ROBUST discussion

Elsewhere on ROBUST there is a thread about vampire books. We all know that vampire books contain some of the poorest writing ever seen.

An excuse often offered for the popularity of wretched writing is, "But the readers are teenage girls, very poorly educated. That sort of writing is what they feel at home with?"

Seems to me that's pandering when instead gentle education by example is required.

But first you've got to get them to read...

I send terrible books to my granddaughter just to keep her turning on her Kindle.

I've always said that I don't care what they read, as long as they catch the habit.

But that isn't the subject this thread addresses. Instead it looks at the morality of the authors who deliberately pander to the lowest common denominator with unoriginal, badly written works.

(Well, see, if I could read better I would have known that...)

Well, I would say that my own morals would prevent me from doing that, but I can't speak for anyone else. If they want to make a buck by doing something I think is reprehensible, I'm not sure I'm in a position to say that they shouldn't. If people sincerely want to buy it, they should be able to sell it. *shrug*

Patricia Sierra wrote: "(Well, see, if I could read better I would have known that...)"

Don't get snotty with me, little girl. I believe in equality. I'll clip your ear just as easily as a boy's.

I love cavemen.

Money talks Andre. If you could make less money but put out literary masterpieces read by a few, but more money putting out dime store trash, what would you do?

If I was any ounce a writer (I so am not), I'd probably start out writing teen angst vampire/werewolf menage urban fantasy with lots of blood, gore and sex and once I had an established following would branch out into more high brow better quality books. I would alreay have a fan base who, while they might not like the new offerins, would still buy at least one copy and thus provide a steady flow of income.

Claudine wrote: "Money talks Andre. If you could make less money but put out literary masterpieces read by a few, but more money putting out dime store trash, what would you do?"

In real life you don't get that choice. A writer, even one as versatile as I am, writes what he writes; there's a sense in which every story tells itself, pitches its own level, selects its own tone. Here is an example so grotesque, you need long experience of publishing even to believe it, never mind understand it. A novel of mine was sold for paperback before hardcover publication, before I wrote it in fact, and on hardcover publication was glowingly reviewed by The Times in London and the NY Times on the same day. I thought it was a pretty straightforward disaster novel. The next week the paperback editor called me to say they were canceling the contract. The buyer of the biggest bookseller chain apparently read these two glowing reviews, then called him and said something to the effect of, "You promised me sex and violence, now I read in the Times, both side of the Atlantic, that it is literature. I'm not taking this book." The poor guy was embarrassed. He'd put up another book of mine for the Booker and now I was being punished for writing quality literature. He commissioned three other books as a consolation.

In any event, generally speaking class materials are written by people with class, and trash is written by people without certain advantages of education and culture, though it isn't any more politically correct now to say so than when Bennett Cerf was first condemned for voicing the obvious. If I deliberately wrote a trashy vampire novel, Valley Girl herself would catch me out; the vibes just wouldn't be right. My "trashy" vampire novel will become a cult success -- that's spelt F-A-I-L-U-R-E -- for its "sardonic references", and that would serve everyone in the cynical venture right. (What do you reckon, Sierra? You have YA experience: could you fake it long enough to write a convincingly trashy vampire book?)

On the other hand, a witty editor and I once for a practical joke on another editor faked up a "feminist novel" which I wrote and he sold to her, and that one was a literary, critical and commercial success, and nobody caught us out, exactly because we weren't trying to move downmarket.

Further to Claudine's post, something else: generally writers start where they finish as far as the writing class is concerned. It's a corollary of what I've pointed out already, that a writer writes what he writes.

I can offhand think of only two writers who moved up a class, both from writing small crime novels to writing heavyweight international thrillers generally accepted as literary. The two that come immediately to mind are Martin Cruz Smith and John Le Carré. (And in John le Carre's case, it is arguable that his small early novels were his best work, A Murder of Quality in particular.)

I don't doubt you Andre but over the last 10 months or so I've read some real shite, mostly in the indie market, nothing in print. I think that with the advent of the self publishing route and the ease it seems indie authors can now publish their work, there is going to be many more people out there who honestly think they can write who should never have picked up the pen. Then you have the "literacy" of current readers to bear in mind as well. The generation raised on reality tv. The easy access to online buying.

All that and cheap, easily accessible books? You might not become a gazillionaire but pander to your small group of faithful readers which will surely grow over time and expand with others of the same type of personality and you might have a sure thing.

