The Road to Omaha by Robert Ludlum contains elements of self-parody not often found in airport novels, but the back cover still promised "byzantine treachery" and "relentless action".

Airport novels represent a literary genre that is not so much defined by its plot or cast of stock characters, as much as it is by the social function it serves. An airport novel is typically a fairly long but fast-paced novel of intrigue or adventure that is stereotypically found in the reading fare offered by airport newsstands for travellers to read in the rounds of sitting and waiting that constitute air travel. Perhaps it will be finished in the hotel room that awaits them at the end of the journey; perhaps it will be saved for the return trip. Cover scan of The Road to Omaha by Robert Ludlum. ... The Scarlatti Inheritance, Ludlums first book, published 1971. ... Parody of Back to the Future In contemporary usage, a parody is a work that imitates another work in order to ridicule, ironically comment on, or poke some affectionate fun at the work itself, the subject of the work, the author or fictional voice of the parody, or another subject. ... A literary genre is one of the divisions of literature into genres according to particular criteria such as literary technique, tone, or subject matter (content). ... MY NAME IS BOB AND I LOVE PEANUTS!!!!!!11A plot is the course or arrangement of events in a narrative. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... A novel (from French nouvelle Italian novella, new) is an extended, generally fictional narrative in prose. ... A typical newsstand in New York City. ... This article refers to the tool of travel. ...

Considering the marketing of fiction as a trade, airport novels occupy a niche similar to the one that once was occupied by pulp magazine fiction and other reading materials typically sold at newsstands and kiosks to travellers. This pulp fiction is one obvious source for the genre; sprawling historical novels of exotic adventure such as those by James Michener and James Clavell are another source. In French, such novels are called romans de gare, "railway station novels", suggesting that writers in France were aware of this potential market at an even earlier date. Flynns Detective Fiction from 1941. ... a pagoda-like kiosk in Lausanne. ... A historical novel is a novel in which the story is set among historical events, or more generally, in which the time of the action predates the lifetime of the author. ... James Albert Michener (February 3, 1907? - October 16, 1997) was the American author of such books as Tales of the South Pacific (for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1948), Hawaii, The Drifters, Centennial, The Source, The Fires of Spring, Chesapeake, Caribbean, Caravans, Alaska, Texas, and Poland. ... James Clavell in 1986 James Clavell (10 October 1924 – 7 September 1994) was a novelist, screenwriter, and World War II POW, who was famous for books such as Shogun, and such films as The Great Escape and To Sir, with Love. ...

Meeting the reading needs of travelers

An airport novel must necessarily be superficially engaging, while not being particularly profound or philosophical, or at least, without such content being necessary for enjoyment of the book. The reader is not a person alone, in a quiet setting, contemplating deep thoughts or savouring fine writing; the reader is being jostled and penned among strangers, and seeks distraction from the boredom and inconveniences of travel. The writer of an airport novel must meet the needs of readers in this situation.

The realisation that this niche market for mass market paperbacks had given rise to a new genre was slow in coming. Perhaps a defining moment in the history of the genre came in 1968, when Arthur Hailey published Airport, an airport novel that used the commercial flight industry to frame an adventure yarn about a disaster in an airport. Hailey's other novels, soap opera tales with complex plots of adultery and intrigue featuring business characters, using a number of other industries as backdrops (e.g. The Final Diagnosis (hospitals); Hotel (hotels); Wheels (automobile industry); The Moneychangers (banking) represented an emerging genre. Categories: Stub | Books ... 1968 (MCMLXVIII) was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ... Arthur Hailey (April 5, 1920 – November 24, 2004) was a British/Canadian/American/Bahamian novelist. ... The first TIME cover devoted to soap operas: Dated January 12, 1976, Bill Hayes and Susan Seaforth Hayes of Days of our Lives are featured with the headline Soap Operas: Sex and suffering in the afternoon. A soap opera is an ongoing, episodic work of fiction, usually broadcast on television... A physician visiting the sick in a hospital. ... Hotel Hotel is a novel by Arthur Hailey. ... The 4-star Manor House Hotel at Castle Combe, Wiltshire, England. ... Wheels (1971) is a novel by Arthur Hailey, concerning the automobile industry and the day-to-day pressures involved in its operation. ... Karl Benzs Velo model (1894) - entered into the first automobile race An automobile (or motor car) is a wheeled passenger vehicle that carries its own motor. ... For other uses, see Bank (disambiguation). ...

Format

Airport novels are always paperback books of a small but thick format. These books are seldom made to last, printed on inexpensive newsprint, and they often begin to fall apart after one or two readings. This is not a problem for their intended purpose; they are made to be bought on impulse, and their readers often discard them when finished. Paperback may refer to a kind of book binding by which papers are simply folded without cloth or leather and bound - usually with glue rather than stitches or staples - into a thick paper cover; or to a book with this type of binding. ... Newsprint is low-cost, low-quality, non-archival paper. ...

