Not likely.

Ian Rankin - everything he's ever written.

In rough order of when I started having favourite authors:

Richard Brautigan - everything
Kurt Vonnegut - everything, I think
Michael Moorcock - pretty much all the non-sword & sorcery
J.G. Ballard - everything up to the early '80s
John Le Carré - everything except one or two
Elmore Leonard - probably only a small sample of his total output, i.e. I've read dozens of the things
James Ellroy - everything, even the early pulpy ones
David Peace - everything so far (but I doubt I'll read the next - his Ellroy By Numbers shtick reached ridiculous proportions with his last effort)

I'm reading David Simon's Homicide at the moment. As hoped, it's basically The Wire as 500 pages of reportage - half hilarious, half heartwrenching. (Take note, fellow wiry ones: available for a snip from Amazon.)

...is the writer whose canon I have been returning to again and again since the age of 17.

It wasn't until I read Edwin Williamson's biography of the man that I realised that, what I taken for dry, heavily intellectualised works of philosophical fiction, were actually inspired by emotional crises and unrequited love.

I like his poetry too.

Ones I try to read everything by:

Ian Rankin
Kurt Vonnegut
Justin Cartwright
William Boyd
Peter Carey
Henning Mankell - Swedish crime
Julian Barnes
Patricia Highsmith - unputdownable, read them all sadly, wish there were more
Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes
Don Delillo

Anthony Burgess tops my list - I've read more than thirty of his books I think (fiction and non-fiction). You've probably read Clockwork Orange - if so, try "Nothing Like the Sun" and the Enderby novels next.

I own lots of John Updike novels but have only read a few of them - all very good though.

I think I have everything by David Foster Wallace, though again I've only read some of it - currently about half way through Infinite Jest - still about 500 pages to go. At this rate I'll finish it in 2010...

Good to see Robertson Davies getting a mention - didn't think anyone else read him these days!

by...
Len Deighton - including his non fiction books about WWII and a very rare guide to 60s London. Winter would be my Desert Island Disc book selection.
John LeCarre - with Archie on this one. I had trouble getting my head around The Naive and Sentimental Lover but that was years ago so I think I may need to revisit.
Agatha Christie - good old fashioned well crafted dective stories
Terry Pratchett - often dismissed as kid's fantasy, he writes very funny laugh out loud stuff.
Douglas Adams - apart from the last in the HitchHiker's series which in my opinion had "contractural obligation" written all over it.

'Nuff said

Lots of comments here seem to be from what I call 'serial readers', compulsive readers who, like me, enjoy looking out for the latest from their favourite author, and if includes a favourite running character so much the better.
I suspect this habit is instilled in childhood through the endless series of Blyton and so on. Those who pick up the reading habit then get the same kick in adulthood from the next Ian Rankin book (which they may well refer to as 'the new Rebus book' instead). For crime I recommend the Donna Leon Brunetti titles for a light but compulsive read, or anything by Patricia Highsmith.
If you enjoy serials and Patrick O'Brien try George MacDonald Fraser's wonderful Flashman books. For one offs, a couple of my favourite but neglected writers are Geoff Nicholson and Christopher Priest. I'm sure that anyone with the good taste to enjoy Robertson Davies will get something out of these.

Novelist I've read (and re-read time and time again) the most books by is PG Wodehouse. I suppose I'm a bit shallow.

Sadly I fit more into the cereal (box) reader category, as in, if that's all there is to read, I'll read it. I even, bi-focals willing, read the "essays" in best of compilation CDs. ........
But, staying away from fiction, and even his fiction, may I commend the many Paul Theroux travel books. (Why I should enjoy a curmudgeon dismissing all he sees, goodness only knows.) Similarly, Jeremy Paxman has written on politics/parliament (The Political Animal), the royal family (On Royalty) and the english (The English) with rapier precision that I can commend to all. John Humphreys on grammar is great, as are Bill Brysons somewhat wordier texts on language. Latter is harder going than his travel oevre but still worth the effort.
On a different tack, Antony Bourdain has written a series of autobiographical/travel books about his life as a chef. More fun than the spin-off cable channel spin-offs.
I would pick up any book by any of these guys and expect to find it a good read.(Maybe not Paul Therouxs fiction.....)

Nothing shallow about reading PG Wodehouse, Richard: one of the funniest ever and a better writer than most "serious" novelists.

Blimey, there are a lot of deeply-read folk here! I clearly haven't got into the heavyweights (quantity-wise at least), apart from O'Brian.

