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Former bestsellers who are now unfashionable

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    #26
    Dune is still pretty popular. Not sure about the rest of Frank's stuff.

    All the big 70s science fiction writers are unfashionable now.

    What about Jackie Collins, Catherine Cookson, Jilly Cooper and that ilk?

    Also Jeffrey Archer. Do his books still sell?

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      #27
      I have no idea who the current biggies are? Who occupies that popular-pageturner-which-doesn't-require-brain-engagement-to-read niche these days? Who is the John Grisham or Dick Francis or Jackie Collins or Alistair Maclean or Jeffrey Archer de nos jours?

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        #28
        It's all young adult stuff or housewife erotica isn't it?

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          #29
          South Tyneside used to have a sign 'Welcome to Catherine Cookson country' but it got taken down years ago

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            #30
            Originally posted by ad hoc View Post
            I have no idea who the current biggies are? Who occupies that popular-pageturner-which-doesn't-require-brain-engagement-to-read niche these days? Who is the John Grisham or Dick Francis or Jackie Collins or Alistair Maclean or Jeffrey Archer de nos jours?
            Is there someone called Paterson, or Patterson? And Robert Ludlum. Or is he unfashionable now?

            Craig Thomas was another 80s favourite.

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              #31
              Originally posted by Sits View Post
              Is there someone called Paterson, or Patterson? And Robert Ludlum. Or is he unfashionable now?

              Craig Thomas was another 80s favourite.
              Patterson is the current bestselling author in the world, as he essentially co-authors dozens of books a year with other authors in an Alexandre Dumas style factory system.

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                #32
                If this source is to be trusted, the best-selling authors of the 20th century were, in descending order:

                Danielle Steel; Stephen King; James A. Michener; Sidney Sheldon; Mary Higgins Clark; Robert Ludlum; Lloyd C. Douglas; Sinclair Lewis; Harold Robbins; Daphne du Maurier; Tom Clancy; John Grisham; John le Carre’; Leon Uris; Booth Tarkington; Zane Grey; Taylor Caldwell; Frederick Forsyth; John Steinbeck; Herman Wouk; Anne Rice; A.J. Cronin; Irving Wallace; Judith Krantz; Irving Stone; Edna Ferber; Eleanor H. Porter; Arthur Hailey; Dean Koontz; John O’Hara; Michael Crichton; Ernest Hemingway; Jackie Collins; James Clavell; William J. Locke; Mary Johnston; Edith Wharton; Allen Drury; Patricia Cornwell; Jacqueline Susann

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                  #33
                  Originally posted by Felicity, I guess so View Post
                  Everyone read von Daniken at school. And Sven Hassel.
                  Everyone read Sven Hassel when I was in school and there was a very violent western series of books about a gunslinger called "Edge"that was devoured and passed around
                  amongst everyone

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                    #34
                    From Stumpy's list, I've read one (borrowed) Ernest Hemingway and I've got an unread John Steinbeck...

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                      #35
                      Originally posted by Patrick Thistle View Post
                      Also Jeffrey Archer. Do his books still sell?
                      I used to date a girl who devoured Jeffrey Archer back in the '80s. Consequently, I read (Starting with Kane and Abel) almost everything he wrote from 1976 to about 1991. And, admittedly, enjoyed them. His short stories with a twist are good, IIRC.

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                        #36
                        Originally posted by Stumpy Pepys View Post
                        Danielle Steel; Stephen King; James A. Michener; Sidney Sheldon; Mary Higgins Clark; Robert Ludlum; Lloyd C. Douglas; Sinclair Lewis; Harold Robbins; Daphne du Maurier; Tom Clancy; John Grisham; John le Carre’; Leon Uris; Booth Tarkington; Zane Grey; Taylor Caldwell; Frederick Forsyth; John Steinbeck; Herman Wouk; Anne Rice; A.J. Cronin; Irving Wallace; Judith Krantz; Irving Stone; Edna Ferber; Eleanor H. Porter; Arthur Hailey; Dean Koontz; John O’Hara; Michael Crichton; Ernest Hemingway; Jackie Collins; James Clavell; William J. Locke; Mary Johnston; Edith Wharton; Allen Drury; Patricia Cornwell; Jacqueline Susann
                        Underlined are ones I can truly say I've read. Love Hemingway, me. I think I've also started, but not finished, a Michener and a Hailey.

                        My dad would have read 80% of those authors, and a half dozen titles from each. He read from the 'top' of the bestseller lists, did dad.
                        Last edited by WOM; 04-07-2018, 13:39.

