I tend to ignore genre most of the time. I look for good books to read. I'm 76 now and when I was young and started buying my own books the term "genre" was almost unheard of. It was a French word that referred to certain obscure types of books and I never was sure which.
In book stores in those days they had 3 broad sections: fiction, non-fiction and science fiction. And the only reason science fiction was segregated was because it was hidden. A lot of it's readers didn't want their friends to know. I don't think the word "geek" had been invented yet either but the concept was known.
Science fiction was usually hidden well back of the store in a hidden area, often behind the dirty book section.
Fantasy books were included in fiction and weren't part of science fiction. Fiction books were simply arranged alphabetically by author and included mysteries, fantasies, historical novels, what we call "mainstream" today, etc. Even the concept of romance novels wasn't quite known yet, although some of the books by Frank Yerby, then one of the world's best-selling authors, were tending that way.
In those days if you used a word like genre you'd be accused of snobbery, and with some justification.
Genre began in the late 1970s and caught on in the 1980s as a marketing thing. It's really all a big lie. Look at any genre and compare it with any other and you'll see they contain many of the same books; often most of the same books.
I read good books. My current book, a Rabbi Small book, might be called a mystery or a spy story or it might fit loosely into pretty much any genre. My previous book, "Tortilla Flat" might be called a classic although when I was growing up Steinbeck was a writer of contemporary fiction. He'd already written this one but I had to wait for him to write a lot of his books so if he's a classic, so am I.
Barry