John Jakes, author of bestselling historical sagas, has died

Bestselling author John Jakes died this past Saturday at age ninety.

In his long writing career, he produced some sixty books in a wide variety of genres, notes his obituary in the New York Times. 

But odds are good that if you know him, it's through his historical fiction family sagas.

Jakes wrote The Kent Family Chronicles and the North and South Civil War trilogy, both of which became TV miniseries over the course of a few decades.

Critics didn't wax rhapsodic about his style, but Jakes told reporters once that he felt a "real responsibility" to readers, some of whom might never have picked up a history book before his novels.

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