• Expendable said on Jul 28, 2006....

  [color=#669900]Hmmm. The Brothers Grimm. Sir Richard Burton. Jules Verne. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett. Andre Norton and Anne McCaffrey. Anne Perry and Ellis Peters. T.S. Elliot and Edgar Allan Poe. James Gardner and Jonathan Gash. Sir John Mortimer. I'm sure there's others.[/color]

• carmachu said on Jul 28, 2006....

  Andrew Dice Clay. Denis Leary. Anything rude and obnoxious.

• 'smereldazfriend said on Jul 28, 2006....

  Is it weird that I enjoy reading cookbooks as novels? A lot of them have very interesting stories in them.

• Expendable said on Jul 28, 2006....

  [color=#669933]Which one?[/color]

• Alyss said on Jul 28, 2006....

  Some recipe books can be quite interesting to read. The Nigella Lawson and Gary Rhodes books would fall into that category imo. As for what has influenced me? Tolkien (can't believe I'm the first to mention him, Julian May, Thomas Hardy, the Brontes, Jane Austin, Richard Adams, Lindsey Davis, Alison Weir, Kahil Gibran, Lao-Tzu and the poets Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen have probably been the most influential in one way or another. Footnote: I expect as soon as I submit this I will have a 'doh' moment and recall someone else.

• silverwhisper said on Jul 28, 2006....

  alyss: siegfried sassooon & wilfred owen?! i only know a handful of their works but i love the ones i know! the mrs owns a korean cookbook which is chock-full of stories by the author of growing up in korea and memories of her childhood. ed

• Alyss said on Jul 28, 2006....

  I actually prefer Owen to Sassoon and have compilations of their works along with other First World War poets. The imagery just captivates me. The horror, shock and awe is almost overwhelming. I was lucky to have an excellent English teacher in my teens who ironically was from the Bronx who pointed me toward their works. Then he spoiled it by coming on to me but that's another story...

• Alyss said on Jul 28, 2006....

  I have read that book (7 Habits of Highly Effective People) but I wouldn't say it really influenced my writing style. My management style yes.

• silverwhisper said on Jul 28, 2006....

  in fairness, i also asked about writers that influenced your thinking. ed

• Pa.N.da said on Jul 28, 2006....

  Would Rich Schefren be considered a writer? He's the latest writer who influenced my marketing thoughts. I don't know but for me, I always seem to find something fascinating from most things I read. I also seem to like Edgar Allen Poe as I find his poems quite interesting.

• purple said on Jul 28, 2006....

  Tolkien, Shakespeare, Bob Dylan, Maya Angelou, C.S. Lewis, Lewis Carroll, Oprah, (don't hurt me), Robert Frost, my mentor Ray Bradbury, Lennon, Jim Croce, William Blake~those are the ones I can name off the top of my head. BTW, are any of you in the Literotica Survivor contest?

• hotaka said on Jul 28, 2006....

  I am still hoping someone really intelligent and witty will influence me but alas, my brain just can't handle it. I can appreciate intellectual humour, but I just can't reproduce it. I think I write like a first year college student.

• silverwhisper said on Jul 28, 2006....

  purple: no, but that's b/c i have a hard time coming up w/ stuff to enter in lit contests. you're a litster? do i know you by another name? ed

• aeschylus said on Jul 29, 2006....

  Mark Twain is my first contemporary preference. Mortimer J. Adler, who wrote "How to Read a Book" -- opened my eyes to a new world of literature, including history, science, and everything else. James Mitchner, who can surprise me every time with his subtle tricks, particularly in Chesapeake. Most of the authors previously mentioned, but I'll limit myself to three.

• purple said on Jul 29, 2006....

  To Silver...I just signed up last night.

• Susmaryosep said on Jul 29, 2006....

  anyone heard of "P.G. Wodehouse" ?? I got 70 of his 91 books...

• Susmaryosep said on Jul 29, 2006....

  Purple... Oprah is a writer/thinker...? :-(

• purple said on Jul 29, 2006....

  She doesn't just sit on her butt and read cue cards.

• Susmaryosep said on Jul 29, 2006....

  Oh! That makes her an author/thinker/writer?

