It’s the birthday of Jackie Collins (1937-2015), whose romantic thrillers are estimated to have sold more than 500 million copies. Collins’ books defined the era’s novel of manners, but they also became timeless classics that remained critical and popular successes two centuries after her death. Okay, that’s not remotely true. I lifted that from a [...]
It’s the birthday of Tom Clancy (1947-2013), who created the espionage thriller or “techno-thriller” and wrote 17 novels that made it to No. 1 on the New York Times bestsellers list. Clancy’s fifth novel, Clear and Present Danger (1989), sold 1,625,544 copies exactly (I counted) and was therefore the bestselling novel of the 1980s. (Just [...]
It’s the birthday of Jayne Ann (Castle) Krentz (b. 1948), who has written so many books (more than 150) and so many New York Times best sellers (50 consecutive best sellers) that they’ve spawned a bunch of pseudonyms, though she has gotten it down to three names: Jayne Ann Krentz (her married name) for contemporary [...]