Words and memories

You know, I really couldn't care less what colour your bra is, or where you put your handbag when you get home. But there is an internet meme I can get behind - 15 authors in 15 minutes.

The idea is to list the first 15 authors that come into your head, in no more than 15 minutes.

Here goes (I am ashamed to say that it may expose some pedestrian tastes):

John Irving

Minette Walters

Charles Dickens

Jane Austen

Fay Weldon

Margaret Atwood

Ben Elton

Barbara Kingsolver

Monica McInerney

Robert Heinlein

Jodi Picoult

Charlotte Bronte

Emily Bronte

William Thackeray

Tom Robbins


Okay, so that's 15. Funny the ones that came to mind. Some I love - Margaret Atwood, Tom Robbins - some I can barely tolerate -  Ben Elton, Charles Dickens (Sorry, but you can blame my ninth grade English teacher - Mr Pepperling).

Barbara Kingsolver makes the list because I have just finished reading - and adored  - The Lacuna, a fictional account of the time Leon Trotsky lived with Frieda Kahlo and Diego Sanchez. Just brilliant.

Margaret Atwood because she wrote the best ever "chick lit" - The Edible Woman - and then followed that up with some brilliant science fiction in The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crace.

Heinlein was my first foray into the world of sci-fi, and I became a reluctant fan, after spending years believing sci-fi fans were freaks with huge IQs and no social skills.

Irving, Weldon, Walters, all bring back memories of a youth spent absorbed in books and more books.

Picoult and McInerney are not exactly literature, but they are wonderful company late at night when the baby has woken you for the umpteeth time and, once again, you are sacked out on the couch with a hungry mouth on your boob.

The Bronte sisters, Austen and Thackeray. I can't think of one without the others. And when I think of them, I think of Sunday night drams on the ABC, with mum and dad in our little house on Henry St. My dad was possibly the only straight man in the world that loved costume drama.

Ben Elton I really want to like, and I have read almost all of his work in an attempt to do so -but it all just seems too clever by half. He is brilliant at writing BBC comedies and should stick to that.

Charles Dickens conjures up nasty memories of the pop quizzes of which Mr Pepperling was so fond. He called them Pepperdingers.

Tom Robbins? Still Life with Woodpecker. Get it, read it, you won't regret it. Funniest love story ever.