Ah, I get’cha. Searching “Amazon westerns” brings up a decent list – quite different from the “new westerns” list linked in Dung Beetle’s post.
Isn’t all fiction “genre” fiction, of one sort or another?
I’d say so, as literary fiction–called non-genre by the snooty–is itself a genre, with its own conventions and styles, no less than Westerns, mysteries, science fiction, fantasy, and romance.
I’m getting to the point where I just can’t read fiction. I really like memoirs, so, when I’m reading fiction, what’s going through my head is, “Who cares? All these people are fake!” Epic fiction is it’s own special kind of bad, because the death and tragedies all seem so predictable.
What I find sucks about a book in any genre (including “literary”) is where the book doesn’t depart or improve on any of the conventions of its type, and so the only reason to read it is that one is a fan of that type, and wants the same predictable reading experience over and over again.
There are always gonna be books that, while defined as “genre”, don’t fall into that category. Trick is to find which ones.
[ul]
[li]Spy/Espionage[/li][li]Political/Legal/crime ‘thrillers’[/li][li]Romance[/li][li]Any sci-fi or fantasy deliberately written as a trilogy - usually there is enough material for two good books padded out over three.[/li][li]Any sci-fi or fantasy in which character names on the back-cover blurb contain more apostrophes than consonants :D[/li][li]Westerns[/li][/ul]
It’s been many years since I read anything that would be considered Science Fiction or Fantasy. There’s some on my “to-be-read” list but that does not mean I’ll ever get to it. I’m starting to realize that if never add another book, quit work and read all day every day I’d still have a hard time getting through my wish list. And still I end up rereading some favorites every year.
I would never actively seek out a novel shelved in the “Romance” section, but I don’t mind reading romantic stories.
Oh, and thanks for the heads up about Water for Elephants. It was in a bag of books I got from my mom. Now that I know I’ll never finish it I can put it in the “straight to the used bookstore” pile instead of the “read it, then sell it” pile.
Fiction. Any fiction.* Not even books I helped with. I skim the acknowledgements for my name and close the book.
I’ll read just about any non-fiction, though. The dollar store had a couple that I just had to buy, the first because I’m a buck’s worth of interested in Gouverneur Morris because of his stupid name, and the second as a gag gift for a nephew who is stupidly into gambling, except the book turned out to be fascinating so I kept it.
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- ETA: Especially animal fiction. I like animals better than people, and things never turn out well for the animals.
I read just about everything except romance novels (unless you count Jane Eyre and Outlander as romances).
I listened to McManus’s book Positively Fifth Street: Murderers, Cheetahs, and Binion’s World Series of Poker on CD some years back, despite knowing and caring almost nothing about poker, and was enthralled.
I agree. Any genre can produce books worth reading. But some genres I generally like and some I don’t. I can enjoy a “typical” horror or SF or alternate history just because I like the genre but I wouldn’t enjoy a “typical” mystery or romance or western, even though I might like some works in those genres.
Again not to tell you what to read, but if you like James S.A. Corey, you might want to consider the fantasy written by Daniel Abraham, which is half of Corey’s real name. It’s quite good, if you can put up with fantasy; his deft touch with characters shines through.
I just can’t stand “literary fiction” or “contemporary fiction” or “mimetic fiction” or whatever you want to call fiction that is about ordinary, regular everyday people and their boring interior lives.
Especially southern fiction. Oh those small southern towns with their seething passions and secrets hidden beneath a polite veneer. Their colorful eccentrics! Their judgmental dowagers! Oh and did you know everyone’s racist?
I like sci-fi but I don’t like romance.
So, I came on this board once asking for good ST novels. People recomended I get Imzadi. It turned out to be a damn romance novel.
You guys tricked me dammit! 
It’s all good though, it turned out to be a good read.
Also, crime novels. I’m not big on those.