Elizabeth Peters with her Amelia Peabody series.

And yet Louise Penny, who just released her 15th book in the wonderful Three Pines Gamache series never seems to get stale.

I wonder why.

I have been buying the Evanovich Plum series for my D's collection but stopped reading it and now she says she doesn't want any more either!

Ann, I gave up on that series after two or three books. :)

Bon, maybe Louise Penny's secret is that she changes the locale. Yes, at least part of each book is set in Three Pines, but a new murder in the tiny village every book would be too hard to believe.

I used to be an avid reader of Stuart Woods, but stopped reading him a couple of years ago. His character Stone Barrington has gotten too insufferable to put up with any more.

Donna

Donna....on a long roadtrip from Florida ( that's 1,500 miles from home) my husband enjoyed listening to a Stuart Woods book on tape ( is that antiquated?). As I sat there having to "enjoy" it with him I realized what a hideously poor writer Woods is ! If any of you recall watching the old TV series "Dragnet" with office Joe Friday you'll understand what annoyed me. Officer Friday spoke in very short clipped sentences or phrases. Woods' style of writing was the same kind of shallow dialogue and thin story line. UGH.

Exactly, Bon! And the character Stone Barrington jumps into bed with nearly every female who crosses his path, and I'm sorry, but he's getting way past the age of acting like a randy teenager. Plus over the years he's gotten enormously wealthy, though he doesn't do much, and his ostentatious lifestyle is obnoxious.

Donna

Quite a few of the book bloggers have mentioned and adore Beverly Nichols, a writer from mid-twentieth century who covered gardening and other domestic-related topics in monthly columns in various English magazines. After hearing his name bandied about for months, I finally caved in and found the first of his books (called Merry Hall) about his renovation of an older large house in England. I was expecting sparkling wit and repartee, and instead, I get an author who writes in a sexist, racist and classist manner against anyone who doesn't live like he does (i.e. rich and not working). I'm amazed at so many of the bloggers who have spent inches of column space raving about this man... I can't even finish the book I'm reading, it's so annoying.

So - YoYo's question about authors becoming stale: I think this is one example of an author with time-period-appropriate attitudes that just haven't aged well over the years. But I don't have an explanation for these other current (mostly youngish) bloggers who rave about him...

Good point about Tom Sawyer, Yoyobon.

My husband interviewed Nichols in the Sixties when he was in Australia. Apparently he was rather "precious" and asked about the fee. My husband was surprised as in those days it was considered an honour to be asked to broadcast and fees were never even thought about!

I used to love Dornford Yates, who wrote amusing books or high adventure ones in the Thirties but on rereading them, I too found them dated and stale. He wrote again after WW2 but was out of touch and lost his adoring readers by moving out of England. One woman who had borrowed his latest book thumped it down on the returns counter of my library, saying bitterly that it was all right for HIM, off in South Africa with no rationing and servants!

I feel that Beverly Nichols went past his sell-buy-date about 50 years ago and have always been surprised how even people here at RP found his work/style enjoyable. As Annpan says he was indeed very precious with a propensity for the 'rough trade' and was unlikely to get his hands dirty by doing any actual gardening/building work himself. As lemonhead mentions he was rich enough to surround himself with big burly workmen.

Vee, I didn't know about that propensity, but my husband said that he stood with his "back" against the wall when speaking to Nichols. This is my bowdlerised version as he actually didn't say "back"!

He was quite taken aback by the cologne too! Coming from a small country town in the early Sixties this was all new to him. In fact, back then, one well known actor who came to perform in our city and asked the receptionist if he could get a manicure was told that a girl could come from the local beautician to his hotel room but the door had to be left open during the treatment! This is a bit OT but I thought it might amuse you...

Annpan, coming from the heart of Midland luvviedom as I do (S-on-Avon) we were for ever hearing tales of so-called famous actors and a few actresses; some of these stories would even now make ones hair curl . . or at least raise an eyebrow. After a performance and a few drinks in one of the local pubs the drink loosened many a tongue . . .

