I love reading books. Ok. I love reading nearly anything. I read blogs, books, magazines, textbooks, heck I even read cereal boxes. (You know you do too) I was at a bookstore with a friend who is a non-reader (yes, they need love too) and he asked what kind of books I like to read. Simple enough question, right? Apparently not. When I started listing what I like I noticed a bewildered look upon his face. Those of us who read regularly, you know? Those of us who must feel the books on the shelves at the local bookshop or click our way through Amazon or B &N? Well we’ve created our own language. Books are just simply books. They don’t always fit into neat little categories. There isn’t just fiction and nonfiction. There’s Thrillers and mysteries. But not JUST thrillers and mysteries. There’s Conspiracy thrillers, crime thrillers, disaster thrillers, legal thrillers, medical thrillers, political thrillers, psychological thrillers, revenge thrillers, supernatural thrillers, and more I can’t even think of. You get my point though. You just can’t slap a neat and pretty label onto books we like to read. Most of us usually just tell a lay person we love all kinds of books. This may be the short and sweet answer but don’t get upset at Christmas if someone gives you a book called The Anthology of Pickles…you did say you liked all kinds of books.
I’ve decided to start a weekly posting discussing genres, one by one, until we can clear up the whole “What kind of books do you like?” situation. More than likely it won’t help us answer that question to the lay person but it will help us to communicate to our peers (our fellow book snobs) what we love and even what we distain.
So let’s get started; shall we?
First, let’s go over the basic genre formats. Then we can break them down as we go. Genre, which is derived from French meaning “kind, sort, style” or basically “independent style”, is defined by Dictionary.com means a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique, or the like: the genre of epic poetry; the genre of symphonic music. For our purposes, let’s look at the kinds of artistic endeavors we like to read. There are of course the basics: Fiction and Non-fiction. That’s a little too simplistic for my taste, your’s too I’m sure. So let’s look at Fiction since most of us love getting lost in the unreal to escape the reality that we’re trapped in (ok maybe not trapped. Personally I love my life but it is nice to sail the Seven Seas with a shirtless shipmate named Hahns from time to time.)
Fiction can consist of anything that is made up. It can be realistic and it can be completely off the wall. Fiction consists of the fantasies, fears, and failures we love to read about. You can have a strong female heroine and you can have the helpless heroine who is swept off her feet by an handsome but unlikely hero. Anything is possible. So let’s see…
Historical fiction – A fictional story with real and invented characters that take place as some point in historical time and around historical events.
Mystery – A suspenseful story about a puzzling event that is not solved until the end of the book.
- Fantasy – (This will have it’s on posting…it’s that huge) A story including elements that are impossible such as talking animals, magical powers, creatures of the night, and anything that can be made up out of the unbelievable.
- Folktale – A story, often written with a hidden message, that was originally passed on by word of mouth.
- Poetry - A verse written to inspire the reader or reveal a deeper emotion of the writer. (I was once told that writing poetry was like running down the street naked lol)
- Realistic Fiction – A story using made up characters that takes place in modern times.
- Science Fiction – A story that blends futuristic technology and scientific facts with a made up story.
- Chic Lit – Fictional writing about modern womanhood with a bit of humor and lighthearted whimsy.
- Romantic Fiction – Do I need to define this? Ok in case you’ve been living in a cave…romance is a story about love and relationships…usually involves clothes falling off at some point.
- Comedy – A story with funny themes and whimsical story lines. Simply put : Ha! Ha! Funny stuff!
- Drama – A story involving conflict, action crisis, and overall atmosphere designed pull at your emotional strings and heart making you think about what is right and wrong.
- YA (Young Adult)- A story that is geared towards younger readers (ages 14 to 21)...there's been a surge in Adults reading YA of all kinds in the last few years. (Which explains the Twilight Epidemic)
There’s a ton more but this is a good start, don’t you think? Next week we’ll go over one of these in more depth. Can you think of more? Is there a category I missed? What are your favorites? What is the hardest genre for you to get through?
Leave a comment on your thoughts about genres .
2 comments:
A nice complete review of genres! There are so many! I'm having a tough time deciding what genre I really want to settle on. Or even what genre my books fit in.
KarenG I find a lot of books that just don't fit into a nice neat little genre package. I think as more people branch out onto the written pages we'll find that either new genres will be created or we'll just move away from genres all together.
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