WHo are your 5 favourite writers, and why?

Junot Diaz - Oscar Wao and TIHYLH are such lively books, with great characters and excellent prose, they really are.

Isaac Asimov - Foundation and the Robots novels have great plots, and are dense and quite short.

W Somerset Maugham - His books I've read tend to be pretty funny, cynical, and pretty dense.

David Foster Wallace - His novels and short story collections have great prose and are generally very challenging.

Margaret Atwood - I've read many of her books, and really like the coming of age narratives they have, and the sadness of them.