I do agree with you on John Le Carre. I've only read one of Smith's books so cannot comment on his writing at all.

Once again I have to liken ebooks to the early days of mp3 availability. A great example of current music trends being influenced in a similar manner online would be Justin Bieber. Kid is a freakishly stupid singer with no amount of talent at all but he appeals to kids my dd's age (8) (and all because of YouTube and the number of hits is clip had, going viral). She'll soon be a tween and we all know that the tweens have the buying power as they influence what their parents buy now than at any other time. As an example of that, my husband was in China last week, he was in Hong Kong yesterday and texted me to find out what the name was of her current favourite singer - Selena Gomez. A teen Disney Channel "star". He bought her a DVD and CD not currently available here because she likes the girl's singing and acting, not because he or I enjoy it. (I'd have preferred something by Florence and the Machine or Moby or some weird techno crap but hey, mom doesn't matter ;).)

Oh I just thought of another, local, example. Die Antwoord (The Answer) is an alternative Afrikaans indie rock rappa gansta ninja band (they defy classification). At one point, one of their clips on YouTube had over a million hits and now they are known worldwide and even toured the US. The lead singer was even tipped to play Lisbeth Salander in the Swedish versions. They've gone against the mainstream music out there, with a small following, and are managing to break into arenas like the overseas market almost overnight because their followers demanded that they become more and more abstract.

Hey, when did you old folks get so grumpy and lose your perspective?

I'm sure Agatha Christie has outsold all authors on this forum combined to the power of millions. Is Agatha Christie a good writer? No. She's a completely abysmal writer. Same with Georgette Heyer.

I dunno when this heyday was when people appreciated good writing. Seems to me that the most popular writers have also always been the worst writers and that formulaic vampire authors are just stepping into the shoes left by the likes of Christie and Heyer et al.

It's the same reason why more people watch Days of Our Lives than Pan's Labyrinth. It's popular culture. It's always been there and it'll never go away. It doesn't represent a decline in anything - it just is. Like the weather.

Andre, I'm perfectly capable of writing trashy books. I don't set out to do that; they just end up that way. As you indicated, writers write what's in them. I can't imagine faking it all the way through a manuscript just to go after a certain market -- and I especially can't imagine ever writing a vampire book. But in my most recent book (Sheet Music) I have characters named Rocky Eden and Destiny Muse. What kind of writer does cheap stuff like that? Me.

Alina wrote: "I dunno when this heyday was when people appreciated good writing. Seems to me that the most popular writers have also always been the worst writers and that formulaic vampire authors are just stepping into the shoes left by the likes of Christie and Heyer et al."

I'm on record that for the Shakespeare of the 20th century posterity will offer you a choice between Harold Robbins, Sidney Sheldon and Agatha Christie. I made the case that Shakespeare was a *popular* writer in his day, which is often forgotten. Watching a Shakespeare play was more akin to sitting in a pub swilling beer and watching a soap on widescreen television than the special occasion of going to the theatre today.

And the heyday of the literary novel is right now. Count the sales of literary novels that a generation ago would have had a print run of 2000 copies mainly for libraries. Literature is so venerated that even cheap airport sex'n'violence like the Larsson trilogy is misrepresented as literature-with-a-message to make it sell better.

What Claudine and I are discussing is whether the crap that exists side by side with the good books is now of a lower standard than within living memory. It seems clear to me that more crap, and of a lower standard, gets published now. Some of these vampire writers are clearly, as writers, of a much lower standard than the masturbatory fantasies of Mickey Spillane, which was once the lowest class of literature published by respectable houses. Some of the writers now being published and self-publishing make Spillane look like Tolstoy.

But you're right, a generation before Spillane created Mike Hammer, the penny dreadfuls were even more dreadful. Kat Jordan knows about it. These things run in cycles.

I wouldn't go around calling Claudine "old" if I were you. The Navy probably trained her to kill with her bare hands, and to zap your computer from the comfort of her armchair on a different continent.

Patricia Sierra wrote: "I can't imagine faking it all the way through a manuscript just to go after a certain market -- and I especially can't imagine ever writing a vampire book."

And you call yourself a professional? I'm shocked!

I haven't read all that many vampire books, precisely because it seems to me that Stoker's is so definitive and inclusive, anything else must be contrived. Vampire books currently are on a curve of decreasing returns, inventing pointless bling to differentiate themselves, splitting the niches ever smaller.

