I'm only including authors that were either given a number, or described as a "full series" that I could look up the official count.

-10. Dan Abnett, 43 books.
- 9. Hirohiko Araki, 46 books.
-8. Stephen King, 53 books.
-7. A tie between Rick Riordan and Enid Blyton, 55 books each. cowrite when
-6. J.R.R. Tolkien, 65 books. (Or 70 if we include Neshomeh's Atlas, etc.)
-5. K.A. Applegate, 72 books.
-4. Margit Sandemo, 82 books.
-3. R.L. Stine, 94 books.
-2. Gosho Aoyama, 102 books.
-1. Terry Pratchett, 155 books!

—doctorlit has Shadow the Sheepdog by Blyton, plus 9 more Tolkiens and 5 more Pratchetts, but since he can't count everyone else's various small-count authors, he didn't include them. Besides, that would put Mr. Tolkien over Mrs. Applegate, which doctorlit couldn't tolerate.

I think I've got the whole Narnia series, and a couple other Lewis books lying around, incluing The Screwtape Letters. I might have a Rick Riordan book somewhere, one of the Trials of Apollo books. I usually get stuff from the library, so this isn't exactly an exhaustive list of books I like.

-Ls, being brief

...So I'm away from the most stocked bookshelves. I can, however, tell you without looking that the two most represented authors on the bookshelves inside of my bedroom (as opposed to the bookshelves across the rest of the house...) are Sir Terry Pratchett, who has an entire shelf to himself, and Hirohiko Araki, on account of my complete set of JoJo's parts 1 through 4. That is, if manga counts.

So, part of the situation is this: one of my reading goals is to read every prose series that's ever been visited in a PPC mission. To that end, I've been slowly collecting some series bit by bit, but haven't actually read them yet. (I'm already in the middle of several series, and would like to finish some of those before I add new ones into my reading rotation.) I think that's going to make my list a bit of an outlier here, since it reflects partly what I want to read, rather than what I have read. Anyway, on with the list?

(The numbers are reversing upon publishing, and it's too late at night to fix it, so just keep in mind I'm actually going from 10 up to 1.)

1. At the bottom of the top, I have William Shakespeare, with 8 plays! I'm no enemy of script format, and while lots of folks argue it's better to see plays acted out, reading is just kind of my thing! The full collection is Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, Othello, Julius Caesar, The Tempest, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Hamlet, the best one.

2. Almost immediately, I have to embarrass myself! This is a tie, at 9 books each, between Anthony Horowitz, (from collecting the Alex Rider series, due to the Neshomeh+Guvnor of Space cowrite) and . . . Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, authors of the Left Behind series. >.> Look, I was young, and I've never been very discerning in what I read, that hunger needs to be satiated! I was just kind of just . . . accepting the story for what it was, at the time. But as I got older, and started realizing how harmful the end-of-the-world proselytizing could be, coupled with VM linking me to some critical sites that pointed out how inhuman the characters in the series felt . . . this became one of the only series where I broke my "always finish what I start" rule, and just stopped purchasing these. I left off with the three prequels, and first six of the main series. I suppose I ought to just get rid of them . . . (If anyone's ever morbidly curious to read one, I can only recommend the first prequel, The Rising. The authors had legitimately improved by the time they hit the prequels, and The Rising has the best-written protagonist out of the whole series. The authors wanted to make Marilena Carpathia seem weak-willed, imperfect, and unable to control the events happening around her, which of course make her a lot easier to empathize with than the bland puppets from further on in the series. I even named a petting zoo goat after her! She's actually a pretty decent, emotional look at what life would be like for the mother of the Antichrist. By accident, I'm certain.)

3. A tie between John Flanagan and J.K. Rowling, at 11 books each. Flanagan writes the Ranger's Apprentice and Brotherhood Chronicles series, which I'm collecting due to Iximaz's spin-off featuring a couple missions there. And naturally, Rowling is represented through the seven mainline Harry Potter, Cursed Child, and those three little "textbooks" made for charity. What can I say, I might need them for PPC mission references.

4. Lemony Snickett, at 12 books, which I'm collecting thanks to Caribbean Blue doing a mission there. And because the narration style is amusing. Have I mentioned I'm not too proud to read children's books at age 36?

