Which authors’ books have you read the most? I checked my spreadsheet, which records my reading since 2002, and searched for the number of books by authors I know I’ve read a lot. I here present to you a list of my top 10 most-read authors! Since my records began, that is…
10. Philip Pullman – 20 books. The majority of these would be re-reads of His Dark Materials, but I have also read the Sally Lockhart series, some standalone books and, much more recently, The Secret Commonwealth.
9. H G Wells – 21 books. Obviously some of these are re-reads (such as The Time Machine) – I couldn’t name 21 books Wells wrote, although I know he was very prolific and that only a small number of his works are famous today.
8. Christopher Pike – 21 books. This is a tie with H G Wells but I have given him 8th place because I used to have a Point Horror short story collection which included Pike and which I read 3 times. The best Pike book is, I think, Remember Me.
7. Daphne du Maurier – 24 books. We had an almost-complete set of her works at home and so I felt qualified enough to write a ‘recommended author’ post on her. I’ve re-read a few, most notably Rebecca, which I studied in comparison to Jane Eyre.
6. Arthur C Clarke – 26 books. I was quite surprised at how many of his books turned up when I searched my records. However, I’ve re-read the ‘Odyssey’ series and some short story collections several times, plus a few other novels, and they all added up.
5. J K Rowling – 27 books. This number would be higher if my pre-2002 reading was included – I was hooked on the first 3 books and was extremely excited when the 4th was published! As you might expect, nearly all of the reads were Harry Potter books or from the same world, such as Fantastic Beasts. The exception is The Casual Vacancy.
4. Paul Stewart – 27 books. Considering how many books there are in the Edge Chronicles series – for which he collaborated with Chris Riddell and which I’m re-reading again – this number of reads isn’t surprising. Others by him I’ve read are Muddle Earth and The Weather Witch. Although he is tying with J K Rowling, he is placed here on the list because the number of reads will soon be higher, as I still have several more of the Edge books to re-read.
3. Sue Townsend – 28 books. Most of these are the Adrian Mole series – my favourite being The Secret Diary – but as demonstrated in my ‘recommended author’ post, she wrote a variety of things. I’m sad that there won’t be any more.
2. Anthony Horowitz – 38 books. I love the Diamond Brothers, Alex Rider and Groosham Grange series and have read several of his standalone works too, most recently two of his novels for adults, featuring himself as a character. One of my favourite books at my secondary school library was his Horowitz Horror short story collection.
And at number 1, my most-read author is…
Terry Pratchett! I’ve read 52 of his books (including re-reads) so far. I haven’t read all of the Discworld series – probably three quarters of them, though. I’m starting to re-read the few I own, such as The Witches Trilogy. I’ve also read some of his non-Discworld books, such as the Bromeliad trilogy, Johnny Maxwell trilogy, Long Earth series (with Stephen Baxter), Strata, Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman) and The Dark Side of the Sun. I did guess that Terry Pratchett would be my most-read author but I didn’t realise how far ahead of the others he would be!

Who’s your most-read author? Let me know!