I'm not sure I can agree that some of these authors are intentionally dumbing down their books in order to pander to these markets. I think it might just be how they write. There's room in some of these genres for works that are better written because of the glut of poorly written ones. I'm always looking for a well-written Urban Fantasy, and I think there are others like me.

Coral wrote: "I'm not sure I can agree that some of these authors are intentionally dumbing down their books in order to pander to these markets."

Oh, I don't think anyone here is paranoid enough to suspect that. The question was, could any of us dumb down our writing enough to pass.

Quite the contrary of trying to dumb down her writing, Amanda Hocking, according to an article in her own hand that I read, was casting around for editors to help her improve her grammar. Hocking had gone through several inadequate editors already. One presumes that from understanding that a copy-editor is necessary, she'll move on to understanding what a real editor does for one in terms of structure and style. Hocking herself has shortcut the process by signing with a Big Six publisher. I wonder how much better they will dare make her writing, for fear of alienating her established market.

But others are looking for good editors.

It will definitely be interesting to see the sales of her new books. If they improve her writing and she loses readers, wouldn't that be frightening?

Andre Jute wrote: "What Claudine and I are discussing is whether the crap that exists side by side with the good books is now of a lower standard than within living memory. It seems clear to me that more crap, and of a lower standard, gets published now. Some of these vampire writers are clearly, as writers, of a much lower standard than the masturbatory fantasies of Mickey Spillane, which was once the lowest class of literature published by respectable houses. Some of the writers now being published and self-publishing make Spillane look like Tolstoy..."

I have to say that I completely agree with Andre on this point - The crap available out there far outweighs the good.

I tried to read Amanda Hocking's trilogy. I really tried. I gave up a couple of chapters into the second book. Her writing is beyond abominable but this might be a personal preference. Nearly every other person I know that has read it (around 20), says they were great books, a great read.

I have to add too that I don't read classics. I've read Tolstoy, I've read Shakespeare, the Brontes, Dickens. I don't consider them classics, I do consider them timeless. The stories they tell make sense, flow from point to point. There is a sense of style and elegance about them which is missing from what is on offer now.

For the record, I am going to be 42 early next year. I read like I'm 18 :) I'm not fussy with what I read as long as the story makes sense. I'll even forgive serious editing and grammatical erros if the story is great.

And contrary to what Andre threatened about my naval "career", I cannot kill by thought alone ;)

Claudine wrote: "And contrary to what Andre threatened about my naval "career", I cannot kill by thought alone ;)"

I took crib notes when I studied under that Zulu witchdoctor...

I think that for the most part writers are happy to see other writers succeed, but damn, I admit I can't stand it when I see people getting paid for publishing crap.
That being said, hopefully Hocking's success will encourage other good writers to publish their material.
I was doing the typical sending out query letter thing when I heard a radio host mention Hocking, and then I looked into self publishing ebooks. This is all more fun than waiting for agents to make decisions about my work after only reading a 200-word query letter.

Andre Jute wrote: "Claudine wrote: "And contrary to what Andre threatened about my naval "career", I cannot kill by thought alone ;)"

I took crib notes when I studied under that Zulu witchdoctor..."

Name and contact details? :D

Andre Jute wrote: What Claudine and I are discussing is whether the crap that exists side by side with the good books is now of a lower standard than within living memory. It seems clear to me that more crap, and of a lower standard, gets published now.

Yeah, you're probably right in terms of vanity publishing. Now any fool with a computer can, and does, publish and can spread it all over the internet, whereas vanity publishing used to be something that only fairly well heeled people could afford and you only ever occasionally encountered their slim volumes in second hand bookshops. I'd certainly agree that bad writing is more "in your face" than ever before. On the other hand I have encountered absolute gems of indie publishing that I have enjoyed much more than most traditionally published fiction offerings.

I doubt however that traditionally published works are any worse than they ever were. Of course I'm in no position to judge whether the quality of romance genre offerings have declined because I've never read the genre, just like I have no idea whether footballers are more or less talented than in the old days because I never watch it so I have no frame of reference to make any judgements.

I can't comment on anything Amanda Hocking or Stephanie Meyers has written because I'm not interested in YA paranormal romance. I'll trust other's judgement that they're abominable but then I wouldn't expect much from the genre in the first place. I'd imagine that pretty much all romance books are badly written and always have been.

One way of reading the numbers I offered in the Slush Pile articles on my blog is there is now a small number of extra publication-quality writers available to readers compared to before Amazon's KDP started up. Not necessarily gems but not embarrassing either. I think these new writers will easily outnumber the writers taken up by the Big Six for their sales, regardless of quality. The question is, how many of them will produce a second and a third book once they've discovered what a hard slog it is.