5. Brian Jacques, with 18 books. Redwall has seen heavy PPC attention, so of course it's on my to-read list! I've collected 16 of that series so far, and I also have Castaways of the Flying Dutchman and The Angel's Command, also unread.

6. A tie at 19, for both Rick Riordan and Erin Hunter, who is of course seven different authors, but I think it still counts as one name for this list. Both are on here as part of my PPC missions list, with Percy Jackson being a fairly common mission setting, especially for Iximaz, and Warriors joining the list from KittyNoodles's mission.

7. Mercedes Lackey, at 27, for her Valdemar series, joining from Triskellion's spin-off. Boy, this isn't a very fun list to read, when I haven't read most of the books, huh? I'm sorry.

8. We're getting into the big kids now; are you ready? Third place is Stephen King, with 53 books! (Although it's technically 52; I had a copy of The Running Man, but later got a copy of The Bachman Books anthology, which contains TRM inside. I'm just holding onto the standalone copy so I can read King's author's note from the beginning before I read the actual story. Then I'll donate it!) I just really, really like King's stuff! I like narratives of ordinary folks being pitted against powerful antagonists, and still fighting tooth and nail to survive, because what else is there to do? I obviously won't list all the titles, but the breakdown goes: 1 short story collection read, 12 novels read (including the 8 Dark Tower novels), 30/31 novels unread (depending on how you count TRM), 8 story collections unread, and the horror essay collection Danse Macabre unread. I should also have in the read section: Night Shift, but I lent it to the head of Dragon World for inspiration in his D&D campaign and never got it back; It, which I lent to the head of Tropics and never got It back; and On Writing, which is just straight up missing. Wonder when that disappeared . . . Anyway, I know a lot of folks here aren't comfortable with horror, but if anyone's been curious to dip a toe into King, I recommend From a Buick 8. It's fairly light on the horror and character death; I'd almost classify it as "urban eldritch horror," if that makes any sense. I do warn that some of the monster descriptions get kind of grody, one of those special monsters that wears a swastika is present, and there are offscreen suicides. Also, special shout-out to The Tommyknockers, the only one that's made me cry so far! >.>

9. It's her. It's time. It's the lady of my tween years, her majesty, K.A. Applegate. Okay, Animorphs was technically a group project of like 20ish authors, including Applegate's husband, but still. It's the full series, plus the two choose-your-own-adventure books, for a total of 64. (Sorry, GMA!) I know it's been said on the Board before, but the series is surprisingly mature for its intended audience. If you can get past the body horror and incredible violence, the whole series is free to read now, due to being out of print.

10. Are you ready? It's the number one slot, ARE YOU READY? FOR MORE KIDS BOOKS?! It's R.L. Stine, baby, the Goosebumps author, with 94 BOOKS! YEAH! I've got the entire 62-book run of the original series, 18 of the first nineteen Give Yourself Goosebumps choose-your-own-adventure books (I guess everyone's calling these gamebooks all of a sudden? I guess it is faster to type!), the first 9 from Series 2000, and 1 from the Goosebumps Horrorland series I got from my brother. I also have Dangerous Girls, a standalone teen vampire novel, Stine's autobiography, and the "Official Collector's Caps Book," which may truly not count, since it's side trash. I doubt anyone here has any interest in getting into Goosebumps at this point, but just in case: I personally remember The Ghost Next Door as being surprisingly more mature than the other stories (but I was ten, so take "mature" with a grain of salt); A Night in Terror Tower involves a bit of real English history; and Legend of the Lost Legend stands out a bit because the parent characters aren't blindingly clueless about the conflict in that one.

No clever outro tonight, I'm sleepy and need to get to bed. Night, all!

—doctorlit

Counting just the books I consider "mine" (not Phobos'), it turns out there are eleven authors represented with more than five books each, so here's the lot!

11. Greg Bear (6 books) - Very good sci-fi author. The first book of his I read was Darwin's Radio, followed by its sequel Darwin's Children. If you've seen the show Sweet Tooth, it's a little bit like that, only it takes the science more seriously.

