What was the name of the guy who wrote _Seven Who Fled_ again? He was in the comeback kid mode around here for a hot minute.
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 19:16 (one year ago) link
(not answering James's question; just wondering if anyone still reads 'em)
― Les hommes de bonbons (cryptosicko)
sort of a related question that one, _genres_ that have fallen out of favor probably they have at least niche followings. i was at powell's i think before the pandemic and they had a whole section, for instance, of nautical adventures. i think my brother read some of the horatio hornblower books. he's kind of big on old niche fiction, he's really into doc savage. i didn't know nautical fiction was an entire genre, though i guess it stands to reason.
i'm actually half-heartedly reading a harlequin romance now! _for the love of april french_ by a lady named penny aimes. my mom read harlequin romances by the bushel when i was young - i never touched them myself, they were For Girls, so i don't know how _for the love of april french_ stacks up, but i can _definitely_ see the appeal. only reason i haven't finished it is because all of my leisure reading tends to be dour nonfiction books about genocide and for some reason i've stopped enjoying reading for leisure as much as i used to. april french is pure fantasy - it's about a trans woman (of course, because i am a cliche) who meets a cis guy who isn't a chaser, an egg, or otherwise a fucking asshole but who is nevertheless into her. aside from that it was actually super relatable to my own life, which i can't imagine would be true about '80s harlequin romances. the titular april french is sort of a den mom at a local bdsm club, who by day works a job that's _very_ similar to my own, even considering that there are like three or four careers that have historically been open to trans women.
anyway. my feeling - and again i haven't read any '80s harlequin romances so i can't confirm - is that the idea of a "harlequin romance novel" has changed to adapt with the times, and that while the romance novel is probably even more of a niche concern than it was previously - nowadays i suspect that ao3 fills a lot of the niche that harlequin used to fill - there's certainly good quality writing still being put out by harlequin.
― Kate (rushomancy), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 19:17 (one year ago) link
Flann O'Brien will never not be read.
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 19:19 (one year ago) link
I wasn't proposing Flann O'Brien as a subject for this thread. O'Brien and Cabell were both stuck and couldn't renew their imaginations.
― alimosina, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 19:22 (one year ago) link
What about Henri Barbusse? Feel like he would be difficult and lack the cache of say Celine.
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 19:25 (one year ago) link
My best friend at high school was an obsessive reader of Alexander Kent novels, was he ever a big deal? Certainly wrote a lot of books, and he only died five years ago.
― link.exposing.politically (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 19:30 (one year ago) link
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 19:31 (one year ago) link
i didn't know nautical fiction was an entire genre
OCEANS ARE NOW BATTLEFIELDS
― mark s, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 19:33 (one year ago) link
Poster Boy Arnold Bennett is a Penguin Classics kind of guy, so while this definitely disqualifies for Type I Unread, not sure about Type II Unread. Maybe Type II should have subdivisions of the clade: Type IIa- famous for being unread, but still read and in print, Type IIb - unread and unknown by most but still in print but a publisher you know etc.
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 19:38 (one year ago) link
definitely need some empsonian classifications of that sort.
― Fizzles, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 19:45 (one year ago) link
have read two Arnold Bennett's in the last couple of years - the card and Anna of the five towns. was figuring him for stoke's version of gaskell based on descriptions of the latter but the card was a bit of a knockabout. tptv shows the film from time to time.
gissing also, New Grub Street, slightly depressing
― koogs, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 19:58 (one year ago) link
Most recent Arnold Bennett reference prior to this thread
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:05 (one year ago) link
i was right to say it
― mark s, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:10 (one year ago) link
Lol
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:13 (one year ago) link
I think the important thing about Bennett is that Stoke is now widely understood as a racist shithole
― Mizue loves company (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:13 (one year ago) link
So George Meredith doesn't seem to be in print with any publisher of note in the US but it seems maybe Penguin UK does have The Egoist.
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:14 (one year ago) link
So his Penguin Score is very low but non-zero.
**ahem** a more recent Arnold Bennett reference:
Bright Remarks and Throwing Shade: What Are You Reading, Summer 2022?
― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:19 (one year ago) link
sort of a related question that one, _genres_ that have fallen out of favor probably they have at least niche followings.
Good point. In identifying Grey and L'amour, I was kind of thinking of them in these terms, and my suspicion, at least, is that the pop Western as a genre was basically replaced by the likes of Clancy, Grisham, Patterson, etc. There are undoubtedly some large gaps in that history; Stephen King might belong there, but I always think of him belonging to slightly different, if related, literary traditions. Basically, I'm arguing for Grey and L'amour as the "airport reads" of their day, if that makes sense.
― Les hommes de bonbons (cryptosicko), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:20 (one year ago) link
Oh wait, sorry, maybe I was sorting by relevance instead of date.
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:27 (one year ago) link
lol
― mark s, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:28 (one year ago) link
EIther that or I just can't read or something.
