The Book of Forgotten Authors by Christopher Fowler

From The Swiss Family Robinson via The Parent Trap to Lady and the Tramp, book adaptations were Disney’s thing.Īccording to my reckoning, out of the eighty Walt Disney features produced over two decades (the 1950s and 1960s) only nineteen were not based on novels. We reach the first of the essays – ‘The Forgotten Disney Connection’. He writes with wit and enthusiasm, it’s obvious that he has devoured all the books mentioned. Fowler combines a biographical overview with capsule descriptions of their major works and writing style. I have read one early Allingham novel, and immediately wanted to read more – proving the premise of this book by the end of the first chapter.įor every author I’d heard of, or even read like Frank Baker and Kyril Bonfiglioi (I actually reviewed a reprint of the latter’s first Charlie Mortdecai novel for Shiny here), there would be names that were totally new to me like Alexander Baron or Lesley Blanch.

He acknowledges that she’s still mostly in print and hardly unknown, but that ‘very few readers seem to have got to grips with her novels.’ He continues by picking out the highlights of her particular style which include the ‘plum pudding principle’ – to include regular nuggets of plum amongst the supporting stodge.

This book is the next step, featuring 99 ‘forgotten’ authors who get two or three pages each, and a dozen slightly longer thematic essays in between.Īfter Fowler’s introduction the authors are listed alphabetically, and he begins with a slightly controversial choice in Marjory Allingham. A lover of old paperbacks, he eventually started writing a column for the Independent on Sunday called ‘Invisible Ink’ – about forgotten authors and it was a big success. I hoped to discover many new old authors to look out for, but also to find some familiar to me already.Ĭhristopher Fowler is a prolific author of novels, I know him primarily for his urban thrillers like Psychoville, although he’s more famous for his ‘Bryant and May’ detective stories, a series I’ve been meaning to read for ages. When a ‘Shiny’ new book came out about forgotten authors, the combination of new and old was perfect for me. While I can’t claim to read anywhere near the volume of old and newly reprinted novels that some of my Shiny colleagues do – perennially falling for the latest novels by the latest literary darlings – I do love browsing in second-hand bookshops and I will always make a beeline for a shelf full of old Penguins.

The Book of Forgotten Authors by Christopher Fowler