouse : Jeeves and Wooster, Blandings : laugh out loud fun

Do you agree with any of these??? I would be astonished if anyone agreed with all twelve. So who would you replace and with who?