Thread: Nora Roberts...

Nora Roberts...I'm afraid (and slightly embarassed) to ask, but she intrigues me. She grew up around the area I grew up and now she's a best-selling author with who knows how many novels under her belt. That being said, anybody has any thoughts on her? Has anybody here ever read her stuff? Is she any good?

It depends on what you mean by "good" I suppose. I read her book Carolina Moon. It was a fast read, and I wasn't bored by it. It was also rather painfully predictable, sort of cliche, and not very deep. Nora Roberts, for me, is pretty much literary junk food, or equal to a bad, yet still enjoyable TV movie.

That said, some of her sex scenes were.. um.. Inspiring. To say the least. Yum.

Good at what?

She's one of the best-selling authors alive.

People sit down to write books, they're hoping other people will enjoy them (I don't care what all the masturbatory little "just write for youself or you're a whore" clowns say). And apparently a LOT of people enjoy her books.

So, did she do a bad job of it?

Just because it sells, doesn't mean it's good. It means that the publishing company had a great marketing team, or that Oprah said she touched it.

It just depends on what you are looking for out of a book. Are you looking to just be entertained, or are you looking for something so deep, new and meaningful that reading it will change your life?

It's like Michael Bay movies. Are they entertaining? Usually? Are they deep? No.

I enjoyed both Transformers, and Fight Club. Of the two though, I really would only consider fight club a "good" movie.

Just because it sells, doesn't mean it's good.

According to whom?

I'd say if somebody sets out to be an author and becomes a massive worldwide best seller, they're doing pretty good.

Just because somebody buys something, doesn't mean they use it. I remember watching a documentry on social class adn a woman said Angela's Ashes is a best-seller, but it's more of a mark of social class than a piece of literature.

Furthermore, it depends on pricing and who buys it. If you're releasing mass market paperback editions, at $7.99 a piece, people will more likely buy it than a hardcover that's $25.95.

Another point we have to look at is that we have to look at "good" from several directions. I work in a bookstore, and much of the best sellers are selling because they are easy to read. From a self-admitting haughty, cocky, borgeois point of a view of a middle class college student, these people don't know what literature is. But from those who buy it and read it, it's easy to read and therefore good.

Just because somebody buys something, doesn't mean they use it.

Oh, come now. And the price cavilling is even sillier. These are not arguments against any issue at hand, are they.

Here's the thing.

Being a best seller might not be the only yardstick by which to measure success as a writer.
But is IS a yardstick. It's numbers that can be measured and cited.

"Goodness" is nothing of the kind. It's completely subject and resides in one single mind.

But don't let you desire to establish yourself as an expert on what's good and what's not lead you into overlooking the fact that if you set out to publish books and are at the forefront of numbers of books being published, you must be pretty good at what you do.

It's pretty hard to argue with that.

OK, she's good at selling. My question here is: is she good at writing? From a literary stand point, is she comparable to Nobel Prize winning authors? And how can we measure that?

OK, she's good at selling. My question here is: is she good at writing?

The real question is: are you good at reading.

Try reading my last post again and see if you really want to chime in a third time with the, "But is it GOOD good" stuff.

OK, I get ya.

I guess I'll just have to go out a buy a Nora Roberts book myself and then tell you what I think.

I don't think I'd do that if I were you.