So, last time I posted a fandom Friday, I get the impression it ran someone off. Oh well. Fandom Friday’s are more for me to track things with than anything else.
Today, I’m going to talk favorite Genres – because of something I realized recently.
I’d realized I didn’t have any strong likes or dislikes on genre that I can remember prior to 6th grade.
I’ve since realized why.
There aren’t really any genre books for the younger kids. In fact, the only two books I remember reading prior to 6th grade were both books that I’m not particularly fond of. (And to be honest, I probably shouldn’t have read either, but in one case there was honor at stake, and in the other, it was a trade to my parents to be allowed to read what I wanted – which failed because I never finished the book.)
My two loves in literature are Science Fiction and Fantasy. They are by a long shot, my absolute favorites and I can pretty much tie the entire interest to Anne McCaffery. I started reading Pern books when I was in 6th grade, and I’ve not once looked back. I’ve read all but two series of hers, and I’ll willingly admit I never could get into reading the other two. I admit to having expanded to reading many other genres since – there are still a few I just won’t touch, but for the most part, there is little I won’t read. Currently the four authors who take up a whole five shelf bookcase themselves are: Christine Feehan, Jayne Ann Krentz (mostly under her Amanda Quick pen name), Anne McCaffery and Tamora Pierce. Those four have actually outgrown the bookcase that they’re on, and I’m stacking books on top of each other now.
I’ve read Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, in fact, I have near complete sets of both of the first 56 books. I’ve got all the Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events. Harry Potter, Agatha Christie, there’s a few Dan Brown, my shelves are pretty far ranging. Covering easily everything from Political Thriller to Urban Fantasy to Paranormal Romance to High Fantasy to hard Science Fiction. Maybe I’ll manage to remember a lightbulb for my library and post a series of shelfies over the next few weeks, would anyone want that?
Almost all of these are from the “Adult” part of the book stores. There are a few in the YA areas, and two that I find in the children’s section. Then there are quite a few that physical bookstores have phased off the shelves because the titles are older and the teens of today want the hot new book with the love triangle and the sparkles. Or the vampires and werewolves, but not so much the Lady Knights or Lady Provosts proving themselves.
The hottest genre today is definitely Urban Fantasy or Urban Paranormal. It puts the weird alongside the believable things of today, and right now, that’s selling like wildfire.