SDMB - Straight Dope discussion

Let me suggest Don Robertson. He wrote in the 60's and 70's and most of his books are out of print.

His books are old-fashioned in a way. There's no explicit sex or violence or foul language, but he doesn't hold back either.

My favorite is Paradise Falls, a two-volume epic set in Ohio in the years after the Civil War. If you liked The Thorn Birds and Gone With the Wind, it's sorta like those.

He's written two books that deal with aging and loneliness -- The Ideal Genuine Man and Praise the Human Season. He wrote a wonderful coming of age story called The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread. His Civil War novels are from the POV of ordinary soldiers and they're marvelous.

His books are generally cheap at Amazon and elsewhere. Sliced Bread is back in print. I'm hoping if it does well that more of his books will come out in new editions. My paperbacks are falling apart.

Do you have any unknown favorite old writers to recommend?

Only a hundred or so. :)

She's not unknown, but nowhere near as widely read as she should be: MM Kaye.

Mostly murder mysteries. The real treat is that she was an army wife and she wrote each book in a different setting as she moved from country to country.

Her most famous book is The Far Pavilions. Strangely, that's the one I haven't read! :D

Whenever I discover an wonderful old writer, it turns out that he or she is famous and widely read, and I've just been oblivious. Such as Dorothy L. Sayers, Georgette Heyer, and Tony Hillerman.

I have to take back what I said about no sex or violence in Robertson's books. I just finished Miss Margaret Ridpath and the Dismantling of the Universe, and there's a LOT of explicit sex and violence toward the end.

Julie, I loved M.M. Kaye's The Ordinary Princess when they serialized it in Cricket years ago. You say she did mysteries, too? Hmmmm.

My contribution to this list is Edgar Rice Burroughs. He wrote an untold number of sci-fi and fantasy novels, most of which are hard to find, but very good in the 1930s-1950s movie serial kind of way.

Kaye's mysteries are really enjoyable. They aren't a series, but each book's title starts with "Death in." They can be read in any order.

Now I have to reread them!