The main effect of the bad writers is to make it difficult to spot the good among the new. They may also be alienating readers, but I think most of the noise among the readers is being made by a few exhibitionists. I picture some of them as Jude the Obscure with a Megaphone.

I don't agree that good writers are more difficult to spot than they ever were. An attractive cover, an interesting blurb, and a well-written sample can be used to clear out most of the crap, just as always. Not all, mind you, but a good chunk.

The sample is taken from the work itself, so the real bait is those other things you mentioned: the cover and blurb -- both of which are what tempt you to sample. They're also things that are taken care of by the publisher when one's not an Indie. And both come under the marketing heading. Not every author has mastered that skill. I worked for years in advertising, but find it impossible to market my own work effectively. Something freezes inside me at the very thought...

Patricia Sierra wrote: "The sample is taken from the work itself, so the real bait is those other things you mentioned: the cover and blurb -- both of which are what tempt you to sample. They're also things that are taken..."

I don't disagree with any of what you said. Even if you can't market yourself you can get help doing it. I'm no artist, but I'm going to make sure I have an eye-catching professional cover. I think writers that care about their work will go through the extra effort involved to make sure things look professional.

I doubt that a lousy cover means an author doesn't care about his/her work. I'd guess it means a) no artistic talent, b) no money to hire it done, and/or c) not enough aesthetic sensibility to know the cover is lousy.

Patricia Sierra wrote: "I doubt that a lousy cover means an author doesn't care about his/her work. I'd guess it means a) no artistic talent, b) no money to hire it done, and/or c) not enough aesthetic sensibility to know the cover is lousy."

WTF? I am qualified to pass judgement on graphic art (those who don't know why can find out here http://coolmainpress.com/andrejuteboo... ), and this

is the right stuff.

Coral has the right attitude. That thumbnail on Amazon is by far your most important selling tool for your book, and your only link with a reader until she downloads and reads the sample.

Andre, you should see what designs went before that one. Terrible stuff. I finally caved and bought a stock photo. I've purchased a photo for my next cover, too, and I like the design. My other covers? Let's not talk about those. (I do like the one on The God Wars by Sierra Philpin, or rather I like the image. I screwed it up with the font. The image is a painting done by my ex.)

My comment is only that you can't draw a connection between a lousy cover and how much an author cares about his or her work. Other factors come into play (see my earlier comment). But I certainly understand that covers are what get readers to look at a book and they may even close the sale in a single glance.

When I walked into a physical bookstore a while back after having done all my book shopping online for many years, I was struck by how far cover designs have come in terms of power, impact, and artistic expression. I wandered through the store just looking at covers and thinking art collections could be made from them.

My body for free illustrations from a famous artist. But I don't suppose you can ask too often.

Your last comment reminds me that when I first came into publishing, the literary houses still put type-only covers on their best books. When they put a gaudy piccie on a novel, you could bet they were trying hard to oversell it. All my Tom Sharpe hardcovers have dustjackets without illustrations of any kind.

When my paperback editor told me he was hiring the top illustrator in London to illustrate my dust jackets, he probably expected me to swoon, and thought I was very rude when I merely nodded and moved on; the publicist at my hardcover publishers straightened me out on this point. But when I worked in advertising we hired this guy daily. I often rejected work by Andy Warhol that I now wish I kept!

Here's your start for next book:

"Rejected that Wharhol guy again today. He doesn't get it. We want art, not soup cans. Idiot."

"Goddamn plagiarist. Doesn't Warhol know we made that Campbell's soup can?"

You two crack me up. Sierra, I also really like the Sheet Music cover image. It might have something to do with a constant craving I have for sleep. It's very alluring.

Thanks, Sjm. Now, if only someone would buy it...

Yikes guys!

First and foremost, bad books do not sell. Doesn't happen. If a book sells a zillion copies that means it's a good "book." Whatever need it was that book filled, it did an excellent job of it.

Twilight may be abysmal writing with obnoxious characters, but it isn't a bad book. It's a book that figured out what do teen girls want (to feel special and adored). Who do they want to do that (really competent super gorgeous guys)? Where do they want it to happen (somewhere a lot like where they live)? And put it all together.

Bella's barely got a character. Think that's an accident? No. She's written that way so any girl reading can slip into the story that much easier. Building a real character for her would have made that more difficult. Jacob and Edward are described to the nth degree, also not an accident, it's smut for teen girls.

