Top Ten Tuesday: 10 Writers (Alive or Dead!) I'd Die to Meet + One.

Top Ten Tuesday is the weekly meme hosted by the book obsessed gals at THE BROKE AND THE BOOKISH. (We're ALL book obsessed.) Every week, a new topic. This week it's the Top Ten Authors (Alive or Dead) One Would Die to Meet. (I paraphrase.) Once you read mine, be sure and check The B & the B, for other Top Ten Lists by the equally book obsessed participating bloggers.

Well, I don't know about 'dying', but I guess if I were going to meet a long dead author, that's the way to do it. Presupposing we're all sharing the same after-life. Ha!

But maybe it's by way of a Mr. Peabody's Way-Back Machine. In which case I get to meet a long dead author and stay alive.

I prefer The Way-Back.

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The Top Ten Authors ( + One) I'd Die To Meet - more or less.

1) William Shakespeare

Well, duh!

2) Jane Austen

Double duh!

3) Charles Dickens

Triple duh!

Now we can get more reasonably down to earth. In no particular order, as usual:

4) Doris Kearns Goodwin

Because she is a great conversationalist and has dozens and dozens of interesting historical tales to tell - all of them true. I love when she rattles on. I'm a good listener. She wrote about FDR and Lincoln and knew LBJ. Plus growing up she was as rabid a Brooklyn Dodger fan as I was.

5) Rex Stout

I have a feeling he was kind of a grumpy guy, but hopefully he'd be on his best behavior and he would tell me all the stuff behind the scenes at Chez Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. (He was good friends with Lena Horne and her hubby, so he couldn't have been too grumpy.) Maybe we'd go sailing on his  boat. (I read somewhere he had a spiffy sailboat, but I can't confirm it.)

6) Roy Jenkins

Winston Churchill's biographer. I saw him once on Charlie Rose and boy would I love to meet him and just sit and listen to his stories. He said that Churchill was the 'finest human being to ever grace Downing Street.'  I want to hear more like that. I wouldn't want to meet Churchill who was an author in his own right. I'd be too damned intimidated.

7)  M.M. Kaye

Because I've read that she had a marvelous life (I'm planning on reading her very highly recommended autobiography this year) and she'd travelled all over the world AND she wrote some damn fine mysteries and some damn fine romantic adventures including, THE FAR PAVILIONS.

8) Naomi Novik

Because she writes the most incredible fantasy series featuring Captain Will Laurence and the dragon, Temeraire - one of my favorite characters in fiction. The books are set in real time during the Napoleonic Wars. Peter Jackson has optioned them and hopefully there will be a movie sometime down the line. In the meantime, the books are splendid enough.

9) China Mieville

Because he is adorable, sexy and weird all at the same time. Nah. It's because I've loved two  of his books (THE CITY AND THE CITY and KRAKEN) and I think he would be a fascinating conversationalist. Really. Actually, his style of writing is often referred to as 'the new weird'.

10) Barbara Peters (aka Barbara Mertz)

Because she writes the fabulous Amelia Peabody books AND she's an Egyptologist and an Archaeologist who has sailed up and down the Nile. I can only imagine the stories she has to tell.

11) Had to add one more: Jasper Fforde

Because he writes the ingenious Thursday Next books, the clever Nursery Crimes series and last year's artfully imaginative SHADES OF GREY. He has one of the most inventive literary minds I think I've ever been exposed to and lived to tell about. And how often do you meet a man whose last name begins with a double F? Now if only the Goliath Corporation would allow us to meet, all would be well.

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Note: I've been fortunate enough to have met a few authors over the years, even better I didn't have to die to do so. Most of them lived up to my expectations - especially two of my very favorites: Robert Crais and Lee Child. I can say no more. Ha!