Who are the writers you have read everything published by, or essentially everything? I must admit, I like to try to read all of a writer's output. Or as much of it as I can. I guess this is my collector-nerd side coming out (long repressed, in a cage inside me, being poked by a hideous monster) so to name a few I have read: -every known work H.P. Lovecraft ever published. -all of Virgil's known output (not including the apocrypha) -every poem and most letters by John Keats -most of George Orwell, including all his books, essays, letters, and even his diary. How about you? I hope I am not the only one who does this!
Nope, not the only. For one thing, I find prospecting for good writers frustrating. I get annoyed by all the hacks I encounter in the process. So when I find someone whose writing is fresh and warm, I want to go back and read more. Often, I can even see the evolution of the writer's style from the earliest slightly awkward energy of the breakout pieces to the meandering self-indulgence of the seasoned and overconfident past-prime writer. Sometimes I do sour on a writer as a result. I like Heinlein's earlier works more than his later tomes. Asimov remained steadier over the years, but even so, some of his most recent works had a bit more eloquence but less spark. Larry Niven's Known Space stories, earlier in his career, shine far brighter than his work in the pst couple decades, and the original Ringworld remains forever out of reach of the sequels. On the other hand, there are writers like Sue Grafton, who always seem to surpass themselves with each new release.
Not much of a completist, I'm afraid. I always mean to read more of a writer's work if I've enjoyed something and I do, up till a point, but then get distracted and go off on a different direction. Variety is the spice of life and all that. Even with music, which really was always my first love, there's relatively few artists that I own their entire back catalogue.
I used to do this with science fiction writers when I was a kid. I read all of Arthur C. Clarke up to Rendezvous With Rama, but I think I've skipped everything since. I read all of Heinlein's stuff (except a few of his juvenile things) up to Time Enough for Love. I got more interested in my dad's bookshelf after about 1974 and started being more diverse. Some Steinbeck, most Hemingway, some Burgess, Kipling, Conrad. Eventually I'll get completist about those writers, but probably not many others.
I would say Harper Lee, but she published a bunch of articles back in the 1960s that I don't think I'll ever read. I've read Salinger's only novel and a bunch of his stories, but again, there are a bunch of obscure things of his that I'll probably never read. If you think about it, it's really hard to read all the works of a particular writer because not everything is published or made available to the public. In some cases, like with writers who lived thousands of years ago, works have been destroyed and lost to history.
I have several authors whose books I automatically buy. Like Cogito, I find it really hard to find new writers that I really enjoy, so when I do, I stick with them until they start getting complacent. Luckily, that's only happened a couple of times over the years.
David Drake, David Weber, Jim Butcher, Donald Hamilton, Robert Adams, Christopher Stasheff, James White, Andre Norton, Alistair MacLean, Simon Hawke, James P Hogan, H Beam Piper, Richard Kadrey, James H Schmitz, John Ringo, Larry Correia, Allan Cole+Chris Bunch. I'm sure there's more that I've momentarily forgotten. Others I didn't read all their short stories or particular series.
Sadly, in my teens I thought I had a thing for Chuck Palahniuk. It was purely situational, as I was indeed an angry young person, far too angry to read anything taxing on the nervous system. Since then I have trailed his books in hopes of finding the same assuaging tones from Fight Club, but with every work I was the more mistaken. At the very least I can say that he had about three books I don't regret reading. The hack to end all hacks nowadays, him. It's a good thing I read A Clockwork Orange and To Kill a Mockingbird directly after regaining my full consciousness.
If I find a writer whose style I love I'll search down all their works. But I don't necessarily read all. If I can't get into the story, I won't read it just cause so-and-so wrote it. I've got nearly all of Nabokov's works and even read some of his letters and lectures - but I couldn't get into a couple of his earlier books. I forced myself to read some of them just to see how much his writing has changed - however, it felt more like homework. Plus, some writers I feel are stuck in a groove saying the same things over and over and so I stop reading them once I've heard all I want from them. I felt this way about Atwood, Dennis Cooper, and Francesca Lia Block. I think genre is the easiest to read a writer's entire list because the books ultimately don't have an agenda other than to entertain. If I could find every Ruby Jean Jensen I'd read them all, ditto Joy Fielding.