• Chimaera said on Jul 29, 2006....

  Authors that have influenced me... hmmm... In no particular order and probably missing many: Aristotle Plato Rene Descartes David Hume Immanuel Kant Thomas Kuhn Jerry Fodor William Casebeer (yes, that's really his name) Frank Herbert (Dune is the *best* science-fiction novel ever, bar none, IMHO) Steven Brust These writers, whether explicitly philosophical or not, have had a tremendous influence on my thinking. I'd mention the Bible, but I don't think you can live in modern western civilization *without* being profoundly influenced by the Bible, whether or not your religious or have even read it.

• Chimaera said on Jul 29, 2006....

  Oh, BTW, hi ed ;)

• silverwhisper said on Jul 29, 2006....

  chimaera: hey, man! ed

• hotaka said on Jul 29, 2006....

  I gotta give a nod to Frank Herbert. That guy wrote books with so much wisdom and thought that it was incredible. It's like he understood everything about how government, religion, politics, science, society, psychology, and humanity works. You can't read his books without feeling that you are being enlightened somehow.

• Chimaera said on Jul 29, 2006....

  You know it, hotaka... when the 'science' in science-ficiton is ecology and political science, you know you're dealing wiht somehting original, no doubt ;)

• hunter_boyce_chandler said on Jul 29, 2006....

  Your going to think this is bullshit I know. I am always influenced by writers that have a "voice". In other words those people who spill words from their heart with no pretense. It is a pure innocence that can not be faked. For fun I read Irving, Updike, Vidal, King, Koontz, Gerritsen and Chrichton. For the shear love of the languange I read Douglas Adams. Lately I have found a family of writers that have the "voice" I crave; silverwhisper, Nekid Professor, SithBorg, hotka, Dr. Z, allaroundgirl, Prewdaug, lidstom, Movieguru, Anna and I really miss MaggieMae.

• Chimaera said on Jul 29, 2006....

  Doesn't sound like bullshit to me, hunter... And while I'm not personally fond of your last four authors, I love Irving, Updike and Vidal; your point about their voice is a good one and well-taken. "Creation" by Gore Vidal is a fantastic book, on eof my favourites.

• silverwhisper said on Jul 29, 2006....

  as always hunter, you humble me, sir. [bows deeply] and i've missed the hell out of seeing your posts, man. ed

• Chimaera said on Jul 29, 2006....

  Ooh, reading the bit about cookbooks reminded me... Alton Brown's "I'm Just Here For The Food" is an excellent read and organized in an innovative and interesting manner... his approach to sharing cooking lore is great: he reduces cooking to the management of three variables (heat, moisture and salt) and organizes the recipes by heat-delivery method. Definitely worth checking out...

• silverwhisper said on Jul 29, 2006....

  alton brown is like unto a god, i agree. ed

• happykat said on Jul 29, 2006....

  Dr. Seuss....my favorite. :}

• purple said on Jul 30, 2006....

  I miss Dr. Suess and Shel Silverstein. And Mr. Rogers for that matter.

• purple said on Jul 30, 2006....

  Oh, and since no one mentioned it (or I missed it) I have to give a nod to Will Rogers. Clarification? I took the title to mean authors or writers or thinkers, not that the person had to be all of the above. BTW, what is the difference between an author and a writer?

• silverwhisper said on Jul 30, 2006....

  purple: that was in fact the intended meaning. re: author vs writer, i was anticipating a distinction between authors of fiction and authors of other types of writing: e.g., essayists, playwrights and the like. :> author has, at least to my mind, become primarily associated, however incorrectly, w/ writers of novel-length fiction. and yeah, i miss 'em, too. :> ed

• Chimaera said on Jul 30, 2006....

  My first response was to place 'author' as a subset of 'writer', with 'writer' clearly being a more general term, applicable to all forms of writing, and 'author' being specific to creative works. Upon reviewing a number of dictionaries, however, it would appear that 'author' is the more general term, describing one who creates prety much anyhitng, written or not, artistic or not... Oh well, as ususal prescriptive and descriptive grammar are at odds...

• Chimaera said on Jul 30, 2006....

  Grrrr... I wish there were an edit feature... I am the typo king...

