Topic: Know any good authors?

This college semester I'm taking a Comp II course, but the class makes me feel uncomfortable in the sense that I feel like a complete undereducated fool in comparison to everyone else. Other students are using words and terms I've never heard of or have forgotten the meaning of.
I used to love to read up until my last few years of high school, when my gaming really started to spike, and attending this class now makes me realize that I need to rediscover my love for reading again. But I don't know where to start, and this is the reason I made this thread. I want to know which authors any readers here may enjoy, and who you would recommend.
I understand that a gaming forum isn't the best place to ask this, but I'm not a part of any other community and I know a lot of members here also go to college/are adults with jobs, so there may be a chance some of you like to read too.

Thanks a lot, I'll be sure to check them out. What kind of books are they, by the way? I probably should have mentioned I have a preference for fiction.

I'm gonna second Haruki Murakami, although I'd probably suggest A Wild Sheep Chase over Kafka on the Shore.

Alexandre Dumas' books are usually pretty good. "Georges" has one of the best endings to a novel I've read, Dumas wrote the Three Musketeers (which is actually part of a cycle that ends with "The man in the Iron Mask") and a bunch of other books.

If you looking to bump up your vocab, reading run of the mill books wouldn't help that much.

Here are some;
Douglas Adams
Eoin Colfer
Edgar Allen Poe
(I'll think of more later)

Kenneth Oppel. I highly recommend the Airborn series.

I'd counter Murakami. I find he generally starts off his books kind of interesting but doesn't know when to finish them, and hundreds of pages later it mostly seems like unconnected nonsense to me and many other readers. But he has lots of fans. I did however very much enjoy his After Dark and thought Norwegian Wood was pretty good, both shorter, more focused novels. His short stories are often worth reading, too. I think he's best with shorter forms.

If you enjoy Murakami and are at all a Japanophile, Kobo Abe is my favorite, an author I think Murakami fans tend to like as well. He is a surrealist in a less wacky sense, though by his last book, Kangaroo Notebook, you might not tell the difference quite so much. The Box Man was my favorite of his.

But if you just pick a random book by either author, you're likely diving into the deep end, having not read much recently. My suggestions for good books to rekindle your literary interests:

• The Road by Cormac McCarthy — post-apocalyptic novel, turned into a movie, same author as No Country for Old Men
• The Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe (or) Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami — both are kind of depressing but if you have an interest in Japan (and most Nintendo fans naturally do), they are some of the better received Japanese novels in the West
• The Sorcerer's House by Gene Wolfe — modern fantasy that becomes a kind of puzzle for the reader to figure out
• Dune by Frank Herbert — sci-fi at its best

All are fairly short books and easy to read (though The Road and Dune have a lot of unfamiliar words, context clues keep it pretty simpe). It might also help if you mentioned your tastes.

When I was younger I really got into Tad Williams, a great fantasy/ sci-fi writer. You should check out the MEMORY, SORROW AND THORN series of books he wrote.

@TeeJay: I'm going for an M.A. in Literature. Don't feel discouraged; everyone is unfamiliar with new things at first. I'm sure you'll catch up to everyone else in the class if you're willing to learn the new terms and do the required readings.

My favorite books are written by R.A. Salvatore, the Drizzt Do'Urden books, such as Homeland, Exile, and Sojourn.

I personally recommend Terry Pratchett and Garth Nix. Good stuff right there.

What would you suggest, Navi?

EDIT: And thanks, everyone, I now have a nice list of books to get a hold of.

@Adam I generally go for fictional novels, but I'm not sure what I may enjoy now, so I'm open to anything.

The Oxford English Dictionary

Nabokov is the greatest master of English prose I've ever read, and it wasn't even his first language. I also find him to be tremendously clever in his mastery of tone, although the form of his humor will not appeal to everyone.

I'd suggest trying Lolita (infamous, but far more clever and intriguing than either film adaptation), Pnin (a bit shorter, but requires some experience with the oddities of academia to be in on the jokes), or--if you're feeling ambitious--go for Pale Fire (hilarious, maze-like, and a mockery of the very form of a novel, but also profound).

My favorite author is Jasper Fforde, he is mostly known for his Thursday Next series, and his Nursery Crimes (these are actually aimed at adults even though they deal with nursery crime characters). My personal favorite of his is Shades of Grey. It's the first of a trilogy about your standing in society depends on what colors you can see, everyone is colorblind except they can see one color and the ones that can't see any are maids and servants., but he is writing so many different books right now I have no idea when the 2nd or 3rd will be finished.

• Bram Stoker (Dracula)
  DJ MacHale (Pendragon)
  Pittacious Lore (I am Number four)
  JRR Tolkien
  Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park)
  Frank Peretti (The Oath AMAZING BOOK. I SUGGEST!)

I really like the Mistborn series, by Brandon Sanderson, and the Enderverse novels by Orson Scott Card. Those include Ender's Game, Ender's Shadow, Speaker for the Dead, and another one I haven't read yet.

I recommend The Mysterious Benedict Society. I forget the name of the author though...

Joseph Heller (Catch-22)