Taking greatness for granted

I just cannot find a living author I really like.  I have read a few books that I have enjoyed but nothing that draws me back again and again like my old favorites.  I keep searching for something akin to Jane Austen, but all of her imitators and heirs leave me dissatisfied.  I have read some of the books proclaimed as 'the best work of this generation' but find them but wan shadows of the truly great works of literature.  Is it that modern writers are less talented, less creative, less dedicated or is it that the truly great books are remembered because they are great and we need not sift through the dross of books published at the same time because our reading ancestors have already done the work for us?  It is probably the latter, and to complicate matters, anyone can publish a book in this day and age so there are exponentially more books today than there were when Miss Austen had to write her manuscripts by hand two hundred years ago.  There are probably modern Austens, Dickenses, and Shakespeares writing at this very moment but their amazing works are lost in a veritable flood of other literature and it will take time, luck, and effort before their works receive their due, and it may even mean they will not be discovered until after the demise of the author, as was often the case with the greats in any field, be it painting, writing, or music.  Hindsight is 20/20 and our literary, musical, and artistic heritage is the result of those who laboriously sorted the wheat from the chaff and passed on what was good and allowed the bad and mediocre to be quietly forgotten.  So I suppose we owe it to posterity to continue the process of weeding out the good from the pathetic that our own decedents can take our efforts for granted and complain about the dearth of quality in the distant future.  Read on then, good bibliophiles, read on!