sommmerset maugham ....do people still read his works?

[chinadoll]

I was recently in a second hand bookshop and saw a book cover that i recognized from my holidays years and years ago. I holidayed for many weeks at a time in a caravan on the south coast...in the site shop was a wire stand full of novels.... of course being too young to buy any of them I nevertheless went into the shop a couple of times a week and marveled at the covers.....one of them was a collection of short stories by SM.... I bought this book in the second hand shop and am now enjoying it immensely......I wonder if anyone could let me know of any of his other works that are worth reading..

[jno]

He wrote lots of short stories - you may find they're not all in the collection you have. Try looking on amazon.com (or amazon co.uk) under his name for some ideas. To be honest, I'm not sure people do still read him much, but I like the short stories; some of them were made into compilation films, Quartet and Encore. The longer novels I'm not so sure about.

Something about him here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somerset_Maugham

[maxi29]

It's strange how authors go out of fashion: he was hugely popular about 50 years ago - I remember my parents had many of his books - and yet, these days no-one seems to read him.
I read a lot of his short stories when I was an adoloscent and found them entertaining so I'm surprised that he's so little-read. I think any collection of his short stories will engross you.
Perhaps, he'll come back into fashion some time

[lynlockwood]

I loved his short stories when I was a teenager- Rain is a classic. I also loved Of Human Bondage. But I don't know anyone who reads him now either!