• silverwhisper said on Jul 30, 2006....

  don't worry about it, man. hell, zayda was giving me grief for failing to close a tag. typos, much like murphy, are an unfortunate fact of life. :> ed

• purple said on Jul 30, 2006....

  I embrace typos like I embrace all my other imperfections. I prefer the term 'creative spelling'.

• Expendable said on Jul 30, 2006....

  [color=#0066CC]and I'm fluent in Typo.[/color][color=pink]=^_^=[/color]

• ehab said on Jul 31, 2006....

  karl marx : ) . . no one else like him

• Alyss said on Jul 31, 2006....

  [color=deepskyblue] Re: TNTbefree & Stephen Covey [QUOTE] in fairness, i also asked about writers that influenced your thinking.[/QUOTE] So you did. Mea Culpa. [QUOTE] anyone heard of "P.G. Wodehouse" ?? I got 70 of his 91 books...[/QUOTE] Yes. I have read several Jeeves & Wooster stories and despite being a huge fan of the [i]Fry & Laurie[/i] TV series of that name have found the books to be somewhat inaccessible. [/color]

• truthblogs said on Jul 31, 2006....

  Barry Long without a doubt. Google him and have a read of some of the articles on his site.

• LittleMouth said on Jul 31, 2006....

  I think the writers that have influenced my thinking are Gunter Grass (I read The Tin Drum when I was very young so it was a formidable experience), Margery Kempe, Harriet Jacobs, Walter Benjamin, Kurt Vonnegut, and Edward Said. I was in theatre for a long time so I have a strong affinity for playwrights. These authors somehow managed to change how I look at theatre though often for personal reasons: Bertolt Brecht, Tom Stoppard, Henrik Ibsen, Nicholas Wright, Brian Friel, and Sam Shepard. The first page of Chapter 6 in Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children consistantly amazes me. Strange, I'm reading Covey right now for a political leadership class. Interesting he was brought up here.

• Warda said on Jul 31, 2006....

  The most influential writers in my life are, beyond a doubt, Marx and Nietzsche. Few writers (or individuals) are so revolutionary, and so comprehensive, in their vision, and I owe much of my intellectual development to them. I frequently get into arguments over their writings (and I welcome challenges!), but I do feel that one owes them credit, even if one disagrees with the specifics. As for fiction writers, Persian ficiton writers Sadegh Hedayat and Moniru Ravanipur are among my favorites. It's shameful that they aren't incorporated into more world literature curriculae; "The Blind Owl" by Hedayat is positively stunning, and Ravanipur's stories are evocative as to be unforgettable. Dostoevsky, Emma Goldman, all sorts of magic realism... A pretty ecclectic bunch, I admit, but all so important and influential in my own writing.

• bushchook said on Jul 31, 2006....

  Enid Blyton for a start. As a small child living on an isolate sheep and cattle station in outback Australia during the 1970s and early 1980s, imagination was quite literally my second best friend. Forget television. My first best friend lived six miles away and was three years older and I saw my handful of classmates on a usually annual basis at Sports Day and the Choral Festival - but hey, you get what you can! We had our own Fairy Tree out by the woodheap - never saw a fairy, but spent a lot of time looking and hoping, and riding on the lower branches (for some reason, attached an innocent rabbit trap by its chain one day). Thanks Nanna. Back to Enid. Who wouldn't want to taste a Hot Cold Goodie after reading its beautiful sticky, toffee description in The Folk of the Faraway Tree, or in The Enchanted Wood? All those lands at the top of the tree. Then there was dear little Anne Shirley, from the Anne of Green Gables series of books by L.M. Montgomery. Ginger hair, freckles, and "scope for the imagination" - what a role model for an eccentric little coppertop! Of course, Ruth Park's The Muddleheaded Wombat series still cracks me up. These are the earliest influences from the bookcase and the big green library bags which arrived on the mail plane every fortnight, from The Town Library and School of the Air. Don't ask how this all segued into Xavier Herbert, Irvine Welsh, Thomas Hardy, Dostoevsky, D. H. Lawrence, the miserable Brontes, etc.

• Hagondes said on Aug 01, 2006....

