Who is your favorite author?

I realize this is an unfair question. It's a bit like asking, "Who is your favorite child?" or "Who is your best friend?" You may indeed have a "best" friend, but you likely have many friends whom you cherish.

As I pondered this question, I thought about my bookshelves. I have the largest number of books by/about/related to these two authors:

William Shakespeare

C.S. Lewis

These two Englishmen have had a profound impact on me, but by naming them, I feel like I'm playing favorites. So here is a list of other authors whose writing has changed me, shaped my adult life and made me who I am.


Core Canon - word of God.

• The Bible
• The Book of Mormon
• The Doctrine and Covenants
• The Pearl of Great Price
• Writings of modern prophets of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

Personal/Spiritual

• Arbinger Institute - The Anatomy of Peace, Leadership & Self Deception
• Frederick Babel - To Him The Believeth
• Stephen Covey - The Divine Center, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The 8th Habit
  
• Sheri Dew - No One Can Take Your Place, God Wants A Powerful People
• Colleen Harrison - He Did Deliver Me From Bondage
  
• Gordon B. Hinckley - Standing for Something
  
• David Noebel - Understanding the Times
• Barlow Packer - The Soft Reply
• Ester Rasband - Confronting the Myth of Self Esteem
• Cleon Skousen - 5,000 Year Leap
• Corrie ten Boom - The Hiding Place, Tramp for the Lord
• Alexis de Tocqueville - Democracy in America
  
• Karol Truman - Feelings Buried Alive Never Die

Education

• Mortimer Adler - How to Read a Book
• Jacques Barzun - Teacher in America, On Writing, Editing and Publishing
  
• Allan Bloom - Closing of the American Mind
• Marilyn Burns - Math: Facing An American Phobia
  
• Oliver DeMille - A Thomas Jefferson Education
• John Taylor Gatto - The Underground History of Education
• William Glasser- The Quality School
• Kathleen Harward - Market Based Education
• Helen Keller - The Story of My Life
• Tetsuko Kuroyanagi - Totto-Chan
• Jane Claire Lambert - Five in A Row, Vol 1 -4
• Aneladee Milne - The New Commonwealth School
  
• Shinichi Suzuki - Nurtured by Love
  
• George Turnbull - Observations Upon Liberal Education

Classic Literature

• Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre
• Ralph Waldo Emerson - Essays and Poems
  
• Victor Hugo - Les Miserables
• Harper Lee - To Kill A Mockingbird
• LM Montgomery - Anne of Green Gables series
  
• Patricia Polacco - The Bee Tree, Thank You Mr. Falker & others
  
• Chaim Potok - The Chosen
• Harriet Beecher Stowe - Uncle Tom's Cabin
• Henry David Thoreau - Walden
• Laura Ingalls Wilder - Little House on the Prairie series

Whew! That was a pretty long post just to answer the question, "Who is Your Favorite Author?" Do you think I cheated by listing 40 of them?