I'm glad that others appreciate Robertson Davies, who is The Master as far as I'm concerned. The Cornish trilogy, in particular, is a work of magnificence. I've enjoyed Jonathan Franzen's last two novels a lot, while also having the impression that he's a bit like an immature Robertson Davies, unable to wear his learning as lightly, rather dazzling us self-consciously with his brilliance.

but the argument is out as to whether "we" are polymaths of a new renaissance of the arts, or specky anoraks, a tad keen on seeing our names in print. More to life than books, films and music, but Mrs Path doesn't always believe I believe that.
(And, yes, I do speak for myself)

That'd be the book that inspired my (currently) three box sets of the TV series, yes?
My top five ( (c) Nick Hornby) authors, in order of shelf space, but not necessarily most recent purchases;
Terry Pratchett
Margaret Atwood
John Irving
Eoin Colfer
C.S.Forester

Adams loses out due to his skinny paperbackness, and Heller because I'm one of those people who just own the one. Michael Moorcock because all of his are out on loan in a "No, really, he's not just about Hawkwind..." sort of way. A bit more effort from Jasper Fforde and he'd've made fifth at least. Still, never mind the quality, feel the width...

I've read the Ian Fleming Bond books end to end cover to cover loads of times (admittedly not recently)

David Lodge - every one a winner - seriously underrated

As a nipper I loved the JT Edson westerns - the Floating Outfit? Dusty Fog, the Ysabel Kid etc. Brilliant!

Bill Bryson - most of, though I get irritated with him by the end of any of them

John Steinbeck - essential reading...

Classics - big Thomas Hardy phase at uni - NB - in "The return of the native" there is a genuinely exciting bit. Evelyn Waugh? Is he classic?

Loved both the AA Gill - "Sap rising" wonderfully offensive

Yes, and Ian Rankin and Wodehouse too...

Oh and the best book I've read for ages was "Modern ranch living" by Mark Poirier whose others I will be investigating.

and also for Mr Adams, although I accept the last Hitch-Hiker's was a series of ideas in search of a plot. The Dirk Gently Books are certainly worth a read.

Dorothy L. Sayers hasn't aged well, but for a solid dectective mystery set between the wars (classic period of detective fiction, don't you know) you couldn't do better. For an American detective, try the Nero Wolfe books by Rex Stout.

Umberto Eco usually requires a bit of work, but the effort is always rewarded. Start with The Name Of The Rose.

Alan Moore is a name thrown about in these parts quite a bit - not sure if comics/graphic novels count in this thread, but his work is certainly worth exploring. Ditto Neil Gaiman.

And John Steinbeck, Another nod for Le Carre, Evelyn Waugh (like Woody Allen, his early funnier ones are better)... Charles Dickens is seen as a giant for a reason... too many more to mention.

I'm another Le Carre reader. Everything except the Naive & Sentimental Lover and A perfect spy (I didn't like the TV adaptation). Was anyone else disappointed with The Mission Song? I thought it was pretty poor, especially after the marvellous Absolute Friends.
Others I read plenty of;
James Lee Burke
Graham Greene
Ernest Hemingway
James Ellroy
Cormac McCarthy
Tim O'Brien
Carl Hiaasen
Andrew Vachss
Elmore Leonard
Michael Connelly
George Pelecanos
Female authors conspicous by their absence there. It's not I don't read books written by women, I just don't consume lots by the same author.

Anthony Burgess

Purveyor of brilliant work with an immaculate grasp of lingusitics. Applaud the man.

I,ve got lots of time on my hands, 2-3 hr commute in public transport and i get through 40-50 books a year, alternating between fiction and non-fiction.

George P Pelecanos, James Ellroy, Elmore Leonard, Ian Rankin, Peter Robinson , John le Carre on the thriller front.

Cormac MaCarthy,Umberto Eco,Charles Dickens, Peter Carey, Martin Amis,Annie Proulx and John Steinbeck, EL Doctorow

Le Carré has written some of marvellous stuff, but yes The Mission Song was poor. Pelecanos is uniformly excellent and Rankin too while Leonard and Ellroy have had some weaker moments.

MacCarthy´s output is phenomenal, his latest is bloody brilliant, Eco can be hard and when he´s obtuse it´s almost impossible, " The Island of the Day Before " lost me completely. I come back to Dickens constantly, it was bred into me as a youngster.

Anthony Beevor, Ian Gibson in history. Pilger and Jon Lee Anderson, Bill Bryson and Anthony Daniels for politics and travel.

