Bookworm Enthusiast discussion

I thought I'd open a new thread to discuss our favorite authors of all times. What makes them and their work special to you? Have certain authors influenced you a great deal? what sets them apart in your opinion?

So I'm just gonna make the start. My favorite authors are Sylvia Plath, Emily Bronte, Shakespeare, Hemingway and Oscar Wilde.
I admire it when writers are able to set a certain mood or bring across a feeling without using so many words, when their characters become so real that while you're reading, their emotions become your own.
I think that the work of Sylvia Plath, especially her poetry, and Oscar Wilde are very thought-provoking, and they as well as Emily bronte and Hemingway don't go along with popular chlichés and metaphors but bring something of their own into their writing.
As for Shakespeare, he creates magic with his words, I think that he was a genius.

One of my favorite authors is Oscar Wilde, as well (you'd have to be blind- and not in a literal kind of way- not to recognize his greatness and genius). I have read most of his published works- if not all- and I strongly recommend everyone to at least take a look. Another one is Hermann Hesse. Demian was the first book I read by him and I found myself profoundly affected by it. Der Steppenwolf, however, absolutely changed my life and settled the precedents of what I've become. Siddhartha is, as well, pretty insightful. I like transcendentalism quite a lot too, so Walt Whitman and Ralph Waldo Emerson have been pretty relevant to me. Stephen Chbosky impressed me and might be my favorite contemporary author. I love Wuthering Heights for which Brontë is among my favorites too. I like J. D Salinger quite a lot. And Fitzgerald is a genius. I have a love-hate relationship with Bukowski and Cummings is just marvelous. I like some South American authors such as Julio Cortázar (I strongly recommend Hopscotch) and Ernesto Sábato (The tunnel). Vicente Huidobro is by far my favorite poet; he used to write in French and Spanish originally. I'd definitely recommend Altazor.
I'm traveling to the mountains right now and I'm not really focused -music is very loud!- but as soon as I remember more, I'll come back and add :)

I love Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Oscar Wilde, Hemingway, John Keats, Muriel Barbery and David Mitchell.
For the first five it's pretty obvious, for a reason they are classics. Their language is nearly perfect though in five entirely different ways.
Muriel Barbery showed me that French is a beautiful language though complicated and difficult.
David Mitchell can write in several styles, as you see in Cloud Atlas. As it is already difficult to write in one style this is amazing. And his stories are good too. Besides he's a nice and funny guy.

Jane Austen, Helen Keller, Alison Weir, John Keats, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and many more