Quote:
Originally Posted by crich70
What's your favorite thing to read Barry? I agree that the media isn't the important part. The reading itself is its own reward.
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I'm not sure I have a favorite thing to read. I grew up long before bookstores had genres. Every book store had a section for fiction, a section for non-fiction, a section for periodicals and way off in a corner, hidden away, often behind the adult book section, was the science fiction. That was really the only genre.
I think it was in the mid 1980s that genre began to be a thing. Until that fiction, except for science fiction, could be found in the fiction section, displayed in order by author, with no concern for the type of book.
Even fantasy books were listed under fiction. If they'd tried something insulting like putting fantasy books in the SF section they'd lose all their SF customers.
Anyway for most of my earlier life I never really thought about types of books. I'd walk through the fiction area looking at books when the cover or title or author caught my attention and if if seemed interesting I might read it.
Later, after genre became a thing, I found that I read a lot of mysteries and a lot of historical fiction and a lot of what today is called mainstream fiction. Also I've always read more than a few classics. I pick books I think will be fun to read. I'll listen to people's opinions and they'll sometimes guide me to things but I'll never let someone tell me I have to read a certain book. My friends know if they want me to read it that's not the way to get me to.
Today I read more mainstream and still a lot of historical fiction and fewer mysteries. I also read a lot of other stuff. I avoid romance novels written by romance writers because I've tried enough of them to have learned that they're gimmicky and dishonest. I like a western now and then. I still read some classics although at my age a lot of what I used to think of as normal every day books have now become classics. I'm always amazed to hear John Steinbeck called a classical writer. I used to wait eagerly for his books to become available in paperback so I could read them. The same for Pearl S Buck. Those were a couple of my favorite current writers and then they went and won Nobel prizes and got genred.
Barry