What genres do you not read?

Cafe Society
21

In a pinch, I’ll read damn near anything… :smiley:

But I generally avoid the following:

  • romance/chick-lit - I’ve never been a girly-girl, waiting to be swept off my feet by Mr. Right/Prince Charming (I just got lucky that way!)
  • paranormal romance - See above, except with vampires/werewolves/etc. The Parasol Protectorate is an exception for me - the series started that way, but has become more of an adventure/thriller sort of series
  • self-help - I don’t believe in “easy fixes”
  • torture-porn horror - self-explanatory, I think (tho I toughed out American Psycho)
  • mysteries - just doesn’t generally appeal to me
  • Westerns - ditto
  • politics - I avoid it in real life, why would I spend my leisure time with it?
  • High fantasy - a little fey goes a long way for me… :smiley:

Contemporary fiction often doesn’t appeal to me either - why would I want to read about someone whose life is just like mine? Maybe that’s why I enjoy science fiction so much…

Edited to add: I’m with AuntiePam “Novels where the focus is a disintegrating marriage/relationship or careers in decline, especially if the characters are urban sophisticates – I just can’t relate to navel gazers and angsty whiners.”

22

I really didn’t even realize Westerns were still a “thing”. I read this book recently, which might be classed as a Western but I just thought of it as a kid’s book. I also liked Stephen King’s Gunslinger books, but I’d have called those fantasy. Then I looked up Amazon’s new westerns, but still have to classify A Bargain Bride, Mail Order Mistake, and Unicorn Western 3 as more something else. :slight_smile:

23

I hate these too. I don’t know what genre I would consider it, other than “awful novels.”

24

I never read romance, espionage (e.g. Tom Clancy, Robert Ludlum), mystery, or erotica and rarely read novels about "beautiful peole in NYC or LA just because it’s hard for me to relate to megalopolis dwellers.

Unless I’m doing research, I also rarely read biographies because generally I find that what I want to know is better handled in 30 pages than 300; it’s enough to know that they had health problems or financial problems, I don’t really want to read the details of the disease or the letters from collection agencies. I prefer to read histories and then browse bios of people therein that I find interesting.

25

Not that you should change your reading tastes, but it’s worth pointing out that Clancy and Ludlum, while technically in the same genre as folks like John Le Carre and Phillip Kerr, are far from the best examples of the genre. I’ve read Ludlum and Clancy, and they are to good espionage novels as a Big Mac is to filet mignon. Which is to say, nasty and devoid of nutritional value, but sometimes a guilty pleasure.

Good espionage novels are fantastic literature.

26

I get enough True Crime stories at work.

I overhear enough about Romance at work, too. (do not ask)

I avoid Westerns for the most part, for reasons that seem good to me.

True Hunting stories leave me cold, too.

27

Fiction: Romance, Fanfic, Post Apocalyptic, Vampire, Zombie and (most recently) any ‘catch the serial killer’ plot lines.

Non-Fiction: Business, Woo, Self Help, Religion/Inspirational, Baby/Childcare stuff, Sports, Car Repair, Dieting and political axe grinding.

28

I really hate westerns, eurgh. And non-fictional history, bleh. I don’t know if this counts as a genre, but the really extreme “unreliable narrator” stories are a major turnoff. Hated Crime and Punishment. Hated American Psycho. Hated *Fight Club *(only the book, loved the movie).

29

Yeah. I have two shelves of novels set in the American west, but none are by Zane Grey or Louis L’Amour. I don’t like to call them “westerns” but “historical fiction” doesn’t seem to fit either. Novels like Shane, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, Desperadoes, Tie My Bones to Her Back, Heart of the Country, Anything for Billy, The Searchers and Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy are miles above what we think of when we think of westerns.

30

Bodice rippers, and usually westerns, unless they’re exceptional, a la Lonesome Dove or some of the McCarthy novels. Also porn.

31

And you didn’t like it?

Oh, I see. So in fact you love westerns, you just have a funny idea that “westerns” only refers to the dregs of the genre.

32

Other than Pratchett, I don’t read much fantasy. I read Tolkien and Pullman when I was a kid, but have moved away from the genre mostly. After time in the disc world, I just can’t take wizards, trolls and dragons seriously.

