James Lee Burke, Ian Rankin, Anne Perry, Elizabeth George, Martha Grimes' Richard Jury books, Barbara Wood, Charles Todd, John Harvey . . . shall I go on?

Alexander McCall Smith, Taylor Caldwell, Sharon Kay Pennman, Umberto Eco

Christie, Marsh, Sayers, Heyer...the 4 Mystery Goddesses

Elizabeth Peters-the Amelia and Peabody series
Martha Grimes-the Jury series
P.D. James-the Dalgleish series
Miss Read
Angela Thirkell
Carolly Erickson-the bios, NOT the fiction
Sharon Kay Penman
Ruth Dudley Edwards
Michal Innes-the Appley series
Catherine Aird...the C.d. Sloan series

These are the authors I have to OWN, not just read. I enjoy
Margaret Frazer's Sister Fidelma series,
Jane Haddam's Demarkian series
M.C. Beaton-all three
Rita Mae Brown's two series set in Virginia around horses and other talking animals
Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver series
-but the latest from the library will do.

Here are some:
Ellis Peters
Agatha Christie
James Herriot
Patrick O'Brian
Miss Read
Rumer Godden
Dorothy Sayers
Kathleen Norris
Alexander McCall Smith - Ladies #1 Detective Agency series
C.S. Lewis

I just love the Ladies #1 Detective Agency series. I wish I could visit Precious and sit and have red tea with her.

I think Daphne du Maurier is the only writer that I was bound and determined to read everything she wrote, but I'm not sure if I have. Some of her books I count as my all-time favorites; but others I find embarrassingly bad (e.g., Rule Britannia). I guess because I call her my favorite writer I take it personally that she occasionally misstepped.

Other writers who mostly please me -- but sometimes infuriate, too -- are Paul Theroux, Bruce Chatwin, Simon Winchester, Brian M. Fagan, Mark Twain, George Orwell, Eric Ambler, and Charles Nicholl. Gosh, I just realized that I've listed all men, but I know I've liked many other women writers besides DduM...hmmm. Aha! Isak Dinesen is definitely one; Dorothy Dunnett is another. But I don't think I've ever been "obsessed" with any of them. It took my thirty years to get through Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles because I read them as they came out -- I don't think I could've taken them in a lump.

Unlike many of you who can read forty-three volumes by one writer back to back, I don't have the attention span and the discipline to get through more than about three volumes before I get antsy and want to read something, anything else...preferably in a genre or about a subject as dissimilar as possible.

Tony Hillerman
Christopher Moore
Barbara Kingsolver -- except I haven't read the last two
J.K. Rowling
Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books

I gave up being an author obsessive after I finished various childhood and much-loved series The William books by Richmal Crompton, Monica Edwards stories . . .the sort where an extended family of children solve mysteries and have adventures without the hindrance of adults.
I did enjoy for a time the books by Ronnie Delderfield, his Horseman Riding By and God is an Englishman series made into popular TV runs, although I don't think I would bother with them now.
I think these days I'm far more subject rather than author lead.

I'm with Frieda on having been obsessed with the works of Daphne DuMaurier, years ago.

Others have been Isak Dinesen, Miss Read, Rumer and Jon Godden, F.S. Fitzgerald, Alan Paton, Hermann Hesse, Knut Hamsun, poetry of Mary Oliver, W. Yeats, and T.S. Eliot, and novelist Alain-Fournier(although he only wrote one masterpiece, having been killed in WW I).

I author-obsess quite frequently. These are some of my favorites (in no particular order):

Nora Roberts (though not J.D. Robb)
Miss Read
Jan Karon
Bill Bryson
Tony Horwitz
Georgette Heyer
Beverley Nichols
Early Anne Rice (I gave her up after the third Vampire book)
Helene Hanff
Michael Perry
J.K. Rowling
J.R.R. Tolkien
Mary Stewart
Barbara Pym
M.M. Kaye
Alexandra Stoddard (who must be read in small doses)

Right now it's
Terry Pratchett
Ngaio Marsh
Tony Hillerman
Gerald Durrell
Georgette Heyer
Jennifer Crusie
James Herriot
Arnaldur Indriðason
Dervla Murphy.

When I was a child it was Enid Blyton, Astrid Lindgren, and a bunch of Icelandic authors, the only one of whom has been translated into English is Guðrún Helgadóttir.

In my teens it was
Agatha Christie
Victoria Holt
Mary Stewart
Phyllis Whitney
Desmond Bagley
Alistair MacLean

Dear Deborah47,

Taylor Caldwell? Me too!! You are the first person I have found that loves her books. I began reading her when I was 15 years old and now I am 48. She reigns still as an all time favorite. What books of her particularly did you especially enjoy? I would love to converse a bit and more so because you recognize how special her writing is.
Thanks,
Kim

Kim,

The Sound of Thunder, Grandmother and the Priests, A Pillar of Iron, Testimony of Two Men, Captains and the Kings, but for some reason Ceremony of the Innocent is my favorite. I don't know why it has stuck with me all these years. It took me a long time to get over how the children treated the mother. I started reading her in high school (ok, I admit that was over 30 years ago). Then of course I would pick Captain and the Kings and then The Sound of Thunder.

I would say probably these books more than anything set me up as an avid reader, especially of history. I like the way her characters aren't predictable- she will kill off a good character as well as a bad one and leave you in tears but then isn't that real life?

Kate Wilhelm's Barbara Holloway series. I don't recall the wonderful person who recommended her on this forum, but I am truly to indebted to him/her. I absolutely love this series. Am finishing the third book tonight and CANNOT WAIT for the next one, which will arrive in about ten days. We have family in that part of Oregon and are starting to travel up there regularly and Wilhelm perfectly captures its atmosphere. Barbara H. is a woman with I can identify and I find the other characters pretty well-drawn. The court scenes are terrific. I read the books slowly, as I don't want them to end.

Also loved Nelson De Mille, but read the first chapter of his newest book online and his writing and plot fell apart.

Also Ann Rule.

From years ago:
Simone de Beauvoir, especially "The Mandarins"
Albert Camus
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Frederick Forsyth
D.H. Lawrence

Goodevening Deborah47,
It's been 34 years for me! Her book that I most love, because of the exoticness of the land and characters, must be Glory and The Lightening. About the Courtesan Aspasia? I reread that so many times. I love the way she expresses the inner thoughts of the characters. The way you feel the colors of fabrics and stone, textures and scents and emotions. That may be my favorite book period. It has been a long time since I last read it. A box of books of mine was lost during a move years back and what with the never ending expense of day to day, well, some things were never replaced. It's high time I did. Glory and the Lightening, then a Tale of Two Cities.

For good, old-fashioned relax-in-the hammock reading, I craved the writing of Pat Conroy, Bill Bryson, Alice Hoffman, Anne Tyler, and Barbara Kingsolver, to name a few. Unfortunately, these all seem to have reached their pinnacles and their books are slow in coming now, have ceased entirely, or don't seem to have that certain something the earlier books had. Too bad.
There was a time when I waited for each new Michener book. Haven't been able to obtain a copy of the one I heard he wrote entitled "Heaven." Bet it's a good one.

Deborah and Livia-I am another long time Taylor Caldwell fan-I read all her books many years ago and actually should begin to reread them now. My favorites are Dear and Glorious Physician, Captains and the Kings and Great Lion of God.
I also loved all Anya Seton's books as well as The Morland Series.
More recently I'd say Barbara Wood perhaps and the Harry Bosch series.