Airport novels are typically quite long books; a book that a reader was able to finish before the journey was done would similarly be unsatisfying. Because of this length, the genre attracts prolific authors, who use their output as a sort of branding; each author is identified with a certain sort of story, and produces many variations of the same thing. Well known authors' names are in letters larger than the title on the covers of airport novels, often in embossed letters. Look up branding in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Themes

A number of literary genres dominate the airport novel market. Complex and byzantine plots involving world-spanning or multigeneration conspiracies are often found. Spy fiction, political thrillers, techno-thrillers, legal fiction and similar tales of espionage or intrigue make up a large chunk of the market. Romances, especially romances involving wealthy jet set characters, also loom large in the genre. Some historical fiction occurs, especially multigenerational family sagas or tales that take place over the course of decades or centuries in a colourful location. The genre of spy fiction — sometimes called political thriller or spy thriller or sometimes shortened simply to Spy-fi — arose before World War I at about the same time that the first modern intelligence agencies were formed. ... Thriller fiction, sometimes called suspense fiction, is a genre of literature that typically entails fast-paced plots, numerous action scenes, and limited character development. ... Techno-thrillers are a hybrid genre, drawing subject matter generally from spy thrillers, war novels, and science fiction. ... A legal drama is a work of dramatic fiction about law, crime, punishment or the legal profession. ... Espionage is the practice of obtaining information about an organization or a society that is considered secret or confidential (spying) without the permission of the holder of the information. ... A romance novel is a novel from the genre currently known as romance. ... Categories: Move to Wiktionary | Stub ... A historical novel is a novel in which the story is set among historical events, or more generally, where the time the action takes place in predates the time of the first publication -- distinguish and contrast the genre of alternate history. ... The family saga is a genre of literature which chronicles the lives and doings of a family or a number of related or interconnected families over a period of time. ...

Science fiction, fantasy, and horror fiction are conspicuous by their absence, even if the tales of espionage and intrigue often mention fantastic technologies. Wizards and space explorers do not seem to make the airport novel reader's heart beat faster; spies, government and military officials, and powerful business executives do. Perhaps as a consequence, airport novel writers tend to be more conservative in politics than other writers do; Tom Clancy and Frederick Forsyth are writers with works arguably within the genre who have been linked with conservative politics. Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Fantasy is a genre of art that uses magic and other supernatural forms as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. ... Horror fiction is, broadly, fiction in any medium intended to scare, unsettle, or horrify the reader. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Conservatism is a political philosophy that generally favors free markets, traditional values and strong foreign defense. ... Politics is the process by which groups make decisions. ... Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. ... Frederick Forsyth. ...

Whatever the genre, airport novels typically contain pages of explicit description of sexual encounters, often to the point of pornography; unlike pictorial pornography, an elaborate sexual fantasy that appears only in text can be enjoyed by the reader without making it too obvious to the other passengers what is being read. The cover of an airport novel is often a painting that depicts a collage of attractive women and action scenes. Pornographic movies Pornography (from Greek πόρνη (porne) prostitute and γραφή (grafe) writing), more informally referred to as porn or porno, is the representation of the human body or sexual activity with the goal of sexual arousal. ... A sexual fantasy is a fantasy of a sexual nature. ...

Writers of airport novels

Writers whose work is identified with the airport novel genre include:

• Dan Brown
• John le Carré
• Tom Clancy
• Mary Higgins Clark
• Jackie Collins
• Clive Cussler
• Len Deighton
• Ken Follett
• Michael Crichton
• Frederick Forsyth
• John Grisham
• Arthur Hailey
• Robert Harris
• Stephen King
• Robert Ludlum
• James Patterson
• James Phelan
• Jacqueline Susann
• Danielle Steel

Dan Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author of thriller fiction, best known for writing the controversial 2003 bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code. ... John le Carré is the pseudonym of David John Moore Cornwell (born October 19, 1931 in Poole, Dorset, England), an English writer of espionage novels. ... Thomas Leo Clancy Jr. ... Mary Higgins Clark (born December 24, 1927 in Bronx, New York) is an American novelist currently residing in Saddle River, New Jersey. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Clive Cussler (born July 15, 1931 in Alhambra, California) is an American adventure novelist. ... Len Deighton (left) teaches Michael Caine how to break an egg on the set of The Ipcress File. ... Ken Follett Ken Follett (born June 5, 1949) is a British author of thrillers and historical novels. ... Michael Crichton John Michael Crichton (born October 23, 1942, pronounced // [1]) is an American author, film producer and television producer. ... Frederick Forsyth. ... John Ray Grisham Jr. ... Arthur Hailey (April 5, 1920 – November 24, 2004) was a British/Canadian/American/Bahamian novelist. ... Robert Harris is an English TV reporter and author, born in 1957 in the city of Nottingham. ... Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author best known for his enormously popular horror novels. ... The Scarlatti Inheritance, Ludlums first book, published 1971. ... James Patterson is an award winning American author. ... There are several prominent people named James Phelan, including three American politicians: James Phelan, Sr. ... Jacqueline Susann (August 20, 1918 – September 21, 1974 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) was a Jewish-American author known for her mass-appeal novels. ... Danielle Steel (born Danielle Fernandes Schuelein-Steel on August 14, 1947 in New York City, New York) is one of the best-selling authors in the history of the United States. ...

References

• Junk Food Entertainment - Mike Rozak contemplates the difference between airport novels and classic novels.
• Airport art: what is it? - Michael Cathcart
• A new genre: the record store book - Seamus Sweeney.