10. Neil Gaiman (6 books) - Notably, I picked up my copies of Neverwhere and Anansi Boys while in the U.K., and my copy of The Graveyard Book is signed by the author. ^_^

9. Ken Follett (7 books) - Historical fiction author, mainly. He's amazing at bringing characters to life and making you care about their circumstances. I'd recommend the Pillars of the Earth series and the Century Trilogy even to people who don't normally read historical fiction.

8. C.S. Lewis (7 books) - It's The Chronicles of Narnia. I couldn't tell you when I last actually read them, but they're on my shelves!

7. J.K. Rowling (7 books) - Yes, I still have the Harry Potter series on my shelves. No, I'm not giving the author another cent.

6. K.A. Applegate (8 books) - Miscellaneous Animorphs books that survived several moves, mostly non-main series ones.

5. Diana Gabaldon (8 books) - The Outlander series. Because someone I knew from my previous job decided I had to read them and just... gave them to me. All of them. o.o I've read the first two. The first one is fine, if a bit meandering. The second one needed to be half as long. I have little hope for the rest.

4. Diane Duane (9 books) - The Young Wizards series. If we're counting multiple copies, I've got 16 total, 8 in paperback and 8 digital. It should be 9 in digital—I got a sweet deal on the 9-volume set of the New Millennium edition—but I didn't get book seven in my download for some reason. {= (

3. Naomi Novik (9 books) - The His Majesty's Dragon series, a.k.a. the Temeraire series. Picture the Napoleonic war, but with an air force composed of dragons crewed like sailing ships. The twist? The dragons are sapient and growing tired of being used like simple beasts. Cue politics and shenanigans that take the main characters all over the world.

2. Anne McCaffrey (25 books) - Including the Dragonriders of Pern series, the Freedom series, and the Powers That Be trilogy with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. For Pern, I have the Harper Hall trilogy as a collected edition, but per hS rules, counted them as three. I used to have more McCaffrey books, but the Tower and Hive series and the Acorna series are both rather Sueish, and T&H is also just too horny. It didn't need to be more horny than the series with a literal unicorn girl, but there you are.

1. Sir Terry Pratchett (25 books) - Discworld, of course!

... Actually, I could've put Tolkien on this list, too, if we count multiple copies of the same book. I've got two LotR, two Silm, two Children of Hurin (somebody gave me one after I'd already bought it for myself), one Hobbit, and one Unfinished Tales for a total of 8. And, if we count LotR as three books the way it was originally published, that's 12!

If we expand the definition of "author representation" to include the author's name appearing anywhere on the cover, I could also throw in The Map of Tolkien's Middle-earth, Tales Before Tolkien, A Tolkien Bestiary, The Tolkien Companion, and even The Atlas of Middle-earth.

And I could add The Atlas of Pern, The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern, and The People of Pern to my McCaffrey count, too. {= D

~Neshomeh

P.S. I waffled about including Warhammer 40k since I've read so many of the Horus Heresy books, but I didn't want to count them to see which authors are most represented. There are way too many 40k books in this apartment, and that's not even considering the digital ones. {X' D

My hobbies shifted a bit over the years, so the time I used to spend reading is now spent either writing or building scale model kits (and occasionally running my RC cars).

I actually ended up giving away most of my collection of books, as they're better off in the hands of someone who actually reads them instead of sitting there gathering dust. But I still kept quite a bit.

If we count manga as literature, and thus manga volume counts as books, the first two places are taken by that:

-1a: Gosho Aoyama, with 102 volumes of Detective Conan. And it's still ongoing. Since 1994. Yes, I'm dedicated. Yes, this series is taking a full shelf by itself. -2a: CLAMP with Cardcaptor Sakura (12 volumes) amd its sequel Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Arc (13 volumes as of now, ongoing) for a total of 25.

Then we get in the proper books.

3: A tie between Eoin Colfer and the TERF-That-Shall-Be-Not-Named, with eight each. Mostly the Artemis Fowl series for the former, and the seven main Harry Potter books plus Cursed Child (which I didn't even finish 'cause script format causes revulsions in me) for the latter. 5: Moony Witcher, with five. The original four The child of the Sixth Moon books, plus the first one of the following trilogy. I didn't get the last two as they came out when I was ireemediably past its age group (I technically already was when the first four came out), but they're still the first fandom I interacted with and my first work published online was (at least nominally) a fanfiction of it, where many of my current characters originated. So it will always have a place on my bookshelf - I'm actually considering trackign down the last two books even if I might not read them.