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:28 (one year ago) link
Stephen king has a new book in the top ten just this week
― koogs, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:34 (one year ago) link
he's the new winston churchill
― mark s, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:34 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSzJNQSkbi8
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:39 (one year ago) link
probably nobody still reading j.b. priestley? pretty big in 50s & 60s, lots of his books still in op shops (uk -"charity shops") - i read one once, was a sort of heavy handed satire of an arts festival
― black ark oakensaw (doo rag), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:44 (one year ago) link
op shops is probably where you'd get a pile of answers for this thread but i seldom go into those places any more
― black ark oakensaw (doo rag), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:46 (one year ago) link
Good one, Priestley. I always get him confused with J.R. Ackerley tbh who had a recent revival via NYRB, not sure how high he got on the Type-O-Hype-O-Meter.
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:47 (one year ago) link
At the risk of dragging out the big gun for dinosaur and aiming it at Stonehenge (DO U SEE?), there is a kind of hauntology associated with these kinds of authors.
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:49 (one year ago) link
lot of '90s "chick lit" & "lad lit" dudes in the op shops last i looked but i don't remember any of those authors' names & anyway maybe ppl still do read em idk
― black ark oakensaw (doo rag), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 20:52 (one year ago) link
^^ those feel like a different category, as far as an omnipresent best-seller (Charles Frazier's Cold Mountain) that never entered a canon vs. one that endured for a while and has now petered out.
That said, not sure Millennials or Gen Z are getting into High Fidelity or Bridget Jones's Diary unless it's picked up from a Little Free Library.
― The self-titled drags (Eazy), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 21:17 (one year ago) link
yeah those are ubiquitous in the ol' LFL & i don't know if that means nobody reads em any more or if it means lots of ppl still read em
actually i realise that i don't have very much idea what other people are reading at all
― black ark oakensaw (doo rag), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 21:26 (one year ago) link
probably nobody much still reading susan hill or andrea newman (also ubiquitous 2nd hand & both actually good imo)
― black ark oakensaw (doo rag), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 21:28 (one year ago) link
this thread is a delight & i'm awed and charmed by many posts
― ꙮ (map), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 21:43 (one year ago) link
I read a few J. B. Priestley plays in that same modern drama course I mentioned earlier. Maybe the instructor was some kind of freak?
― rob, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 22:01 (one year ago) link
SF/fantasy seems like a slightly different thing, but I hope no children are reading Piers Anthony like I did.
I'm curious if kids these days are into Baum or (older kids) Vonnegut? Is Kerouac too toxic masculine now? Bukowski? I feel like the category of "genuinely popular in my lifetime but now not read" is harder to fill. I remember my parents reading The Jewel in the Crown when the miniseries was on Masterpiece Theater—I assume that's a tough sell these days
― rob, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 22:06 (one year ago) link
I meant to include Heinlein in my childhood wonderings
― rob
god, even when i was young piers anthony had a well-known reputation as a creep.
― Kate (rushomancy), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 22:50 (one year ago) link
Daphne du Maurier. (Surprising that she died as late as 1989.)
― alimosina, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 22:53 (one year ago) link
Andre Norton btw? idk
― Mizue loves company (Noodle Vague), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 22:54 (one year ago) link
People surely still read Du Maurier (and Brautigan), a lot.
― link.exposing.politically (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 22:57 (one year ago) link
― Ride On Proserpina (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 23:04 (one year ago) link
she was still in her 20s when she wrote her big hits, hitchcock was on it!
― mark s, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 23:09 (one year ago) link
Is kind of mad that she wrote Rebecca and Jamaica Inn and The Birds and Don't Look Now, if we judge an author by their film adaptations she's a world-beater.
― link.exposing.politically (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 23:13 (one year ago) link
I just downloaded a du Maurier novel onto my Kindle! And I recently read a collection of her stories that included Don't Look Now. It was patchy, but very readable.
― Zelda Zonk, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 23:15 (one year ago) link
i think of those four as the birds expanded universe tetralogy
― mark s, Tuesday, 27 September 2022 23:16 (one year ago) link
I've read two of her short stories and tried to read Rebecca (not bad but life is too short)
― formerly abanana (dat), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 23:21 (one year ago) link
First encountered Rebecca as part of my stepmother's set of "classic novels" audiobooks, think it was the only thing from the 20th century in the set, still odd to me that it was written so late
― link.exposing.politically (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 23:26 (one year ago) link
There’s a sub-group of novelists who were sort of big deals because they were related to famous authors:
Julian HawthorneConstance Fenimore Woolson Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie
― SincereLee 'Scratch' Perry (President Keyes), Tuesday, 27 September 2022 23:46 (one year ago) link
They're the literary equivalent of James Taylor's siblings.
Someone who knows more of the English Canadian literary canon could probably come up with a bunch of names that were considered important in their times. Brian Fawcett was a writer (and quasi-novelist) who died earlier this year; celebrated in the 80s as Canada's foremost post-modernist, but there's only one, non-circulating copy of Cambodia : a book for people who find television too slow now in the Toronto library system.
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 28 September 2022 00:39 (one year ago) link