Does anyone actually read them, or do all her readers purchase them new and pass them on when they’re finished, assuming (apparently incorrectly) that others might enjoy them?
I’m involved in book resale on several levels, and am starting to wonder who reads all these books.
:rolleyes: 
They are not fine literature, or very original, but they are adequately written for cheap escapist fiction.
They are potato chips, but they are not processed potato foods, if you get the distinction.
I don’t read them, but I read cheap mystery novels that aren’t much better.
My aunt has read every single one of them.
Suggest she read Tammy Hoag’s first few novels.
I always make it a point not to read any book that can be purchased in a grocery store checkout line.
Precocious nerdy preteen girls have to have something to read, after they’ve moved beyond Judy Blume and before they’re ready for Erica Jong. At least that was the case with me.
I read one once in a hostel when I had read everything else. I also felt it was kinda something I should do, if I was ever going to say anything about them.
It was shit, but the story was actually ok-ish. Something about a ballerina, dramarama, passion, and in the end she had to flee and never see him again.
Perhaps everyone who reads them is actually a bored snob who wants to know what they’re talking about? 
I see your Danielle Steele and raise you Sydney Sheldon. I think that I read most of his books in those in-between years that Alice mentioned. I just read the plot summary of one of them, The Other Side of Midnight, and I don’t remember a single bit of it.
I buy a Danielle Steel book almost every year, because my Mom loves them. I’ve never actually read one.
Are you posting this from 1992?
But yes, people do read Danielle Steel books. She isn’t as popular as she once was, but middle-aged ladies still like her stuff.
I’m middle-aged now, and you couldn’t pay me to read her stuff. But I did read it before 1992, as a pre-teen, before I developed taste. I can usually tell who I’m going to get along well with by the books people read, and if someone reads DS, there’s a good chance we won’t hit it off.
Interesting. Among the Danielle Steel fans I’ve met, they all started reading her in the 80s or the 90s. She’s not getting any new fans, but I was always under the impression that her old fans were lifelong fans.
I have fond memories of my romance-novel phase, but I doubt most of that crap would still interest me these days.
To me, Steel has always been one of those ultra-best-selling novelists whose work is the literary equivalent of neon pink grocery store cake. James Patterson also fits into that category (although I’m willing to give Steel the benefit of the doubt and say she actually bothers to write her own books). But on the whole, reading anything at all is much better than not reading, and I think that Steel’s books are gateways for better ones for most of her audience, so there’s that.
Wow. That’s quite an attitude.
I enjoy romance novels in general, but I read one of hers and it was awful. I tried a Barbara Cartland recently and it was no good either.
Patterson actually writes 2-3 books a year. Yes, he also “co-writes” 8-9 other books, but he does still do plenty of writing on his own.
I knew right after I posted that that someone would come along to be offended for the poorly read. It’s really not a judgement, it’s more of a knowledge that we wouldn’t have much in common. I really don’t give two fucks what someone else reads, I just know that I personally get along better with people that I have more things in common with than less. Okay?
My grandma has most of Danielle’s books because she and Danielle are acquainted through Danielle’s fourth husband (I think- whichever one was named Tom). I have no idea if she’s read all of them or if Danielle continues to send them. My mom and I have zero interest in them.
Why does liking an author that you don’t like imply being poorly read?