I haven’t read Earthsea, but I have heard nothing but great things about Ursala K. Le Guin.

Depends on how you define “best”. Most well known? Most read? Most highly awarded? Wrote the most? “Best” is such a vague and useless term here. I’ll give it a go though.

Someone already mentioned Ursula K. Le Guin. So I’ll add a few more along with their likely most well known book

• Mary Shelly (Frankenstein)
• Agatha Christie (Murder on the Orient Express)
• Emily Brontë (Wuthering Heights)
• Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
• Harper Lee (To kill a mockingbird)
• Margaret Atwood (Handmaid’s Tale)
• Laura Ingals Wilder (Little House on the Prairie)
• Beatrix Potter (The tale of Peter rabbit)
• Ann Frank (her diary)
• Margaret Mitchell (Gone with the Wind)
• Anne McCaffrey (Dragonriders of Pern)
• Octavia Butler (parable of the sower)

And just to spice it up a bit:

• Hiromu Arakawa (Full metal alchemist)

I think that’s a good start. I’ll end it here or I’ll be here all day

I think I’d put Virginia Woolf on my list.

The stand outs in my book(heh):

• Agatha Christie
• Mary Roach
• Ursula K LeGuin
• Madeline L’Engle
• Mary Ruefle
• Kathy Reichs

I like Diane Duane’s books!

Hard to beat Naomi Novik in my book.

Margaret Atwood should not be overlooked

Diane Duane.

She’s written Star Trek stories, the Young Wizard series, another series about a world of elemental magic, her writing is engaging and accessible and intelligent and tight, and she’s honestly a really kind and nice caring person.