Sure any of us could have produced that level of writing, but how many of us are that in synch with what a potential audience wants?

Me, I'm not about to scorn someone for doing that good of a job of understanding who the market is and what they want. So it's not high art. My books aren't. I'm willing to guess most of yours aren't, either.

It's like saying McDonalds makes bad hamburgers. No they don't. They make inexpensive hamburgers, fast, that taste good to the vast majority of people. They've found their market and have honed their hamburger making skills to provide that market with precisely what it wants. It strikes me as the height of snobbery to tell people, 'What you like is crap,' and the height of arrogance to say 'And it's my job to show you better.'

Look, I don't like teen-angst vamps or McDonald's hamburgers for that matter. But I've got no business telling people who do that they don't know what they're talking about. When it comes to matters of taste, and in our business it's all about taste, there's no such thing as objectively bad, just something that's personally unappealing.

Sjm wrote: "You two crack me up. Sierra, I also really like the Sheet Music cover image. It might have something to do with a constant craving I have for sleep. It's very alluring."

Holy cow! You beat me to it. We June gals really are twins! I was going to say the same thing.

Hi Keryl. Responding to your first paragraph, you know, I would have thought that true too, but then a strange thing happened: Jean M. Auel wrote a terrible book, The Land of the Painted Caves, and people bought it anyway.

I don't know how many 10s or 100s of thousands of copies of this book have been sold, but it has been reviewed at least hundreds of times. The average rating is about a 2/5.

http://www.amazon.com/Land-Painted-Ca...

http://ebookstore.sony.com/ebook/jean...

Jean M. Auel's 6th book in the series sold because of reputation and hype, because it has a decent cover, because it was promoted successfully, but definitely not because it was good.

With respect to your last paragraph, it's hard to argue with an average rating of 2/5 over 750 reviews (see the first link). In other words, I feel comfortable accepting that this is just a bad book, irrespective of personal taste. Further, most of the copies sold probably went to loyal fans who wanted to like it - fans for whom this book should have been in line with their personal taste - so it REALLY missed the mark.

Margie wrote: "Holy cow! You beat me to it. We June gals really are twins! I was going to say the same thing. "

Margie, that's so funny!

(I'm an end of May girl, but same difference!)

Sjm wrote: "Hi Keryl. Responding to your first paragraph, you know, I would have thought that true too, but then a strange thing happened: Jean M. Auel wrote a terrible book, The Land of the Painted Caves, and..."

I think you're missing my point. A badly written book can sell zillions of copies. A bad book cannot. A bad book is a book that does not meet the needs of the audience it set out to court.

What need did that book meet? It finished a series that lots of people loved. Short of every page being covered with "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," that book was going to sell like gangbusters because people wanted to know how the series ended. Anything written by that author at that time with even the remotest promise of finishing the series would have met that need.

(And, I'm willing to bet, compared to the sales of the first five books this one will tank.)

Not to say no sales=bad book. But lots of sales means that book did something people wanted.

I agree with what Keryl says. Some books are marketing exercises and succeed with their markets. They don't meet our tastes or standards. Big deal.

But what we're trying to discover is whether there is something special about books that makes such marketing exercises/pandering to readers immoral. How far can "smut" (Keryl's description of Twilight) for teenagers be taken?

Was it Bill Goldman who said, "Not all bestsellers are classics, but all classics are best sellers." I would add the words "over time" onto the end of the saw for clarification, but otherwise I agree.

Good books just won't die. William Cooper's Scenes from Metropolitan Life is a good example, being published only a generation after it was written. Like many other writers I read it in dogeared manuscript.

***
Cooper, by the way, is good example of how the big corporate publishers work. Cooper was the largest influence on British writing in the second half of the 20th century, Amis (the good one), Braine, Bradbury, that generation, and through them a very substantial influence on the American campus novel in its early, vital days. Yet by the 1990s Macmillan refused to publish Cooper's last novel.

Sjm wrote: "Hi Keryl. Responding to your first paragraph, you know, I would have thought that true too, but then a strange thing happened: Jean M. Auel wrote a terrible book, The Land of the Painted Caves, and..."

I noticed disquiet shading into disgust with Auel among some reporting readers for that one. Very probably a small minority that may seem larger on the fora, which are by definition inhabited by the articulate and communicative, than among book buyers at large. Auel is a brand now, with all the advantage of a brand.