On the fence and Carlp's lists are very good indeed.
Pelecanos' books are fantastic. His love of music comes storming off the pages.You can almost hear it. If you love Funk and Soul he's your man.He also writes and consults on "the Wire"
Elmore Leonard - the King of Dialogue
Carl Hiaasen - very funny
Ian Rankin- Am totally hooked
James Hall-Like Hiaasen,based in Florida. always enjoyable
Robert Crais- not read a bad one yet
Joe R Lansdale-a Texas Leonard
James Crumley- seriously Hardcore crime novels
I only tend to read "Crime" novels. Sorry can't be of more help

I believe, someone told me or maybe I dreamt it, but you can actully get CD´s of the music in some Pelecanos novels to accompany the novels. Rankin is a great one for the music as well and I know he has done some CD´s.

It good to see that there are other serial readers out there. But I am surprised Mitchell's name has not come up in the thread. I have read all four of his books and have been astonished by each one. If you haven't read him get his first, Ghostwritten and you will be compelled to read the other three as soon as possible.

Malcolm Bradbury is another personal "read em all" author. If you like David Lodge - and I do - he is definitely one to follow up on. As is Peter Carey; I would recommend Illywacker as a starter, but Bliss and Oscar and Lucinda are very good too.

Rupert Thompson and John Banville I also read as much as I can of. I am read on the bus to and from work so get through a fair few books.

Thompson wrote an interesting novel recently about a policeman who has to guard the body of Myra Hindley and reflects on his own life as he does so. It's called Death of a Murderer. Another one by him is Divided Kingdom about a time when the country is divided into sectors according to the four humours - as in melancholic types live in one area etc. All his novels are worth checking out.

Banville's book The Untouchable is fantastic - it's about a character loosely based on Anthony Blunt and his life as art historian and spy. Highly recommended, as are his other books.

Oh, and Graham Swift is another one I like.

Elmore Leonard - all of his non-Western novels - he is still the king of crime.
William Boyd - Particularly fond of the earlier ones
Iain Banks but not Iain M Banks - Wasp factory is brilliant
Nick Hornby
Graham Greene
Currently reading Richard Russo - Empire Falls and loving it that much will be reading his other stuff too.
Raymoned Carver - Bit of a short story nut and he is the master.

Willy Vlautin - Read his first novel Motel Life which was brilliant and just bought his second novel Northline which I didnt know existed.His writing is a joy and he will definitely be on the list of authors I read compulsorily.

It's been proven by scientists that The Great Gatsby is actually good for you.

and also on Pelecanos. Daniel Woodrell is another writer worth searching out - he did a bunch of crime stuf set around the Ozark mountains, but also wrote 'Woe To Live On', the book on which Ang Lee's 'Ride With The Devil' was based. All written in authentic Southern speech, an amazing book.

And, in terms of writers who don't get enough respect for their body of work, George MacDonald Frasier, who's Flashman books I have to go back to and read every year. But his other stuff (especially the MacAuslan books) are also really good.

Alistair McLean were always worth a read , but actually haven't picked them up for ages. Ditto Len Deighton and Dick Francis

And is it only me who holds a torch for Peter O'Donnell's Modesty Blaise stories (novels/short stories rather than the newspaper strips)? Those mid seventies editions, with the covers of ladies in black leotards, caught me at a very impressionable age...

The authors I read everything by are:

John Irving - can't believe no one's mentioned him (though admittedly his books have become increasingly elephantine over the years, and I haven't managed to set aside six months to tackle his latest brick yet)
Anne Tyler
Ian McEwan
William Boyd
Nick Hornby
Julian Barnes
Matt Beaumont - superb comic novelist, highly compatible with the Word demographic: start with 'E', a book written entirely in emails
Jonathan Coe

Among many others, three favourite authors who are no longer around to write new works are:

PG Wodehouse - the Master
JL Carr - a true English original; all his books are very different, yet characters pop up in various works at different times in their lives. 'A Month In The Country' (which was made into a film) is an accessible and atmospheric place to start
Anthony Powell - 'A Dance To The Music Of Time' - nuff said. Sheer genius

A few more of my "read everything" authors:

Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon is possibly the best novel I've read this decade
William T Vollmann
Thomas Pynchon
Robert Nye
Lawrence Durrell
Martin Amis
Iain Sinclair
Glen Duncan
Hal Duncan - the most exciting Scottish novelist since Alisdair Gray

(and let's face it, who isn't?) might I point out that many of the stories that make up the HORA canon are actually available in a book caled The Secret History Of Entertainment, written by one David Hepworth. Full of the stories that have been hard on the podcast as well as a spread of stories about movies, TV, etc. A fine read - perfect for a bedside table or if you feel you need something for a trip to the bathroom.

