Can anyone recommend me good modern authors?

I think you would really like Tom Robbins' stufff - Still Life with Woodpecker, Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas. The titles sound ridiculous, but he is a great writer who interweaves ideas, themes, and symbols creatively and artistically.

Also Thomas Pynchon is probably one of the better contemporary authors, especially if you like Faulkner.

Also John Updike, if you want someone who is a bit more 'mainstream' but still an excellent author.

If you want something a bit lighter, but still intelligent and significant, check out John Irving - Prayer for Owen Meany, World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules. His stuff can be read on many levels; he consciously tried to make good literature accessible to many people.

Oh yeah, and Salmon Rushdie. (Midnight's Children, The Satanic Verses)

I have to say JK Rowling has a knack for taking you away. It is something about how she rights. I also like some of Terry Brooks and Michael Crichton's books. But the latter may be more toward Clancy (although not the same). Jurassic Park was my first experience with Crichton, and it was as thrilling, if not more so, than the movie.

Where the Red Fern Grows is a great book for any age, it is by Rawls. It is very emotionally engaging.

Crichton will make you think, the others take you away. Of course, Rowling does have a strong premise throughout her books. They get more emotionally engaging with each volume. Her best being her last books, but they tend to build on each other. When I was first reading them to my son, I got to a point where I could no longer stop reading when he would fall asleep. That was in book 2, and that intesified with each volume. I have found that others, that wouldn't normally read those types of books, have had the same experiences. Fantasy is the last thing my dad would read, but he enjoyed Rowling emensely.

Also, if you explore some of the mugglenet forums for each book as you read them, you can see how something so simple can really get you thinking. It can challenge you in a way that people don't always do (except maybe soap enthusiasts, still it isn't the same).

Neil Gaiman

Novels

American Gods • Anansi Boys • Angels and Visitations • Coraline • Fragile Things • Good Omens • The Graveyard Book • InterWorld • M is for Magic • Neverwhere • The Sandman: Book of Dreams • Smoke and Mirrors • Stardust • A Walking Tour of the Shambles

Short fiction

"Murder Mysteries" · "Snow, Glass, Apples" (adapted as Two Plays for Voices) • "We Can Get Them for You Wholesale" • "A Study in Emerald"

Comics & graphic novels

Angela • Black Orchid • The Books of Magic • Mr. Hero the Newmatic Man • Death: The High Cost of Living • Green Lantern/Superman: Legend of the Green Flame • Harlequin Valentine • The Last Temptation • Death: The Time of Your Life • Eternals • Marvel 1602 • Midnight Days • Miracleman • Only the End of the World • The Sandman • The Sandman: Endless Nights • The Sandman: The Dream Hunters • Signal to Noise • Tekno Comix • The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr. Punch • Violent Cases

Screenplays

Babylon 5: "Day of the Dead" • Beowulf · Coraline · Neverwhere · MirrorMask · A Short Film About John Bolton · Stardust · Death and Me

Non-fiction

Don't Panic: The Official Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Companion

Thomas Pynchon is an excellent contemporary author, although some of his novels are very challenging to read. The changes in narrator voice and perspective in “The Sound and the Fury” are simple and orderly compared to those in “Gravity’s Rainbow.” “The Crying of Lot 49” is a good Pynchon novel to start with. I felt the emotion of the narrator while I read it, albeit a spiraling decent into madness.

Also, on the complete other end of the spectrum, I would recommend Ray Bradbury’s “Dandelion Wine.” I definitely felt transported in a wonderful, warm, nostalgic way while reading it.

If you like good science fiction at all, I would recommend John Crowley. “Engine Summer” is delightful and haunting. I’m told “Little, Big” is even better, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

Happy reading!

Some of my favorite authors:

Toni Morrison

Karen Tei Yamashita

Sandra Cisneros

Zora Neale Hurston

Douglas Adams

Charles Bukowski

Kurt Vonnegut

Stephanie Elizando Griest

Valarie Martin

Tim O'Brien

Fannie Flagg

Chinua Achebe

Art Spiegelman (graphic novels)

Francisco Goldman

Hanif Kureishi

Those are a few of my favorite authors.

H

Kurt Vonnegut, Carl Hiaasen, WEB Griffin (historical fiction - if you are interested in getting to know characters over several books, his series The Corps details the life of a guy name McCoy beginning as a China Marine just before WWII into the Korean War - adds something that Clancy misses in historical fiction).

A book that really takes you to quite literally a different world is Harry Potter. Then there's Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series, also something I always recommend. It's in our world and an unspecified (but clearly recent) time, yet as some of the characters are vampires and they live quite differently, it still seems to take you to a different world of sorts.

Hope I helped, and I hope you take my advice to read those books!! They're fantastic, both of the series!

You might try anything by Joyce Carol Oates,her novel,Blonde,a take on the Marilyn Monroe legend(and subsequently made into a tv movie starring Poppy Montgomery) is a great read and is full of telling insights.

TL

Robert Jordan

John Grisham or Dean Koontz