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::
Everybody dies, Tracey. Someone's carrying a bullet for you right now, doesn't even know it. The trick is to die of old age before it finds you.
Mal ,'The Message'
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."
Amy - Mar 14, 2011 4:18:44 pm PDT #14085 of 28286
Because books.
Scrappy - Mar 14, 2011 4:26:43 pm PDT #14086 of 28286
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 28286
"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 28286
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 28286
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?
Amy - Mar 14, 2011 4:32:17 pm PDT #14090 of 28286
Because books.
Mary Gaitskill is literary fiction. I've never heard of Paolo Bacigalupi.
Strix - Mar 14, 2011 4:34:55 pm PDT #14091 of 28286
A dress should be tight enough to show you're a woman but loose enough to flee from zombies. — Ginger
I think he wrote "The Wind-up Girl" which won a...Nebula this year? I haven't read it, though. I think it's kinda steampunky.
I only haven't heard of Coben, but then I am a big ol' bibliophile.
-t - Mar 14, 2011 4:35:06 pm PDT #14092 of 28286
I am a woman of various inclinations and only some of the time are they to burn everything down in frustration
Heh. I've read The Windup Girl (by Bacigalupi) but I don't actually recognize his name (I googled).
Amy - Mar 14, 2011 4:36:06 pm PDT #14093 of 28286
Because books.
Oh! I've heard really good things about The Wind-up Girl, but I guess I hadn't heard his name.
Polter-Cow - Mar 14, 2011 4:36:14 pm PDT #14094 of 28286
What else besides ramen can you scoop? YOU CAN SCOOP THIS WORLD FROM DARKNESS!
Mary Gaitskill (I'm guessing a mystery writer?)
Mary Gaitskill writes very kinky short stories.
Though admittedly, only Bacigalupi due to a free Baen book--is he really popular?
He won the Hugo and the Nebula.