The Forgotten Queen of Romance Novels | 60 Minutes: A Second Look

The Forgotten Queen of Romance Novels | 60 Mi...

Up next

08/09/2026: Generally Recognized As Safe, Growing Up Behind Walls, Hoosier Hysteria

As an increasing number of Americans across the political spectrum voice concerns about the health risks of ultra-processed foods, correspondent Bill Whitaker speaks with Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug A ...  Show more

08/02/2026: Lourdes, The Improbable Tale of Ted Lasso, Birds of War

Correspondent Bill Whitaker reports from the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes, a Marian shrine in Southern France and the site of 72 medical miracles recognized by the Catholic Church. 60 MINUTES goes inside the Lourdes Office of Medical Observations, where world-renowned doctors ...  Show more

Recommended Episodes

The Queen of Romance
Noble Blood

Over her lifetime, Dame Barbara Cartland would write over 700 books that would sell more than 750 MILLION copies worldwide. Though her books were primarily aimed and read by women, Cartland's messages were strickingly regressive, with an ephasis on purity that seems strange to mo ...  Show more

The Serious Business of Romance Novels
Engagement Party

Book sales — in general — are down, but one genre is bucking that trend: romance. Romance novel sales surged a whopping 52% in 2022. So what’s behind the popularity? How did romance become the reigning champion among fiction genres in America? To find out we talk with Leah Koch a ...  Show more

Love Is In The Air—And On The Shelves
Consider This from NPR

Sales of romance novels were up in 2022, with a surge of about 52 percent for sales of print copies, according to Publishers Weekly. That's despite an overall dip in book sales last year.Still, there's a longstanding social stigma against romance novels, as they're often written ...  Show more

How Romantasy Seduces Its Readers
Critics at Large | The New Yorker

A few years back, novels classed as “romantasy”—a portmanteau of “romance” and “fantasy”—might have seemed destined to attract only niche appeal. But since the pandemic, the genre has proved nothing short of a phenomenon. Sarah J. Maas’s “A Court of Thorns and Roses” series regul ...  Show more