Thread: Favorite genre

What is everyone's favorite genre to read?
And why?
It's interesting to know what people like to read and why.

I like to read coming-of-age, vampire romance, mysteries; however I am open to anything.

I read coming-of-age novels because they are realistic and some of my favorite authors are Jodi Picoult and Sarah Dessen. Vampires/Vampmance are fun and interesting to read and I love anything vampire. Mysteries I read because well I'm obsessed with things like CSI, NCIS, Law and Order:SVU and reading books like that peak my interest. My grandma got me into mysteries and thrillers.

-Eden

Thriller, techno-thriller, mystery, crime, and action/adventure.

My favourite authors are: Tom Clancy, Jeffrey Deaver, Michael Connelly, Robert Ludlum, Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, and Frederick Forsyth.

Hmmmmm I have been reading M Atwood again here lately. ( Handmaid's Tale to be specific ) I always loved Frank Herbert. Thought the man had a helluva imagination. Harlan Ellison, and Jack Ketchum stand out for me as very good story tellers, as does Gaiman. As poetry goes, Gluck, Duffy, and Doty have been favorites for awhile now. About two years ago I decided to read Shakespeare, and Tennessee Williams back to back just to see the differences in playwriting. I am reading more in terms of information these days than anything, so genres have become somewhat irrelevant.

I'll read pretty much anything, but my favorites are anything with fantasy in them. That includes magic, supernatural things, etc. So I read a lot of fantasy and urban fantasy, both adult and teen. My favorite authors include Charles de Lint, Anne Bishop, Tolkien, Tamora Pierce, Elizabeth Haydon, Mark Helprin, and Anne Rice. I guess what draws me to those kinds of books is the feeling that absolutely anything can happen.

I read all sorts of things but I have had a little run of reading about warfare, John Buchan on Cromwell, Lane-Fox on Alexander, Oman on the history of Medieval warfare, a book about Agincourt and Crecy, others about Gengis Khan, Caesar, Nelson and Napoleon. I am not a warlike person, in fact I would call myself a pacifist, but there is something fascinating about contests that have no runners up, no second places, and where so much depends on innovation and thinking outside the box.

Science fiction, particularly hard-science, noir, suspense, horror. I like many different flavors of nonfiction as well, especially scientific and historical. I have far too many favorites to indulge in making a list.

I like different genres. I mainly read manga, classic literature, young adult, and horror but I will read anything that catches my eye. Some of my favorite authors are Edgar Allen Poe, Jane Austen, Agatha Christie, Shakespeare, and Anne Rice. There are others but it would take too long to name them all.

Hmm! I have never found any specific genres interesting or felt drawn to them, but I tend to be fascinated by the writing styles of certain authors - such as Stephen Fry, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe.

But I do love horror and romance.

I will read anything. I don't generally buy my own books. I get a lot of women rights, new age, religious and historic books from my aunt. I get historic romance, science fiction and fantasy from my mother and best sellers and classics from my grandma. Plus books from friends and neighbors who will drop off things occasionally. Right now I'm reading Don't Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight (from my aunt), Three Cups of Tea (from a friend), and Inanna- myths and hymns (I picked this up at a yard sale). I've actually read Inanna several times. It's a favorite.

If I'm really involved in my writing I will read mostly non-fiction. I find that reading fiction bleeds the voice into my writing.

Social sci-fi is my current obsession - preferably with some kind of cyberpunk twist. In fact, I usually enjoy any kind of spec-fiction, and I usually adore anything with a -punk suffix. I would recommend Jeff & Ann VanderMeer's Steampunk anthology to anyone that way inclined.

However... there is something about cyberpunk which I love, which is difficult to pinpoint. Certain stories have a mood, or an undertone, or maybe just a sentence which elates me in a way which I am yet unable to articulate outside of my own mind. It might be the way the author captures the light shining into a room on the three-hundredth floor, reflected from the brilliant white of the urban sprawl below. Or a one-line description which is somehow so vivid that it creates a feeling - nay, an emotion by the merit of its own language. As an example, I shall use a line from Robert J. Sawyer's Wake:

"A small, fragile world floating against the vast, empty darkness."

It isn't particularly verbose, and doesn't employ the beautiful, expansive lexicon of Joyce or Fitzgerald. They are layman's terms. But there is something about the line, in the context of the story, which ran through my mind for weeks after I read it. It just wouldn't cease, and every time I thought it, I felt good. That is what I look for in a story, and there is something about cyberpunk and social sci-fi which just seems to have that quality intrinsic to it.

Lol - did that explanation confuse you as much as it confused me? ^.^

My favorite types of books are: Fantasy, supernatural, mystery, action adventure.

Some specifics would be the Dragonlance chronicles. They really get you into the story while moving into a dramatic story with several points of view. A good read indeed.

Romance, BUT not mature romance. Idk, it just ruins the story for me if it isn't planned out just right.

Mystery is fun, but it has to have other elements in it for me to enjoy it.

Mysteries, thrillers, and honestly some young adult fiction too. I'll read horror occasionally, especially the psychological ones.

Suspense, I guess it would be called. Sidney Sheldon. A great historian and narrator of exotic places.

At the moment I’m going through a retro period, namely, Kenneth Miller AKA Ross MacDonald. I read ‘The Ivory Grin’, ‘The Barbarous Coast’, ‘The Chill’ and ‘The Goodbye Look’ in the early 70s. Loved his style and his protagonist Lew Archer.
At the moment I’m waiting for the delivery of ‘The Barbarous Coast’ & ‘The Way Some People Die’ to start my collection. I hope to have the complete collection by Christmas, but damn it, these books are hard to find!