Tim Winton’s a fantastic Australian noveliest. Cloudstreet is his most famous, although I haven’t read that one; the ones that I’ve loved include Dirt Music and Breath. Not such a fan of Shallows.
Tim Winton’s probably in my top 5.
Others…
- Cormac McCarthy: Blood Meridian especially.
- Tolkien: I’m not so sure about placing him in a “great” list, but since I’ve read Lord of the Rings so many times, I feel it’d be dishonest for me not to include him!
- Charles Dickens
- oh, let’s say, Margarget Atwood. (First instict is James Joyce, but someone wanted Canadian recommendations.)
I’m surprised no one’s getting all definitional. Greatest or favourites? I’d say JK Rowling is one of the greatest storytellers of our time, but that doesn’t quite put her in the “great novelist” category for me.
Jimipresley: Ian Banks overrated, or Iain M. Banks overrated? I’ve never read any of his literary “Iain Banks” novels, but “Iain M. Banks” is the only science fiction author I still read, unless you want to include Atwood’s MadAddam books.
Canadian recommendations: if you like short stories, Alice Munro is one of the best, but she doesn’t write novels. Atwood can be fantastic: Oryx and Crake, Blind Assassin, Robber Bride, The Year of the Flood… for me, she really hit her stride in the late 1980s, and I’m not such a fan of the early novels that made her famous (for example, The Handmaid’s Tale).
Roth: I’ve only read American Pastoral, and fundamentally did not get it.