Vee, Wow! I didn't think anything raised eyebrows these days! Live and learn...

Also OT, but I find it interesting that in the UK Beverly is a man's name and in the US it's female. :)

Every now and then there will be a flare-up about boycotting or banning someone's books because the person was racist (recently Dr. Seuss was under fire). To me that's silly, because the person was a product of their times and their speaking or writing would reflect that (a la Tom Sawyer).

Donna

Vee...... "he was rich enough to surround himself with big burly workmen."....many of whom I suspect he might have taken a "liking" to !!

Donna...and poor old Kate Smith , the 7th inning stretch in baseball is just not the same without her rendition of "God Bless America" playing. I think these things are taken too far out of time and context .

I get that Nicholls is a product of time, but it was the combination of all the -ists in one book that made it unreadable to me. Tom Sawyer may have questionable language (still appropriate for its historical period), but his actual characters still had good hearts. Nicholls just comes across as an insufferable narcissistic lazy snob, and I don't align those personal characteristics with a time period.

E.B. White, for example, was also writing around this same period and his work is nothing like that so I don't think that Nicholls' attitudes can be excused by saying he's a product of his time. It's inconsistent with others.

I gave up on Evanovich and Elizabeth George. I loved the George books for quite a while, but the last one I read needed serious editing to get it to about half the size, as there was way too much waffling.

Louise Penny is a favourite of mine too, but I feel the last few books have suffered a bit from too much angst. Killing characters off and making relationships rocky seems a bit overdone to me.

It seems today that any name or word used as a name can apply to either gender ...and the more inane the better. i.e. Jermajesty

A friend I taught with shared this story. Her first teaching position was in a very rural town . As she was going through her attendance list the first day she came upon the name Fee-mah- lee. When this student was born the nursery attached a card to the bassinette which read " Female Brown" and the mother thought that the hospital named the baby and that became her name !

Two female authors whose former magic long ago eroded for me are Rosamund Pilcher and Ann Rivers Siddons. The latter's novels became formulaic and repetitive over time.

I agree with Astrokath that the latest Louise Penny mysteries seem to be lacking in their former je ne sais pas....

Count me as one who adores "Tom Sawyer." I consider it a classic and enjoy re-reading every few years.

I saw in the paper today that Anne Rivers Siddons has died. I liked her a lot and read all her books, but I agree that the latter ones were not as good as the early books.

Anne McCaffrey overdid her Pern series. I liked the earlier ones but thought the later ones went on too long.

Carolyn, thanks for the information on Siddons. Another, less prominent, southern author has just died: Dorothea Benton Frank. She wrote many novels about life in the city of Charleston and its surrounding islands. She was only in her early 60's.

Oh, not DBF. She is one of my daughter's favorites, and I've read all of them, too. I buy the new one every year for her birthday (and read it beforehand).

Just referring back to an earlier comment....Beverly (or -ley) might have been a man's name once upon a time in the UK, but you may be assured that it's normally a woman's name these days. I don't think I've ever come across the name for a man. I think it's a bit like Hilary - posh men sometimes get called it, but it's normally a woman's name.

(Beverley is also a very nice town in Yorkshire, not far from Hull, but that's another story.)

Writers who got stale? How about the Ben Aaranovich "Rivers of London" series, which started so well and rapidly became very silly.

I don't think you hear of many male Evelyns now.

. . . or Lesley/Leslie's . . .

… or Ashley (though I do know one man named Ashley).

Marian/Marion is another one. -an was female and -on was male. Now I think in the US it's only a female name, and many times spelled Marion.

I've known a good number of Leslie/Lesley males here in the US.

Carolyn, if you can get a copy of the Sept. 11 New Yorker magazine, there is an excellent tribute to D.B. Frank by Mary Norris.

Thanks, Mary.