  Kurt Vonnegut for sure. H.P.Lovecraft for sure as well. Orwell, Dostovesky. I prefer to go by specific books instead of authors lest I appear to pretend to know more about an author than their one book which I usually dont. But Sinclaire's The Jungle is up there, Lord of the Flies, some snippets of Descartes, Marx, Neitzche, a little Lavey (satanic bible). Lately I have been really into political books, namely Greg palast.

• gloriabiggy said on Aug 01, 2006....

  Tolkien, CS Lewis, Enid Blyton, Elton John, The Beatles, the person who wrote the Jill 'pony books', sorry can't remember her name, does anyone know who I mean? Black Beauty, The Incredible Journey, Hores and Hound magazine, (yeah I like horses, cats n dogs). I read pretty much anything, its a way of escape from reality.

• Zayda said on Aug 03, 2006....

  Silver: I was giving you grief for not closing a tag?????? [blinks] I have taken a long time to respond to this because there are so many writers/authors who have influenced my thinking and, thus, my writing. For me, writing [b]IS[/b] thinking, so to influence my thinking means an influence on my writing in some way. Essayists/Philosophers/Rhetoricans/Theorists Ronald Barthes, Deleuze and Guattari, Foucault, Bahktin, Aristotle, Plato, Kant, Heidegger, Seymor Papert, Nicholas Negropante, Howard Rheingold, Sherry Turkle Novelists/Poets/Fiction Writers H.D., Richard Russo, Blake, CS Lewis, Byron, Salinger, Joseph Conrad, Ocativa Butler, Neal Stephenson, Don Delillo, Goethe, James Joyce, Iris Murdoch, Maxine Hong Kingston I have probably left out more than a handful. To be honest, this was a hard list to comprise because so many different writers appeal to me and influence me in so many ways.

• LayaMaria said on Aug 04, 2006....

  Robert A. Heinlein (The Dean of Space Age Fiction)--- I love "Revolt in 2100" and "Assignment in Eternity". Robert Frost's poems and his way of using one simple thing to convey layers of meaning. Sara Teasdale. Shakespeare's use of plot and language. Amy Tan and the way she brings to life her culture (I wish I'd written [i]The Joy Luck Club[/i]). Catherine Marshall's [i]Christy[/i]. The Bible. Emilie Loring (okay, that's not too deep, but I like the way her heroines always act like ladies...) Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters for her irreverent sense of humor and her ability to view the absurdities of life. Ricky Lee, who wrote the script for the Filipino film "[i]Himala[/i] (Miracle)", and Lualhati Bautista, for her social commentaries in "[i]Bata, Bata, Pano Ka Ginawa? [/i] (Child, Child, How Were You Made?)" and "[i]Dekada '70[/i] (Decade '70)". To name a few!

• LayaMaria said on Aug 04, 2006....

  I forgot to include Kahlil Gibran and Rabindranath Tagore, whee... Also Elizabeth I, Og Mandino.... waaahhh, I wish this thing had an edit feature!!!!

• schreist said on Aug 05, 2006....

  Hmm another good question - Who has influenced my through their writing... Definately Richard Scarry, Theodor Seuss Geisel, Bill Watterson, Robert E. Howard, Tom Robbins, Tom Stoppard, Shel Silverstein, Malcom Gladwell, Henry Thoreau, Edgard Allen Poe, Robert Heinlein, and CS Lewis just off the top of my head. The fun thing is that I sat and tought about what influence meant to me and it took me back, way back, to books I read as a kid. Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks from A to Z was an all-time favorite of mine when I was a tot.

• caerisa said on Aug 10, 2006....

  i don't know who influenced me but one day i just picked up my pen and started writing and haven't stopped ever since.

• theking said on Aug 16, 2006....

  Osho.Lau Tzu,Thoreu,Carlos Castenada and a host of others

• silverwhisper said on Aug 17, 2006....

  schreist: how did i forget richard scarry?! thanks! i'm unfamiliar w/ castenada. can you describe a bit about him? ed

• Anselm said on Aug 28, 2006....

  Searle's theories appeal to me, so he should be listed. Hume and Descartes, I suppose, have been a significant influence. I was somewhat of a sceptic at a very early age, however. I don't know where I got these thoughts. They just seemed obvious. It's hard to attribute them to anyone.
  
