Well, I went to a sale at my local library today.
A lot of W.E.B. Griffin. A lot of Clive Cussler. A lot of Margaret Truman. A couple of copies of William L. Shire’s “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.” And for a some reason, they had several copies of Jack Welch’s book “Straight from the Gut.”
And of course they also had Lee Iacocca’s biography.
I was going to mention Clive Cussler, but you beat me to it. Does anyone actually read that tripe? I tried reading The Plague Ship because it looked like an interesting premise, but it was completely ridiculous, like some kind of parody of James Bond (which is itself a parody, of course.) The only possible audience for that kind of book that I could imagine would be 80 year old men.
Not a particular author, but I always see at least one book with that “Oprah’s Book Club” sticker on it.
Yeah, but when you’ve cornered the market on every 80-year old man, you’re doing pretty good.
“What To Expect When You’re Expecting”, and anything else baby-related. Self-help books, especially Christian-themed ones for some reason. Lots of Danielle Steele, Nora Roberts, etc. of course.
Nobody’s mentioned Zagats?
I also usually see a ton of Frommer’s, Fodor’s and Lonely Planet when I go to used book sales.
In the '70s and '80s, Cussler wrote a dozen good-to-excellent adventure novels.
Joe
You might turn your nose up at Clive Cussler, but he’s certainly done all right for himself. He owns over 85 classic cars, and I used to say to Mr. Sali, whenever he bought the newest Dirk Pitt “well, you just bought CC another jar of Turtle Wax for his his latest 50’s convertible”.
It’s notable that I’ve very seldom seen any Dr. Seuss or Shel Silverstein books. There is a plethora of dumb kids books out there, but none of the classics. I have seen a lot of Berenstain Bears, but that’s probably due to sheer number published.
The local library now has an attached coffee shop, where they always have a few shelves of used books for sale to support the Friends of the Library. The other day, I noticed that they had three copies of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, in two different editions.
Around here you can’t walk into a used book store without risking being trapped under a pile of “Last Dangerous Visions”.
I was handed one of these abominations (with a CD of music to go with it) in Washington Square Park. I promptly donated it to the local church rummage sale, which already had one.
That’s right near the stack of “Buckaroo Banzai and the World Crime League” VCR tapes, right?