We regularly have polls on For Reading Addicts asking you for your favourite books, favourite characters and the like but it’s not often that we make the authors of our favourite books the subject of our questions, so with our Dinner Date Author Poll we decided to change that and we asked you which authors you would invite for dinner.
You answered in your hundreds and over a hundred different authors both alive and dead were mentioned, here we have put together the top 75 Authors you would invite for dinner. I have to say, you surprised and pleased me with your choices.

Stephen King
Really? OK so he’s one of the very few people on this earth who could ever render me speechless but I was astounded to see so many of you share my taste in dinner table company.
JK Rowling
Oh yes I can see dinner with Jo Rowling being a hysterical occasion; bright, witty and (from her Twitter posts) absolutely lovely a dinner with J.K is bound to be a roaring success.


J.R.R Tolkien
I always image Mr Tolkien as being quite dry in real life but then anyone whose imagination could come up with the Hobbits, Elves, and other assorted inhabitants of Middle Earth is certain to be a very entertaining guest.
Agatha Christie
In fourth place, make sure the lights stay on if you are planning on inviting the Queen of the Whodunnit, or you might just find yourself in the starring role of one of her thrilling novels..
Agatha Christie Bibliography US
Agatha Christie Bibliography UK


Neil Gaiman
This man’s voice is melted chocolate to the soul of the reader. I’d just make him read to me and stuff the food, he can get a McDonald’s on the way home. Good choice people.
Khaled Hosseini
Sixth is an author whose mind we’d all like to pick. Khaled’s presence at any occasion ensures that the conversation will flow and that it will be utterly fascinating, and very educational without being preachy in the slightest.
Khaled Hosseini Bibliography US
Khaled Hosseini Bibliography UK


C.S Lewis
If you’re after an evening of confounding conversation, high brow monologues, insightful asides and a good dollop of fantastical flights of fancy then who better than the author of the Chronicles of Narnia to join you at your table.
James Patterson
You’ll find yourself co authoring the next Alex Cross novel if you invite Mr Patterson to dinner. A prolific author I’m sure he’d have his laptop at the side of his dinner plate and at the very least would manage to write your evening into one of his books somehow.
James Patterson Bibliography US
James Patterson Bibliography UK


Oscar Wilde
Oh the decadence, oh the delightfully dreadful slurs and cutting jibes that will be flung across the dining room with this gentleman facing you. I cannot think of better company, bravo to all of you who would love to dine with Mr Wilde.
Terry Pratchett
In tenth is the brilliantly barmy mind of Terry; what a wonderful evening of conversation would lie in wait for those who would like to be joined by the late and very great Terry Pratchett. Of course he is just as likely to have a knowledgeable and well presented discussion on human rights, existentialism and the plight of the lesser spotted suitcase as he is to simply chinwagging for the entire duration of the meal.

11. Paulo Coelho
12. Jane Austen
13. Rick Riordan
14. Shakespeare
15. Dr Seuss
16. Michelle Alexander
17. Pilinszky Janos
18. Roald Dahl
19. Bill Bryson
20. Chaucer
And after the featured top 20, here we take the list to cover the top 75 Authors you would invite to dinner:
Dean Koontz
Edgar Allan Poe
Ernest Hemingway
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Kurt Vonnegut
Margaret Atwood
Mark Twain
Nicholas Sparks
Anna Akhmatova
Anne Rice
Charles Dickens
Christopher Paolini
George RR Martin
Jodi Picoult
Nora Roberts
Tamora Pierce
Arthur Conan Doyle
Clive Barker
David Baldacci
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Douglas Adams
E.L James
Farley Mowat
George Orwell
H.G Wells
H.P Lovecraft
Harper Lee
Joe Hill
Jojo Moyes
Jonathan Harvey
Maya Angelou
Haruki Murakami
P.G Wodehouse
Patricia Cornwell
Philip Larkin
Stephanie Meyer
Sylvia Plath
Virginia Woolf
William Blake
Alan Doyle
Audrey Nifferneger
Danielle Steele
David Shannon
Debbie Macomber
Deepak Chopra
Edith Hamilton
Enid Blyton
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Hermann Hesse
Ian Rankin
James Lee Burke
Ransom Riggs
Jean Auel
Simon sebag Montefiore
Patricia Briggs
I can imagine very little food being consumed but copious amounts of alcohol being imbibed and the next day being greeted with sore heads, sore throats, and aching stomachs.

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