Author

“A book is worth a thousand words”

~ Mark Twain

“A book is worth $5.99”

~ Ebay

“The keyboard is mightier than the pen”

~ Stephen King

An author (or "auteur" if you want to be pretentious about it) is a professional unemployment engineer who doesn't have a real job and spends his days not working from home. They are generally known to smoke, drink straight vodka and beat their wives. Additionally, they have sometimes been known to write books. Since the dawn of the internet, the number of books published has been steadily decreasing due to more easily available reading material, such as porn. Still, authors are responsible for some of the most beloved volumes of all time, including War and Peace, The Bible, and Madonna.

Influential Authors

Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo Da Vinci (February 14th, 1947 - February 14th, 1970) was an Italian author and art critic. Much of his life was spent critiquing other peoples' art, art which is often mistaken as his own. For instance, he once wrote a scathing review of Walter Keane's Mona Lisa, calling it "the equivalent of watching a child have a good time". He also famously drew a mustache on Keane's Mona Lisa, which is now the most reproduced image of all time. Keane defended his work by saying that some people enjoyed watching children have a good time, and that life wasn't all sad, big-eyed children that your wife drew and you took credit for.

Da Vinci was most at home as an art critic, but by far his greatest contributions to society were his novels Catch 22 and The Catcher In the Rye. Both involve boring people doing boring things, but they're both classics.

In his old age, Da Vinci became an amnesiac, and, upon his death, believed himself to be a failure and his work forgotten, despite the fact that he was the most respected man in the world and was swamped by the paparazzi everyday during his later life. Despite his old age, Da Vinci singlehandedly managed to break up The Beatles, end the Vietnam War, and fake the moon landing, all from his island home in Madagascar. He died on February 14th, 1970, shortly after choking on a fig.

Georges-Pierre Seurat

An early and experimental project of Seurat's (note the lack of character development and symbolism)

Seurat (December 2, 1859 – March 29, 1891) was a French author known for his point and dot arrangements on paper. His claim was that this required the reader to really "feel" what he wrote. His masterpiece, "Sunday Afternoon" was innovative in the fact that it could be read in one afternoon. The tiny juxtaposed dots of white dots on white paper allowed the eye of the viewer to blend the points and dots optically creating a sort of magical disappearing effect when viewed from a distance which caused the page to appear completely blank. Viewers frequently commented that Seurat's novels were easier to appreciate with closed eyes.

Pablo Picasso

Picasso is often categorized into "periods". While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are the Blue Period, the Rose period, and the African-influenced Period. Prior to this time in history no other author had thought to put such emphasis on the period in their writings.

Picasso is also sometimes incorrectly referred to as a cubist. The proper term is "Cuban." Indeed, one can see many influences of Cuban culture in Picasso's books, particularly in his semi-autobiographical work, "Cigars and Communism: That 'Bout Sums it Up"

"My Favorite Punctuation Mark," an important work by Picasso

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was an American author who produced most of his work during the 1960s and 1980s. He is most generally credited with starting the "Pop" movement in literature, in which topics that were previously considered too mundane or silly (such as soup cans and bananas) were discussed. He is also famous for his biographies. He interviewed a variety of famous characters (such as Marilyn Monroe), and often times portrayed them in a different light than the public was used to.

The Non-Author

Authors have faced many accusations and stereotypes throughout history. What author hasn't experienced the frustration of listening to people who complain that "you can't really read an author's book" or "they aren't really books". Many suspect that the problem doesn't lie with the author, but actually within the reader himself and his lack of appropriate edcucation. Perhaps a book appreciation course might help these readers learn how to look at books and possibly gain new respect for their authors.

Other Authors

• Anonymous
• Salvador Dali
• J.K. Rowling (wrote the popular expansion to the bible, Harry Potter)
• Vincent Van Gogh
• Leonardo DaVinci
• Edvard Munch
• Fight Club
• Uncylcopedia Editors