My Top 10 Favorite Authors

See, here's the thing:  It's not that I think you care about my favorite authors, movies, books, tv shows, foods, WHATEVER...it's that I'm hoping you'll discover something or someone new and fabulous.  And so I share with you:  My Top 10 Favorite Authors.

1. Jane Austin - Yes, she's kind of a given, but I can think of no author more romantic, and I adore her.
2. William Shakespeare - Fine.  Strictly speaking his a poet and a playwright.  I'm not a fan of poetry, and there are a couple of his plays that don't do much for me, be generally speaking, he sets the standard.  And Much Ado About Nothing is the be-all and end-all.
3. Stephen King - Don't judge me.  The man is like Poe:  beautifully insane and terrifying beyond belief, but his work is so engaging because it plays on each of our worst fears.  He knows the darkest recesses of our minds and hearts and...Wow.  Just WOW.
4. C.S. Lewis - No, not for Narnia.  For The Great Divorce.  That book helped inspire my trilogy.  Read it and you'll get it.  Another WOW.
5. Steve Martin - The actor.  He's brilliant as an actor, but even more brilliant as a writer.  Just read him; you'll get that one, too.
6. J.K. Rowling - She's not the most amazing or polished author, but that woman has an imagination the likes of which flabbergast me.  Nobody got nuthin' on her.
7. Ayn Rand - Yes, I'm still Mormon.  But if ever you wanted someone to make you think, I mean REALLY think, and feel and debate and fight and...well, that's Ayn for you.
8. Roald Dahl - Rowling wasn't around when I was 10, but Dahl was.  Check out The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More.  Just do it.
9. Jules Verne - Verne was not just ahead of his time...he's ahead of OUR time.  Oh, and he DEFINES steampunk, a genre I adore.
10. Orson Scott Card - It's the teenage boy lurking inside me somewhere.  I LOVE CARD.  And no snide comments about that teenage boy, okay?

You?  Who are your top 10?  Who would you recommend?