Are book genres being replaced by affinity clusters? An IO9 reprint.
Of a guy who's never heard of Barbara Cartland or Harold Robbins. And who misspells Gaiman and Rowling.
I, however, had not heard of George Simenon.
Xander: I do have Spaghetti-os. Set 'em on top of the dryer and you're a fluff cycle away from lukewarm goodness. Riley: I, uh, had dryer-food for lunch.
'Same Time, Same Place'
Literary Buffistas 3: Don't Parse the Blurb, Dear.
There's more to life than watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer! No. Really, there is! Honestly! Here's a place for Buffistas to come and discuss what it is they're reading, their favorite authors and poets. "Geez. Crack a book sometime."
§ ita § - Mar 14, 2011 2:50:56 pm PDT #14080 of 28287
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
Amy - Mar 14, 2011 4:04:02 pm PDT #14081 of 28287
Because books.
I hadn't heard of Simenon, either.
I wonder how old (young) the author is that he had never heard of Cartland or Robbins.
Consuela - Mar 14, 2011 4:08:28 pm PDT #14082 of 28287
We are Buffistas. This isn't our first apocalypse. -- Pix
I have heard of Simenon; mysteries, I think.
Polter-Cow - Mar 14, 2011 4:09:26 pm PDT #14083 of 28287
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!
I've never heard of Cartland, Robbins, or Simenon.
-t - Mar 14, 2011 4:11:07 pm PDT #14084 of 28287
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration
Simenon is the only one of those three I've read.
Eta: I've heard of all of them, though. Those are ubiquitous names, or were.
Amy - Mar 14, 2011 4:18:44 pm PDT #14085 of 28287
Because books.
Barbara Cartland was sort of the heiress to Georgette Heyer, and one of the forebears of the modern romance. Harold Robbins wrote big sexy potboiler family dramas. Both HUGE in the 1970s.
::grabs cane and hobbles far away from P-C::
Scrappy - Mar 14, 2011 4:26:43 pm PDT #14086 of 28287
Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
Cartland was like Heyer for dumb people. Well, not dumb--my grad school apartment-mate, who was getting her masters in biophysics at MIT, read them. But they aren't good books.
Ginger - Mar 14, 2011 4:28:07 pm PDT #14087 of 28287
"It didn't taste good. It tasted soooo horrible. It tasted like....a vodka martini." - Matilda
I wonder how old (young) the author is that he had never heard of Cartland or Robbins.
Me, too. They were probably the authors most cited as examples of the poor taste of the masses from the '60s into the '80s. Harold Robbins' The Carpetbaggers was the first book I read with sex in it. Simenon and Cartland were both amazingly prolific.
Amy - Mar 14, 2011 4:28:26 pm PDT #14088 of 28287
Because books.
Oh, I didn't mean they were good. Just that she was writing in sort of the same tradition, for a new audience.
meara - Mar 14, 2011 4:30:00 pm PDT #14089 of 28287
Oh! I've heard of The Carpetbaggers, but not Harold Robbins. Or Simenon. I have read Cartland though.
Does it help that I recognized and have read all the "far more common are writers like Mary Gaitskill, Harlen Coben, Paolo Bacigalupi and Debbie Macomber, all best-selling, well-established writers whose name-recognition extends only as far as readers of single category" except Mary Gaitskill (I'm guessing a mystery writer?). Though admittedly, only Bacigalupi due to a free Baen book--is he really popular?