At number five was Danielle Steel, with John Grisham and Dean Koontz equal in sixth place.

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Chick lit novelist Josephine Cox was second in the list of most borrowed authors, followed by Danielle Steel.

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The bestseller lists of the 1980s and 1990s were dominated by brand names such as Stephen King and Danielle Steel.

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American writer Danielle Steel is the only author to have appeared among the top 10 most borrowed adult fiction authors every year for the past three decades.

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But he is only the fifth most borrowed author over the last 10 years, lagging behind Wilson, and romantic novelists Danielle Steel, Catherine Cookson and Josephine Cox.

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Stylists Vanessa Traina, a fashion editor and daughter of Danielle Steel, and Melanie Huynh, a former assistant to past French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld, help shape the look of his collections.

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After divorcing his second wife, the romance writer Danielle Steel, in 1999, he began writing himself, and embarked on a novel about the amorous exploits of a rich financier much like him.

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Their popularity is rivalled by western writers of pulp fiction whose books have been translated into Polish: John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Danielle Steel, Erich Segal and, above all, William Wharton, an American writer who is far more widely read in Poland than in his own country.

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"Danielle writes very feelingly and honestly about the kind of issues real women face, " said Steel's UK editor, Catherine Cobain of Transworld.

BBC: James Patterson tops library lending chart