  I could name hundreds of authors I enjoy very much and read as I was growing up, but it's a lot harder to identify how they influenced me. How did reading Tolkien change me? It's not really clear.
  

• okelay said on Sep 06, 2006....

  j.d salinger, definitely. i have only read 'nine stories' and ' catcher in the rye' but i loved them both.
  also jane austen, especially 'emma' and 'pride and prejudice' i'm definitely elizabeth.
  
  j.r.r. tolkien. i thoroughly enjoyed the fantastic world he created and i also had fun translating his characters to the real world. his writing helped grew up and changed the way i view the world
  
  jules verne. absolute favorite.
  
  cs lewis. i started reading the narnia chronicles when i was around 9. ever since i must have re-read them a million times and they never cease to amaze me i am always finding new things in them. always discovering new lessons.
  
  herman hesse and 'demian' i really like the way he questions everything.
  
  ernesto sabato, the tunnel, i saw myself as one of the tunnel people and i understood what he talked about. i had to read this book in highschool and loved it.
  
  j.k. rowling and the harry potter series. with this book i started theorizing and creating my own world and stopped believing everything canon said. in a way, i think the potterverse is out of rowling's control.
  
  i love eoin colfier's artemis fowl too. how it is like a children's book but written for adults.
  
  well those are the ones i can think of now.
  

• dashwoodbennets said on Sep 28, 2006....

  jane austen
  
  anne sexton
  
  paula vogel
  
  nicky silver
  
  ernest hemingway
  
  kurt vonnegut
  
  tom robbins
  

• silverwhisper said on Sep 28, 2006....

  anselm: have you been able to identify the influences any more clearly?
  
  okelay: i'm unfamiliar w/ sabato's work. i shall have to rectify that.
  
  DWB: i don't believe i know either paula vogel or nicky silver. what particular works of theirs most influenced you?
  
  ed
  

• NobodySpecial said on Nov 15, 2006....

  I think pretty much everything I have read has influenced me one way or another- whether it be from liking what I saw to disagreeing with what I read.

• Susmaryosep said on Nov 15, 2006....

  right, nobodyspecial.
  

• silverwhisper said on Nov 16, 2006....

  but the question was: what people authors/writers/thinkers most influenced you.  certainly, a person interested in absurdism is more influenced by jean-paul sartre than by, say, a random ad jingle from madison avenue, no?  :>
  
  ed
  

• Susmaryosep said on Nov 16, 2006....

  I really can't say, or won't... :-)
  

• silverwhisper said on Nov 16, 2006....

  [trout-smacks sus]
  
  :D
  
  ed
  

• Susmaryosep said on Nov 16, 2006....

  what is trout smack? I know trout is a fish....
  
  

• silverwhisper said on Nov 16, 2006....

  that's when i take a trout and smack you with it.  observe:
  
  [silver approaches sus and bows]
  
  [silver draws his paired trout and smacks sus with them]
  
  see?  :>
  
  ed
  

• Susmaryosep said on Nov 19, 2006....

  Ouch! Now I feel it..... :-))
  

• inspiration2jms said on Jun 24, 2007....

  I would have to say that Dale Carnegie has done more to influence my writing and my thinking than any other writer.  Stephen King, in some of his non thriller contributions gave me a new view of writing but Dale Carnegie taught me to trust myself in his works.

• Susmaryosep said on Jun 24, 2007....

  Dale Carnegie???? Omigosh !!!! 

• inspiration2jms said on Jun 25, 2007....

  Do you know who he was Susmaryosep?
  
  He was a man that found, at an early age, that worrying was killing him.  So he quit.
  
  He wrote several books about it and these books led me to the development of my self cure for low self esteem, which is a milady that comes with heaps of worry.  Great books as well.  They are remarkably entertaining as well as informative.  But then, I am a history buff so I would naturally like them.
  

• Susmaryosep said on Jun 25, 2007....

  Of course I know Dale Carnegie, the self help guru.... Wish my son would read him.. :-)
   One question, he found out that worrying was killing him so he quit.... quit from what?
  
  
  

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