I began to warm to Fowler's humorous essays, once I got over the urge to shout, at the beginning of every other chapter, THIS IS NOT A "FORGOTTEN" AUTHOR!!!

Probably more like 4 stars, if Fowler hadn't been persuaded by his publishers (I assume) to go with the snappy, but wrong, title, and had gone instead for something like "Book of Authors You May Not Have Heard of, and Even if You Have, Will Have a Hard Time Tracking Down." OK, maybe his publisher was right ...

But seriously. Margery Allingham? John Dickson Carr? Gladys Mitchell? Not on the current bestsellers list, but not "forgotten," if you enjoy classic crime fiction. Barbara Pym, whose work has been enjoying quite a revival in recent years -- or even decades ...? Georgette Heyer? Dennis Wheatley? Virginia Andrews? Not my cup o' tea, but I'm quite sure they still have their fans.

And then there's the "You may not remember their names, but I bet you remember their work" category: The guy who wrote the book that "Planet of the Apes" was based on? (Pierre Boule, in case it slipped your mind). The guy who who developed the idea that King Kong was based on? (Edgar Wallace). The guy who invented the character of gentleman thief and adventurer "The Saint" (once played by Roger Moore at his most woodenly handsome)? (Leslie Charteris) Their names may have slipped from the pop culture mind, but at least one example of their work has made a reasonably indelible imprint on the zeitgeist.

And then there are the WTFs: Jack Finney??? (Author of one of my all-time favorite novels, "Time and Again," not to mention "The Body Snatchers," another favourite of the zeitgeist, which spawned several movie adaptations, and inspired many others in a similar vein. T.H. White, the author of "The Once and Future King"? Richard Hughes is, maybe a marginal case: if you have had the pleasure of reading "A High Wind in Jamaica" I doubt you're going to forget it, or its author, any time soon -- but sadly, perhaps that isn't happening as often as I would like.

Perhaps I'm being unfair: Fowler set himself an impossible task. Focus exclusively on genuinely forgotten and completely forgettable authors, and the reader could lose interest pretty quickly, so perhaps a few marginal cases were included to spice up the proceedings with lashings of indignant partisanship (see above).

I do wish Fowler had confronted the issues that he was stirring up, however: Why do wildly popular bestsellers of their day drop out of favor and out of sight? Why do individual works survive, and live on in adaptation, when their creator's name slips into (relative) obscurity? It feels as if Fowler occasionally remembers, but the questions aren't handled methodically enough to be satisfying.

What is truly a delight about this book, however (and means I would recommend it to anyone who loves books, even if I was a little disappointed) is the sense of Fowler's delight in books, and in reading. His pleasure in tracking down information about the authors he is profiling, and their books. There is one perfectly wonderful anecdote, about tracking down a book by one of his childhood favorites, and any true book-lover will understand the delight it brought him:

"I tried to buy the edition I'd owned as a child, and after much hunting found a copy for sale in Kent. I spoke to a very nice lady who said she would send it to me for the princely total of £7. When it arrived, it was indeed the version I'd owned. Opening the front cover I found my name written inside, aged seven."

Never forgotten, not really.

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I don't think there could be a finer guide than Christopher Fowler to the back catalogues and backstories of ninety-nine authors who, once hugely popular, have all but vanished from our bookshelves. The stories of the ninety-nine authors are interspersed with Fowler's twelve essays discussing topics such as the now-forgotten novels Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock brought to the screen, contemporary rivals of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie who did not stand the test of time, and women authors who introduced psychological suspense long before it became a mainstay on the bestseller lists.

Fowler kept me entertained throughout Forgotten Authors with his humor (describing actor Charlton Heston as a "heroic plank" or "Klane's prose is as fast and blunt as a chucked brick") as well as telling readers how he went about digging up information about these authors. I think my favorite is Fowler's chapter about Polly Hope, "Where the Rainbow Ends."

It was always gratifying when he chose a forgotten author that I'd already discovered and enjoyed, such as Australian Patricia Carlon and time traveler extraordinaire Jack Finney, or when he praised a favorite book like Consuming Passions. Of course, the danger in reading a book like this is finding a long list of authors and books you want to read, but isn't that why you pick it up in the first place? No reader worth their salt wants to feel as though they're missing out on literary gems, do they? Did I finish Forgotten Authors with a list of my own? Of course I did, and I'm working on finding copies of every single title on my (rather short) list.

Even though you might not want to read Fowler's book for fear you'll add too many books to your already staggering list, I recommend you do so anyway. Forgotten Authors is filled to bursting with fascinating facts and stories that will add to your knowledge of popular literature. It's fascinating and fun, two things that I always love to experience when I read a book-- and don't you dare miss "A Note on the Author" at the end!

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