Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Authors You Own The Most Books Of
Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. I am aware that it’s Thursday. I was inspired by sporadic book blogger Brie at A Slice of Brie.
The topic at hand is Top Ten Authors We Own The Most Books Of, which is making me twitchy even though I know ending a sentence with a preposition isn’t necessarily bad, and anyway, it’s a title, not a sentence.
I had a guess going into this, and a quick inventory of my physical bookshelves confirmed it: David Adams Richards is the winner!
1. David Adams Richards (8): Crimes Against My Brothers, Mercy Among the Children, River of the Brokenhearted, Friends of Meager Fortune, The Lost Highway, and Nights Below Station Street. Not pictured, but pretty sure they are kicking around: The Bay of Love and Sorrows and Evening Snow Will Bring Such Peace.
The guy has a way with titles. I went through a major DAR phase in the early aughts. Mercy is my favourite, but they’re all good. He keeps churning out a book a year, so I don’t know if I’ll ever catch up and read them all.
2. Douglas Coupland (6): Hey Nostradamus!, All Families are Psychotic, Miss Wyoming, Girlfriend in a Coma, Generation X, Eleanor Rigby
I haven’t read Eleanor Rigby yet and a couple of these are misplaced, so there’s still some work to do. If you have my copy of Generation X, please let me know!
3-6. Then there are a bunch with 4 titles each:
- Margaret Atwood: Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, Maddaddam, Cat’s Eye
- Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Sense and Sensibility, Emma (I do “own” the other two, but they were Kobo freebies.)
- Emma Donoghue: Room, Slammerkin, Astray, Frog Music
- John Irving: The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Hotel New Hampshire, A Widow for One Year (another collection I’d like to add to)
I don’t think 2 or 3 books really counts so I’ll stop.
I’m not much of a completist! I was surprised not to see Irvine Welsh or Edith Wharton (I apparently don’t own The Age of Innocence, which is not okay.) I’m pretty relieved not to see anything embarrassing; sorry Brie (I only own two Sophie Kinsellas, thankyouverymuch.)
So? Who’s the most popular on your book shelf?
Reading in Bed 
It’s good to see a Canadian author top a list in this meme – and an Atlantic Canadian one, to boot 🙂
Yes, I love me some maritime fiction! Any to recommend to me, sounds like you are familiar with the genre…
I think, living with two roomies, the author of whom we collectively own the most titles is J.K. Rowling. We own 3 sets of the books plus 3 of the British editions for a total of 24. We also own the two textbooks and the Tales of Beedle the Bard, plus The Casual Vacancy, for a grand total of 28. After that, we probably have the most books by Sarah Dessen or Angie Sage or L.M. Montgomery.
Wow! You’ve got me beat. I would love to have an extensive, complete collection like that one day.
Some great authors on your list! I’ve been meaning to pick up something by Douglas Coupland!
heres mine: http://eatupmyfreetime.wordpress.com/2014/07/30/top-ten-tuesday-top-ten-authors-i-own-the-most-books-of/
My favourite Coupland is Hey Nostradamus! but they’re all pretty good. I’ve heard mixed things about his latest though.
A reader after my own heart! David Adams Richards here too — by a long shot, and then it’s all over the place — Miriam Toews, Michael Crummey, Andre Alexis, Wayne Johnston, Tamas Dobozy, Rawi Hage and Mordecai Richler.
How many DAR are we talking? Complete collection?
I need more by all the other authors you mentioned. I’ve got a couple of Toews and nothing by the others… though I may have a high school copy of Duddy Kravitz somewhere…
I’ve got 11 David Adam’s Richards sitting on my shelf, and, like you, I know there are a couple more out on loan or kicking around somewhere — your list plus Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul, God Is, For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down.
For Toews: Complicated Kindness, Flying Troutmans, Irma Voth and All My Puny Sorrows
Michael Crummey: River Thieves, Galore, The Wreckage
Andre Alexis: Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa, Childhood and Pastorale
Wayne Johnston: Colony of Unrequited Dreams, Baltimore’s Mansion, The Navigator of New York, The Divine Ryans
Tamas Dobozy: When X Equals Marylou, Siege 13
Rawi Hage: Carnival, Cockroach, De Niro’s Game
Mordecai Richler: Duddy Kravitz (of course!) St. Urbain’s Horseman, Joshua Then and Now, Solomon Gursky Was Here, Oh Canada, and Barney’s Version,
That’s it, that’s all :>)
Ha! I can’t say I’m surprised by this. Although I wonder if you took into consideration the books on your kobo would some smutty skeletons come out of hiding!? 😉
The only smut I’ve read on Kobo is Dragon Bound and no, I did not buy the series 🙂
For me it’s Shakespeare: 5 Collected Works, 29 editions of individual plays, 2 complete sonnets, 1 narrative poems. (Let’s just not talk about all the peripheral criticism and what-not . . . ). Usually I have too much going on to do the B&B memes, but maybe I’ll try this one!
Nice! I’d like to see yours. I am very selective about Top Tens. This was my first one in more than a year. They are fun though. And a lot quicker to write than my usual posts.
Now, do you group them all together? I can’t seem to separate my collection of Carol Shields books. They belong together!
Oh no, my book shelves are a mess! This exercise made me think that I should really arrange my books by author though! How many Carol Shields do you have? I’d like to read more by her. Unless is amazing.
Unless is probably one of the best books ever written! My collection started with Republic of Love and ever since then I buy whatever I see that I don’t own!
How did I know that David Adams Richards would be no. 1 on your list? 😉
I couldn’t do this one if I tried. My books are currently spread over three different provinces. But I definitely know that Tad Williams (12) and Christopher Moore (10) are my top two.
I was a bit surprised to see Coupland at the top of your list. Didn’t realize you liked him that much. Or do you?
Yes, I do. I haven’t read much lately, but I have Elenor Rigby on my bedside table. This list is very reflective of my reading habits 5-10 years ago, when I had more disposable income and bought books. These days I do a lot of library and a lot of ebooks.
I don’t know how I didn’t see this when it was first posted! Great list, Douglas Coupland came very close to being on my list too, but I haven’t read many of his latest books (although a few are in the 746). John Irving is also a favourite!