Genre-switching



Irish author Tana French

I really only read mysteries.  I've tried a few other genres.  Some have included wonderful books (Diana Gabaldon's Outlander), but I couldn't get into more than one or two.  Some have knocked me out from the get-go (Candace Bushnell's Lipstick Jungle--this was just plain old bad writing).  So mostly, I stick to mysteries.  Straight-up mystery/thrillers like Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series, Val McDermid's fantstastic writing, and Greg Iles diverse collection of fiction.


Author Daniel Silva

Within mysteries, I read many sub-genres.  Cozies (my favorites include Louise Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache series and Riley Adams' Delicious and Suspicious), spy thrillers (fav is Daniel Silva), international noir (Timothy Hallinan), international mysteries (Stieg Larsson, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Tana French).  Historical mysteries (Tasha Alexander's Lady Emily mysteries, Caleb Carr's Alienist books, Matthew Pearl's The Last Dickens--but not his Poe Shadow, really didn't like that one).

My favorite sub-genre is literary mysteries, those that tackle the genre from an intellectual plane.  My favorites here are easy for me to name: Geraldine Brooks' People of the Book and Michale Gruber's The Book of Air and Shadows.

Of course, there are many that don't fit into a sub-genre, that defy boundaries.  Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian for one.  Michael Gruber's Det. Jimmy Paz series is another.  Val McDermid's A Place of Execution is written like a sad song, a tragic ballad.

And these days I find myself reading something very off the mark.  Very outside my usual genre and comfort zone.  They are books about raising kids.  I know, I know: boring.  The only non-fiction that usually crosses my shelf is of the historical crime/detective persuasion.  But suddenly I find myself with the need to know.  Why does my son constantly move and run into people?  Why is my daughter louder than her friends?  Why are they both so goshdarn spirited?  So I am reading Raising Your Spirited Child by Mary Sheedy Kurcinka.


Author Michael Gruber

 This is odd for me, but very helpful.  Do I sit down and read a chapter every night and fall asleep to the intoxicating prose?  No.  But it's helpful and I'm learning a lot about my children and myself.  There are more on my TBR list, for the first time every!

I'll tell you what I don't read: chick lit, straight romance, or YA.  Not my thing.  It used to be I didn't even read books written by women!  I wanted it hardcore and straight up, no punches pulled.  But then I opened my mind and found some of my favorite authors to be, get this, women.  Who'd'a thunk it?

So...if you have a base genre, do you ever read outside of it?  What about sub-genres?  Do you like them all within your fave Genre?