Litwit Lounge discussion

Great idea, Charly. Mine is LM Montgomery. Goodreads says I have read 23 of her books, which I think is everthing she wrote.

Mine is a little skewed because not all my "read" books are on Goodreads and because I include books I read to my children. So, I'm cheating and letting you know a few more than just one.

G.A. Henty tops the list with 33. He is one we used in school as historical fiction read-a-louds.

Next comes Max Lucado with 16. Most of those are my own, but about a third were books I read to the boys or used for my Sunday School class.

C.S. Lewis is my number three with 15. Some of those are still books I read my children, but I enjoyed them as well.

To get books just for myself you'd have to skip down to 6th. MaryLu Tyndall had 10 books listed and is a Christian fiction writer.

Charly, thanks for making us aware of this function! I wasn't aware of it at all, and it's definitely interesting. Another caveat regarding the results, though: the program counts books you've listed as to-read by an author along with the ones you've actually read, and also includes books about the author (at least if his/her name is in the title). This can affect the standings; C. S. Lewis is listed as my second most read author, with 15 books, but I've actually only read 10 by him.

Currently, my most read author is Anne McCaffrey; I've read 21 of her books over the years. However, this is somewhat misleading as to my own tastes; nearly all of these were books I read out loud to my wife, and she's the one who's really the McCaffrey fan (especially of the Dragonriders of Pern series). I'm not nearly so taken with her as Barb is, and I don't claim her as a favorite.

My second most read author, at 14 books, is actually Don Coldsmith. All of these were from his Trail of the Spanish Bit series, which were also books I read aloud to Barb; but in this case I liked them as much as she did. We haven't read any more of these since the early 1990s, though; our out-loud reading since then has gone in a different direction, more SF and fantasy.

Oops --scratch that "another caveat" above! Goodreads lists your to-read books by the author as well as your "read' ones, when you click on the number next to the author's name on your most-read list (which is what confused me earlier); but to get that number in the first place, they only actually count the ones marked as "read." So I have read 15 books by C. S. Lewis, after all. (I thought the figure of 10 --which I got by subtracting the to-read books and Wilson's biography of Lewis from 15-- just didn't sound right! :-) ) That makes him my second-most read author, and the top one that I've sometimes read just to myself. (Most of the listed books I also read to Barb, but that's another case of liking them as much as she did.)

Charly, for purposes of comparison, I listed all the Narnia books separately (I read each one in stand-alone copies, before I knew about the omnibus edition). And some of his nonfiction titles are double-counted, because I read them in The Best of C. S. Lewis, which is counted as well. So that bears out your point that the way books are entered makes a big difference in the author ranking!

Thank you Charly for an intro to this tool. There are so many features here I need to learn!

My #1 author is Charles Dickens followed by Jane Austen. I don't have all the books I have ever read, only those from right before I joined Goodreads.

Yes, thank you, Charly! To be sure I have not read 33 books by Hemingway, indeed, I have yet to complete the first one! LOL, I discovered a few other errors as well. Anyway, Alexander McCall Smith, Anne Tyler and Francine Rivers top my list as most read and are closely followed by Jane Austen, Lisa Samson and James Michener. Very cool tool!

I've tried to enter every book I've ever read (though there are a lot, especially that I read as a child, that I couldn't list because I've forgotten the author and title :-( ). In a lot of cases I have to make a rough guess as to the date I read the book; but I figure that's perfectly okay!

Me too, Werner

Shakespeare comes up as my #1...followed by Charles Schulz! That in itself tells you my interests vary. :)

:) At times, perhaps--especially earlier Peanuts. Quite a number of philosophical and religious references.