Keryl wrote: "I think you're missing my point. A badly written book can sell zillions of copies. A bad book cannot. A bad book is a book that does not meet the needs of the audience it set out to court."

Okay, yes, now I see your point. Thanks for clarifying.

"...it's smut for teen girls. "

Call me picky but smut is by definition obscene or pornographic. I think the appeal might be because it is sensuous without graphic description except of course for the last book. Teens alone are not counted as fans---
http://www.twilightmoms.com/
I did read all the books to make sure that they were appropriate. I did tag them for 7th grade on up unless there was a note from home. I got lots of notes from my 5/6 students. Many moms of my students were reading them at the same time.

I remember in one of my storytelling classes that a professional storyteller said that we don't choose the stories that we tell; they choose us. What she meant is that where you are in your life and the events that have shaped you to a particular point are what make one narrative or another appealing. What triggered Stephanie Meyer's Twilight Saga to skyrocket could be based upon a variety of influences outside of her writing such as age demographics, economy, sense of family...

These are just observations so don't stone me.

I'm the kind of person who's under the impression that as long as it doesn't do physical harm to another, the market should be allowed to provide pretty much anything.

So, how far can literary smut for teens go? In Keryl's perfect world, as far as teens will pay for. (And Keryl, being pretty well versed in history can tell you that adults have been having this conversation about what teens like to read/consume since before they were called "teenagers.")

But, let us look into the concept of "pandering," what does it really mean? When it boils down it says you're providing something the person who labeled it pandering decided was unsavory. Compared to one hundred years ago most of what most of us enjoy would be considered pandering to our base instincts these days. (If not labeled outright pornography because of the sex and violence content.)

Pick an R rated movie. There are thousands of great ones out there. But, if it's got an R that means there has to be at least some language, nudity, sex, or violence. Because it has those things was it pandering to the base instinct of mankind in order to make money? Nope (well, probably not). It was probably trying to tell a compelling story. Compelling stories often involve sex, violence, and hard language.

We all find different things compelling. Romance readers want happily ever after. Teens want that, too. Mystery readers want all the ends tied up in a tidy bow. History readers want veracity. Lit fic readers want exquisite language. Yet no one talks about pandering to the lit fic reader if you spend twenty hours per sentence looking for the perfect words and forget a plot. And we rarely hear about pandering to history buffs if an author takes the time to really work on getting every single facet of the lay of the land correct.

So, pander away. Find your market, and give them precisely what they want.

What I recall about Auel's bursting on the book scene was that she was paid a ton of money for her first book. Her agent, Jean Naggar, got lots of positive press for having landed the deal.

With so much invested, the publisher HAD to make sure the books sold. Publicity was everywhere. I think Auel's success is the result of a big ad/pr budget and smart people behind the roll-out of that first book.

I offer that uninformed opinion without having read a word she's written.

Keryl wrote: "Compared to one hundred years ago most of what most of us enjoy would be considered pandering to our base instincts these days. (If not labeled outright pornography because of the sex and violence content.)"

When I was a boy, middle-aged gentlemen would carry a bag of candies in their pocket, and small boys and girls would climb up on their knees and sit there sucking candies and demanding to be told a story.

Okay, thirty years, or so, pass. My librarian here in Bandon was one of the wittiest women I ever met. Her name was Miss Nagle. One day there was this nouveau riche in the library, complaining about how the social round at her villa in Spain was so hectic, she needed a holiday to recover from her holiday. After this wretched woman left the library, I sent her up, "Ooh, I really need a holiday after working against a deadline through the entire summer to earn a dry crust of bread, instead of shooting through to Juan les Pins."

Without missing a beat, Nana Nagle said, "Go buy a bag of penny sweets, walk down the street offering them to children, and soon a man in a police uniform will appear to give you a fully paid holiday in the State's stone hotel."

Andre Jute wrote: "Keryl wrote: "Compared to one hundred years ago most of what most of us enjoy would be considered pandering to our base instincts these days. (If not labeled outright pornography because of the sex..."

Alas, she'd be right. Now there's a sad state of affairs as well.

Now there's a good title: The Stone Hotel.

Patricia Sierra wrote: "With so much invested, the publisher HAD to make sure the books sold. Publicity was everywhere."

Every one of my librarians in turn offered me a book by Auel, and an observation that readers love her. Each time I dutifully opened the book put in my hand and read a few sentences and then put it back on the popular books trolley. There was nothing to pull me in.