I didn't get on line last night so I missed this poll but I am always willing to throw in my three cents worth (inflation, don't you know) Every author on your list is worth the time to read. Now I've always been a huge Thompson fan, well his early stuff anyway but he sort of went off his game post-Rolling Stone, and have always rated Fear and Loathing to be a classic in American Letters. If you've never read it, please take the time. It'll make you laugh and it will give you some genius insight into what this country was all about in the early 70's.

Vonnegut is f**king genius. I heard a lecture of his once years ago and he is an absolute riot. Funny guy, very absurd and a truly gifted writer. Who else, other than Hemingway, can make minimalism work. Well, maybe Raymond Carver, but still - again worth the time.

Steinbeck never really got the respect he deserved considernig how lathered up people got over his contemporaries (Faulkner and Fitzgerald and even Hemingway...) but most people who read in depth will tell you that he was one of the best writers this country ever produced. Pearl is a solid work but East of Eden is wonderful. Grapes of Wrath is his master work. Of Mice and Men is genius work as well. Quite frankly, my favorite has to be Cannery Row. Not sure why, just a damn fine story. Tortilla Flats is pretty good too.

Dahl? I've read some of his work but have never been a huge fan. But since people have been talking about it, I will have to go take another look.

Bradbury really was amazing. Great imagination and a very easy style. The Illustrated Man was perhaps my favorite.

Kerouac? Well, this might start a little controversy but quite frankly, I've always found him a bit trite and overblown. Yes, I know that On the Road was a seminal book and it changed a lot of lives but I think that had more to do with the timing of it rather than anything he actually said in it. Had that book been written ten years later, I doubt many people would have noticed. But that's just me. I do like the story of how he actually wrote it; they said that he cranked him self up on fistfulls of speed and red wine, stuck a roll of butcher paper in his typewriter and wrote for three days straight. Trouble is, there are spots in it where it reads like he did just that.

Here are some other authors you might want to read. Thomas Pynchon, Joseph Heller, Vladimir Nabakov, T.C. Boyle (a personal favorite-Water Music remains one of my all-time favorite books), Raymond Carver, David Sedaris, John Barth, Cormac McCarthy, Nick Tosches, Lester Bangs, William Kenendy, Don Delillo, Ken Kesey....etc The list goes on and on and on.....

RIF-Reading is fundamental.