Also, there has been a trend in the last few years, which started with I guess the True Blood Sookie books, and the Twilight books to have romance with a slight fantasy edge. It bums me out that they are shelved in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy Section, and that they are selling so well that they are pushing out other books that I’d like to read. There is usually a woman with a sword or crossbow on the cover, and they have names like “The Siren Depths, book five in the Siren series.” Nonsense like that.

Also steampunk has never really tickled my fancy. I’ve dabbled, but that’s about it.

Now it’s Hard Sci-Fi, Space Opera( i.e. Stross, James S.A. Corey, Banks, and Reynolds), Post Apocalyptic (Atwood,McCarthy, Heller), Cthulhu mythos,(Stross again, Tregliss) Mystery(Fforde, Ellis, Letham) Weird Tales(Prunty, Parsons, Leyner).

In non fiction, it’s everything from Saga, Roach, Gould, Greenblatt, Sobel.

33

I’ll read biographies of notable historic figures and of contemporary scientists, politicians, military [del]men[/del] persons, social activists, and such. Possibly of writers; Diane Ward Middlebrook’s bio of Anne Sexton is one of my favorite reads. But never, ever of actors, singers, and other such celebrities. Not only am I not interested, but I cannot understand why people are.

I’m tempted to say I won’t read romance novels, but in fact I’ve seen one or two I liked. And as I wrote confession stories (the low-paying, bastard cousin to romance novels) all through college, I’d be saditty to condemn the genre.

34

I love good fiction set in the American West. I don’t like what’s classified as “western” when I’m browsing Amazon.

35

I’d put the point more generally: I dislike genre fiction where it is obvious that the fact it is genre is its selling point - that somewhere out there is a sort of writing factory churning out these things, all more or less indistinguishable, because there is an audience that will buy that genre.

Romance is the most obvious example. But fantasy, westerns, mysteries, science fiction … all have some version of this.

OTOH, in each “genre” there is genuinely good writing worth reading as well.

36

I don’t really look for books that way, but I poked around and found the Amazon link for westerns. Four titles you mentioned were all in the top recommendations. Just sayin.

Of course most of any genre fiction is crap.

37

Few biographies, no westerns or politics, was never a fan of coming-of-age tales even when I was coming of age. I look askance at the pink, pulsating romance aisle. I imagine it’s moist.

38

I dislike the term “genre fiction”; it implies inherent inferiority, and I think it’s unfair.

Most “literary fiction” is crap too.

39

I adore James Herriot’s books, and after hearing a few tidbits like that I have refused to read any biographies of him. I didn’t even want to tell my kids that James, Siegfried and Tristan weren’t their real names.
I wouldn’t read a True Crime novel or “inspirational fiction” without a damned good incentive. I don’t really like horror, or espionage, or politics, or Westerns (although I liked Lonesome Dove pretty well). I don’t pick up contemporary fiction unless I have a reliable recommendation.

I’m not crazy about modern mysteries, but I like a lot of historical mystery series. Place your sleuth in Ancient Rome, Medieval England or 19th-century New Orleans, and the murder mystery seems a lot more interesting.

I avoid romance novels just because most of them are dreadful. I’d read more romance if they were any good, and I have a few that I really like.

40

I was surprised to find out James Herriott’s real practice had ANOTHER partner never mentioned in any of his books. Left out completely to keep things simple?
Integrated into the personalities of Tristan and Siegfried? Didn’t want to be in the books for some reason?

I like non-fiction and biographies, but I must not be very bright because I’m bored by politicians, military, and sports as a rule. (I could, however, sit down and read tacky/scandalous/puff piece/or keepin’-it-real celebrity biographies around the clock. Autobiographies are even better, and tell-all books by employees and relatives have my interest. I just found a book in a thrift store by Frank Sinatra’s butler!)

I have not read a bodice-ripper or Harlequin romance in decades, after (very) briefly giving them a go. One kidnapped heaving-bosomed spitfire is just like any other. On vacation once I tried a Harlequin romance I found in the lounge, out of sheer desperation. Gawd! I leafed through it and out of sheer ennui underlined every sentence with the word “blush(ed)” in it. I made it up to 27, and then the sun came out, so I quit.

I just can’t get into sex-n-shopping, the marital problems of the well to do, or single-gal-in-the-city. And they’re everywhere. I feel like I should turn in my woman card.