I then have an assortment of various books of which I have only one or two of each author, but I do have an almost complete series in the Disney Avventura line: it was a series of self-conclusive books written by Italian authors (each writing only one) specialized in preteen and teenager books released on the Italian market, featuring Mickey dealing with assorted mysteries, which heavily influenced my early writing attempts (and cemented my idea of having Mickey as Sergio's mentor figure in Mai Dire Fine, the first released fanfiction I worked on) I have 19 out of 22 of them, and like the Sixth Moon series I'm considering tracking down the last three.

since I tend to get ebooks on account of books being heavy and taking up space. At home I've got Harry Potter 1, 2 (badly torn from one of my mum's temper tantrums, a real Dursley moment there), 5 (in Chinese), 6, and 7, and a bunch of Magic Tree House books, and ofc my marked-up LotR 1 volume edition, the Hobbit, and the Silm. I think my brothers added some Percy Jackson and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Honestly, when I was growing up I mostly checked out books from the library, and then bought thrifted classics from the library bookstore, so it's a bunch of books needed for school lit classes, additional classics, and a ton of children's lit. Most of the books I currently own and am working through are nonfiction, usually history books.

I've had to severely downsize my collection over the years, as limited shelf space (and just like... living area space) has forced me to get rid of books. I have a truly outrageous number in storage, awaiting a day when I become a millionaire and can have a library. I am not going through boxes in the cellar for this little game, so some numbers are approximations. This is not a top ten either, since I decided to skip anyone I owned less than five books by. Some honourable mentions include Lisa Kleypas, Julia Quinn and Rainbow Rowell, with four books each!

7. Astrid Lindgren (5)
This is one of those approximations... I am actually not sure how many Astrid Lindgren books I still own. It's at least five: Mio, My Son, The Brothers Lionheart, Ronia the Robber's Daughter, Maddy of June Hill and Simon Small, which was always my favourite because it contained a collection of short stories that I adored that all had a theme of lonely children making friends with supernatural or fairy tale creatures. We have also had many picture books, and different versions of many other stories, and so I am pretty sure I've read most of her stuff at least once. I cannot highlight enough how fundamental Astrid Lindgren was to my childhood. In Sweden, she is still an absolute icon. We put her on our money.

6. Hilary McKay (5)
There is another book in the Casson Family series, apparently? I might need to get that and complete my collection. I have many feelings about this family and these books have made me cry.

5. CS Lewis (7)
I'll be honest with you, I am not sure I have my Narnia books. I think I do? But honestly they are so deep in storage, they might have been given away at some point. (Fun fact: In the Swedish translation Edmund sells his siblings out for toffee.)

4. Annie Dalton (12)
The Agent Angel (previously Angels Unlimited) series have eleven total works on Ao3, of which I have written seven. I regret nothing. These books deserved a bigger following. It had a morally ambiguous hot boy with an awkward redemption arc and everything! There could have been coffeeshop AUs and so many different parirings and my OTP would have been so popular! We could have had it ALL.

3. Neil Gaiman (20)
Most of this is in storage now too, which I regret sometimes because I want to reread Fragile Things real bad and I have no idea where it is! Here's a funny story about Neil Gaiman. A whole bunch of years ago, my much younger cousin was a huge, huge fan of Justin Bieber. During a family gathering the object of her affection was scheduled to appear on TV, whereupon she disappeared to watch him. She returned some moments later sobbing about her love for him. And I nodded in gentle understanding, thinking "ah, yes, young love, I certainly understand the concept. I have not felt that way about anyone in such a long time, though, and I never will again. I'm an adult now! I like things an adult amount!" A few weeks later Neil Gaiman talked at a culture event in Stockholm. I was in the audience. And yeah. I'm sorry, little cousin. I absolutely still get beng overwhelmed by emotions. That man is my Justin Bieber.

2. Terry Pratchett (30)
I don't have a complete collection of PTerry. It's a little bit of a security blanket thing. If I still have things left to read of his, then I don't have to say goodbye to the man himself. I still reread some of my favourites at least once every few years.