Nothing about Van Morrison though...

I didnt mention one of the finest books of all, Bulgakov´s The Master and the Margarita. I havent read anything else by him, but this is amazing. Don´t be put off by the fact that it´s Russian, it really is an extraordinary piece of work. I lent it to friend and he refuses to give it back. Not the first time this has happened. I´ll have to get a new copy or new friends.

Speaking of crime fiction, Georges Simenon is also well worth a look. A trifle mondane, but then again so is crime.

since much of my reading - especially my favourite authors - falls into the SF/fantasy/horror genres, but here goes, with the authors I'm more-or-less completist about:

Ramsey Campbell - makes you empathise with some people you'd really prefer not to understand at all, and the finest writer of British horror and the supernatural since MR James, IMNSHO.

Terry Pratchett - as has already been noted, if you think of Pratchett as a kids' writer (wrong) or primarily a fantasy writer (wrong) and dismiss him for those reasons, it's your loss. As has often been said, he's possibly the best British humorist since Wodehouse, ferociously intelligent, and compassionate to boot.

Jonathan Coe - his "The Rotters' Club" has been adapted for both TV and Radio, and gives a good indication of what to expect. Terrific characters, unexpected plot twists, and a shrewd judge of human nature.

Iain Banks - consistently brilliant, both with and without his science-fictional middle "M".

JK Rowling - I adored the Potter heptalogy, and hope she's got enough authorial nous to survive the transition into more uncharted waters.

Peter Straub - writes labyrinthine thrillers, whose supernatural content varies from peripheral to pivotal. I sometimes think of him as a higher-brow Stephen King, probably because they've collaborated in the past.

Peter F Hamilton - writes colossal space-opera epics. Indeed, probably done more than most to make space-opera a respectable SF sub-genre again. British, too.

Jasper Fforde - his Tuesday Next and Nursery Crime Division novels are playful and erudite, and feature no dwarves or elves (for those for whom these trigger fantasyphobia). He's also incredibly funny.

There are a lot of readers of quality crime novels amongst us, but no-one's yet mentioned the spiffing thrillers by Dennis Lehane. Great characters, with a back story that rumbles along through the series, in an interesting setting (the Boston USA area); the books tick all the boxes. Highly recommended.

The above is a great place to get books.

My most read Authors would be Iain Banks, Nick Hornby, John Irving and Martin Amis. But, I tend to read what is regarded as the best book by an author a lot of the time rather than reading everything.

Today I finished the Samuel Pepys biography and started my 3rd Dickens: Great Expectations. I do plan to work my way through all of his.

I've had Peter Ackroyd's 'London: The Biography' staring at me from the bookshelf for about 4 or 5 years now and I think it may soon be time to deal with that. Half Of A Yellow Sun, Northern Lights and The God Delusion are all staring out at me as well.

..the slightly more obscure ... Oliver Twist

Last five books:
The Road - Cormac McCarthy
In the Lake of the Woods - Tim O'Brien
The Dain Curse - Dashiell Hammett
In a Glass Darkly - Sheridan le Fanu
Sovereign - CJ Sansom

then?

William Boyd - tells really good stories really well. Restless is often on offer.
I went through several of Haruki Murakami's novels recently. The japaneseness (?) of them is great - refreshing. Start with Norweigan Wood.
I enjoy Jay MacInerny and rate Last of the Savages as one of the rock novels.
Richard Ford is one of the biggies for me. His Lay of the Land is bleak, and reflective and life affirming at the same time. He seems to like his leading character - or at least view him with compassion.
And The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon - is as short as a chapter in some of his bigger novels but as an introduction to the work of an American master it can't be beaten.

There'll be an exam later....

What a Carve Up! would be one of my all time top 10 books. The Rotters Club is excellent as well. House of Sleep and The Closed Circle are pretty good as well.

Glancing to the bookshelf as I type this....

Iain Banks (not the Science Fiction stuff though)
John O Farrell
Ian McEwan
Tom Sharpe
Frederick Forsyth (these are usually bought just before and perfect for long plane trips!)

Surprised that no one has mentioned Nick Hornby's High Fidelity......

is probably one of my all time favourite books. the film was pretty good too even though they changed the location.

Going slightly off thread but only because he hasnt written enough books to fit into a category of everything read but Preston Falls by David Gates is well worth reading. A descent into madness on a weekend trip to a summer retreat ends in disaster.

Usual suspects - Pratchett, Fforde, Brookmyre all mentioned above.

The Lindsey Davis, Falco series is excellent - detective books set in Roman times with some great banter