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                          #37
                          Just checking out the top sellers on that list in Dublins largest bookshop,King: as many as you like,Higgins Clark:4 books,Mitchener 2,Steel1, couldn't find any by Sheldon or Ludlum

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                            #38
                            Stephen King went a bit off the rails with his Dark Tower decade, where he took two really interesting ideas from earlier novels (the Dark Tower itself, and jumping between parallel worlds, from The Talisman, and Randall Flagg from The Stand) and turned them into seven novels of self indulgent nonsense.

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                              #39
                              Correction, all the Jason Bourne books are here but nothing else by Ludlum

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                                #40
                                Originally posted by elguapo4 View Post
                                A lot of 70s mega authors have gone that way, Harold Robbins,Leon Uris,Frederick Forsyth,I'm sure I could think of more

                                My grandmother was a member of a BOTM club and, in addition to those, got a lot of Wilbur Smith, Hammond Innes, Clive Cussler and Jack Higgins. I think they all carried on for many years after their commercial peak, pumping out a book a year or whatever for the hardcore fanbase. I started to read a late (1990s) Jack Higgins when I was stuck at a marina once and it was terrible, completely incompetent. Whatever knack he had previously possessed for commercial fiction was long gone by then.


                                Alastair Maclean seems to have disappeared without trace pretty much.

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                                  #41
                                  Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                  James Michener, too
                                  I really like reading (although I've done shockingly little of it this year), but I had never heard of James Michener until I moved here and first went in what is now my local, where there is a quote by him stencilled above the bar. Eight years on, that quote is still the only thing I know about him apart from the fact he's an (American?) author.

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                                    #42
                                    Originally posted by Stumpy Pepys View Post
                                    If this source is to be trusted, the best-selling authors of the 20th century were, in descending order:

                                    Danielle Steel; Stephen King; James A. Michener; Sidney Sheldon; Mary Higgins Clark; Robert Ludlum; Lloyd C. Douglas; Sinclair Lewis; Harold Robbins; Daphne du Maurier; Tom Clancy; John Grisham; John le Carre’; Leon Uris; Booth Tarkington; Zane Grey; Taylor Caldwell; Frederick Forsyth; John Steinbeck; Herman Wouk; Anne Rice; A.J. Cronin; Irving Wallace; Judith Krantz; Irving Stone; Edna Ferber; Eleanor H. Porter; Arthur Hailey; Dean Koontz; John O’Hara; Michael Crichton; Ernest Hemingway; Jackie Collins; James Clavell; William J. Locke; Mary Johnston; Edith Wharton; Allen Drury; Patricia Cornwell; Jacqueline Susann
                                    I've heard of nineteen of those, and read five. (Have just scrolled down before posting and seen elguapo's post; if Ludlum is the author of the Bourne novels, I've heard of twenty. The fact the name didn't ring any bells says something, I feel.)

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                                      #43
                                      Michener wrote doorstopping (few under 900 pages) novels set in "exotic" (for 60s Americans) locales.

                                      There's one on Hawaii, one on Israel, one on Torremolinos, one on Colorado, etc

                                      Rogers and Hammerstein's South Pacific was based on his first book, and is almost certain to outlast all of them.

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                                        #44
                                        Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                        Michener wrote doorstopping (few under 900 pages) novels set in "exotic" (for 60s Americans) locales.

                                        one on Torremolinos
                                        The one about the travel agents?

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                                          #45
                                          I like some of Alistair Maclean's stuff, but you can tell that his average reader is twenty or more years older than me; the only copies of his books our local library has nowadays are the large print versions.

                                          Frederick Forsyth still brings out a book every couple of years or so (they make handy Xmas presents for blameless snr).

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                                            #46
                                            In the UK you can probably add Catherine Cookson to Stumpy's list. If not most bought then most borrowed, for years. Not so much now.

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                                              #47
                                              Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                                              Michener wrote doorstopping (few under 900 pages) novels set in "exotic" (for 60s Americans) locales.

                                              There's one on Hawaii, one on Israel, one on Torremolinos, one on Colorado, etc

                                              Rogers and Hammerstein's South Pacific was based on his first book, and is almost certain to outlast all of them.
                                              South Pacific benefits from being a collection of vignettes rather than a novel, per se. I enjoy dipping in from time to time.

                                              My dad read Michener, and said Hawaii was so long because he'd go on for 60 pages describing, in agonizing detail, the process of how the islands were formed, the soil gathered, the plants arrived, the animals established, etc. And then how a huge volcano blew it all to pieces and it began all over once again....

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                                                #48
                                                I'm slightly surprised Dennis Wheatley isn't on that list. He was selling a million books a year throughout the fifties, and pretty much supplied Hammer films with most of their titles. It's possible his stuff didn't travel well though.

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                                                  #49
                                                  See also Agatha Christie.

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                                                    #50
                                                    Indeed!

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