People without any real grasp of history or the past times have no idea.
I blame this on librarians.
Librarians now weed collections assiduously.
Nothing that hasn’t been checked out in a few years stays. Except what they deem important.
So no more browsing and finding books and series from other times and other days. Now you have to know about it and search the web.
I will give you two examples of two series I happened upon.
One when I was very young. the Travis McGee detective series. A series about characters in South Florida prior to the boom. Wonderful descriptions of what life was life then and entertaining stories to boot.
One series about by Lawrence Sanders called The XX Deadly Sin. XX= different numbers 1 thru 7. Fascinating series with a protagonist who was a NYC police captain in the 70s-80s. An incredible description of what life was like then, detailed about clothing, values, and the zeitgeist of the times.
Books, even pulpy ones, give us information to fill out our understanding of our history and our values.
Loved the Travis McGee series. Every title had a color in it. Oh, and Travis McGee is a FReeper.