Your favourite writer of novelsI have two.First of all, although...

Your favourite writer of novels

I have two.
First of all, although he comes from a century and a half ago, Charles Dickens.
What I like about him:
1. his story lines are so carefully crafted, he will start with one or two characters then bring others in from different situations, there can be several storylines running in different directions but you know that eventually they will all converge on one another.
2. he is so descriptive of places and people
3. and I like how he has put so much work into his characters' names, he used to spend a lot of time writing down different names for characters before he found the exact one he was looking for. His character names are one of the most amusing parts of his stories

My second one is Honore de Balzac, who was more or less a contemporary of Dickens and I think he wrote even more novels.
Not being a French speaker, I had to rely on translations and who knows how good they are and whether they capture the exact spirit of his writing.
Of all his work, those novels, can't remember how many but a lot, that make up what is known as the Comedy Humaine, are the most entertaining I thought.
I set out to read them all at one time, but it was frustrating to try and find them all in English translation, so I gave up.
But I thoroughly enjoyed those, quite a few, that I found. There were a lot of 2nd hand bookshops in my area at the time, including Berkelouw. I remembered the elder Mr Berkelouw from my student days in Sydney
when he had a shop in Hunter St I think. A funny old bloke, like something out of Dickens in fact.

I really look forward to hearing who your favourite authors have been.