1. Margit Sandemo (82)
She was always going to take the top spot, as she was a ridiculously active writer. Her first series Sagan om Isfolket ("The Ice Clan Saga") was published in 1982-89 and was comprised of 47 books. I was obsessed with this series as a teenager and was extremely happy to have a complete collection of all three of her main series. They are firmly in storage these days, as they would leave room for little else if I had them out. All together they spawned dozens of memorable characters over a span of five centuries, with romance, magic, and an epic battle between good and evil. Do I recommend it these days? Eh, it does show its age in some awkward ways, even if I believe the intentions were good. I do still admire the scope of it, and wonder sometimes if that TV show they were going to make will ever actually happen.

Figured I'd do this too, but extend it to 'what books are out in my room', given I ran out of bookshelf space last year and so there are some books in different places around my room that should be included. That being said, I also felt like I a) had to actually count them and b) extend the list to 10 authors instead of 5 because 5 is just too few.

So, here's my list:

1. Enid Blyton (55). Children's mystery novels, if I have one book in the series, I have all the books in the series (and a couple of others for good measure), haven't read them in ages but I particularly remember liking Five Finder-Outers over the more well-known Famous Five.

2. Jack Campbell (31). Sci-Fi with a dip into Fantasy(ish). Very good at describing battles, particularly the space ones in The Lost Fleet series which make you put the book down and work out how the battles happen in 4D (yes, 4.). The Lost Stars spinoff to The Lost Fleet are probably my favourite but it's hard to find a book of his that I dislike. Also thoroughly enjoy his depictions of the aliens in The Lost Fleet. I won't say any more because of Spoilers.

3. Dan Abnett (18). While I'm aware he has written so much, I have almost exclusively only collected his writing in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Gaunt's Ghosts predominantly but I do also have his Eisenhower and Ravenor books in a couple of places too.

4. Robert Muchamore (16). Young adult spy novels, CHERUB & it's prequel in Henderson's Boys all about teenagers being spies in modern day and WWII respectively. Made up a large chunk of what I read as a teenager (alongside a couple of other authors further down the list).

5. Jim Butcher (12). Adult Urban Fantasy in The Dresden Files, also done a bit of a steampunk-y series in The Cinder Spires, still waiting for that to get a second book. I actually started The Dresden Files with Storm Front and funnily enough given hS's comments Summer Knight is one of the two Dresden Files books I haven't read yet (the other being the latest one).

6. Chris Ryan (11). Young adult spy novels, bit more of an emphasis on survival elements than Robert Muchamore but still really fun books, have (almost) all the Alpha Force series in my room and a couple of his other novels as well. Seem to recall only picking up Robert Muchamore's books after having read all of Chris Ryan's. Fun Fact, also the only author in this list that I have met in real life.

7. Rick Riordan (11). Young adult novels that I love even to this day. Started off with Percy Jackson and have got at least book from each series he has written ever since. I ended up borrowing quite of his books from the library when I was at Uni so my collection is a little smaller than I'd like.

8. Andrzej Sapkowski (7). The original Witcher series. Have read it in it's entirety but have lost two of the books somewhere and somehow have two The Tower of The Swallows in my room (with a third in my car). Not sure how that happened.

9. Brian Jacques (6). Redwall! I have read all 22 of the books in the series, although most of them I either borrowed from a library or from my sister (and I think a few of the books I have are technically hers still). High Rhulain (one of the books that is my sister's that I still have) is my favourite and has been read many times.

10. C. S. Lewis (6). Somehow I have lost Prince Caspian which is more annoying than you might think considering the backs of the books made up an image of Cair Paravel which is now sadly incomplete. Still a lovely series of books I enjoyed as a kid. In the same bookshelf as my Enid Blyton books funnily enough.

My family moved a while ago and I haven't quite managed to unpack all of my books (many of which I donated to the library before the move; books are big and heavy). I'm absolutely using this thread as a reading list, moved to my e-reader.

For authors, Jim Butcher's Dresden Files is the most represented, with Diane Duane a close second. Third would probably be Brandon Sanderson.

The thing is, I'm not much of a hoarder. When I had a proper bookshelf, I just donated old books periodically to make way for new ones. I'm still kicking myself for giving away my nearly-complete Animorphs collection, though.