All of Joe Abercrombie, Margaret Elphinstone, James Welch, AB Guthrie, Mary Stewart (even her final couple of books which weren't a patch on the bulk of her stories) most of Kage Baker, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Fred Gipson (I think) Wayne Johnston, Alastair MacLeod, Robertson Davies, and currently working my way through Richard Wagamese and Terry Pratchett. These are all authors I sit down to with a great deal of confidence because I know I will enjoy what they write. I look forward to more books from these authors who are still alive, and mourn the passing of the ones who aren't - especially those like Kage Baker and James Welch, who went WAY way way too soon.
Hmmm... Ernest Hemingway - everything except Across the River and Into the Trees. James A. Michener - all of his fiction except The Fires of Spring, The Bridge at Andau and Rascals in Paradise (written with A. Grove Day) and most of his nonfiction Leon Uris - everything except Battle Cry C. P. Snow - the entire Strangers and Brothers series. As far as I know, he only wrote one other work of fiction (don't recall the name). Herman Wouk - everything except Marjorie Morningstar and Youngblood Hawke (currently awaiting me on my book shelf). Allen Drury - I read his entire Advise and Consent series, but nothing else (well, I started A God Against the Gods but dozed off before the end of Chapter One). Anthony Trollope - all six Palliser novels and Barchester Towers. Elizabeth Kostova - both The Historian and The Swan Thieves. I'm enjoying watching her writing style mature. James Thurber - pretty much everything he ever published in book form. John Jakes - the entire Kent Family Chronicles (for reasons known only to God - at least I learned how not to write historical fiction).
If I find an author I really like I'll read most but not always all. Especially if they write more than one series...there are many times I get attached to one but am disconnected from another. Anne Rice, for example. I loved her Mayfair Witches series but only got three books into the Vampire Chronicles one. Elizabeth Peters is an author who supplied my beach reading for many summers but again, I had a series I cared for (Amelia Peabody Emerson) more than some of her other stuff. I'm picky with subjects so if it doesn't sound interesting to me, I generally won't read it (or might try and not finish) no matter who it's by. As for reading anything and everything by someone, it's usually the classics...Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus, Plato, Virgil. What started out in school studies spilled into recreation. I have an 1895 copy of Virgil's Æneid (not old by collector's standards, but old to me) that I just treasure. I've also read all of Jane Austen, Sylvia Plath, Poe, and Hemingway.
Do you include the posthumously-published work in this? Hemingway seemed nearly as prolific after his death as before. He said once that he'd published everything he wanted to publish; he didn't want people going through his papers after his death and publishing what they find there, because it wasn't finished to his satisfaction. I know his family and editors took some flack for finishing and publishing some of that posthumous material, especially the last couple of books (True At First Light was the last one, I think - the bottom of the barrel has been scraped clean). But I did enjoy A Moveable Feast.
If we're not including works published posthumously, then I've read most (perhaps even all) of Kafka's works.
@Lemex I'm currently struggling with the Unknown Kadath - leaving me only with the bulk of H.P.'s poetry that I'll skip for now Completed bibliographies...hm... . Most of Dostoyevsky (except for all those letters, journals, articles etc) . Most of Tolstoy (except for a couple of his later short stories, and plays - nobody reads Leo's plays) . Kafka - 100% (just about everything - there isn't that much of it, unfortunately ) . Asimov (my teen love) . Most of Gene Wolfe (can't get my hands on his first and his last two novels - nobody reads him, btw) . Ian McEwan (for no other reason than a lazy summer and my local library having his complete bibliography) . do "ancients" count? I think that I've read most of the surviving A.Greek poetry and drama (including the Cyclops, yay!), at least everything translated; and Catullus, we learned his carminae by heart on the faculty...though I was never a completionist of other Latin poets... . do poets count? . Ivo Andric (if you know who he is - you know why) And a couple of guys I guess nobody here ever heard of: Milos Crnjanski Borislav Pekic Mesa Selimovic Dobrica Cosic
I assume you mean just his fiction. The man wrote 500 books, and some of them were pretty darn large! I would have been willing to bet that nobody (except Isaac himself, obviously) had ever read everything he wrote!
Eek. I was trying to think of someone but even the Author's I like I rarely end up reading even one of their books entirely. Normally I take in a few chapters and I'm done. I read a few of Bill Bryson's books to the end while I was on a long distance walk, but not even close to all of them and I wouldn't read anymore now. My favorite Author is Bukowski, and I've read Women, Ham on Rye, and Factotum. But that's all.
@minstrel you're right, of course - his bibliography is mind-boggling. It's been awhile since I've read any of his stuff (oh well, second decade closes )
I am currently in the process of reading all of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work. It's a long process, but I have everything that he ever did for Sherlock, and I am working on getting everything else besides that.
