So I found a new genre

[smith3532]

Ah yes, the 1950's, when giants walked the earth.

Across the River and into the Trees by Ernest Hemingway
The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Battle Cry by Leon M. Uris
From Here to Eternity by James Jones
Time and Time Again by James Hilton
Something of Value by Robert Ruark
The Last Hurrah by Edwin O'Connor
On the Beach by Nevil Shute
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
Anatomy of a Murder by Robert Traver
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
From the Terrace by John O'Hara
Exodus by Leon Uris
Hawaii by James A. Michener
Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence

[Little.Egret]

A Trooper of the Finns: by Tom Bevan - a Real "Boy's Own" Adventure Novel

Tom Bevan (1868-1938) was a prolific and best-selling Young Adult author in
the first quarter of the twentieth century, specialising in historical
adventure. A devout Protestant Christian, he was published by the sponsors
of the 'Boy's Own Paper', the Religious Tract Society. If you want political
correctness and stringently plausible action, look elsewhere -- but if you
like your heroes boldly heroic, your villains utterly villainous, and your
yarns ripping, gripping, and very entertaining, look no further!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00I1M4ILG

Germany, AD 1630. A young Englishman shipwrecked on the Baltic Coast finds
himself caught up in the desperate struggles of the Thirty Years' War.
Joining the famous Finnish cavalry of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden, he
is sent with a small and secret mission to rescue the fugitive 'Winter
Queen', Elizabeth of Bohemia, and her young son, Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
But dangers threaten on all sides -- Imperial cavalry, desperate and
starving outlaws, traitors in the camp ; and the wicked Count von Radzay has
made the capture of the fugitive royals his personal priority ...

[sharphamster]

Yeah, Puzo wrote The Godfather and that's definitely a title in my Parental Genre.

Dad was mostly a nonfiction/history reader, and I got my love of Studs Terkel from him. Mom is a free-range sort of lady, and goes from genre to genre on a whim. I spent last fall re-reading a historical fiction series she loved back in the 70's by John Jakes about the American revolution - The Bastard etc.

Pretty soapy, in retrospect, but may have been one of those books that made history come alive for me as a young reader.

[Pangolin]

My parents were both avid readers, dad still is and mum is picking it up again now the PW can help her deal with her eyesight issues ( )
They read regardless of genre and I was always lucky to have been surrounded by books - piles on the floor type of thing.
The result is I'm borderline anti-social and definitely addicted. I get shirty if I'm not left alone for a couple of hours in any two days. I can do a day without reading, end of day two I'm starting to get snippy Now my husband knows to say - Oh just go and read your book!!

[Pangolin]

Oh and Cavell's shogun, it wasn't around but I did download it from audible and it was FAB

[owly]

My mom and and I share the same tastes when it comes to fact books so I always find something interesting in her bookshelves when I visit.

[orange!]

Originally Posted by morriss003

Ouch!! You youngin's can be a pain in the okole sometimes. I suppose a lot of you think Paul McCartney's famous band was Wings.

Originally Posted by sakura-panda

...when I was in high school, working as a page at the public library....

How many months did you have to work there to be promoted to a chapter?

Originally Posted by Little.Egret

...Tom Bevan (1868-1938) was a prolific and best-selling Young Adult author in
the first quarter of the twentieth century, specialising in historical
adventure....

You can get one of his books right here on MR.

[taming]

My parents belonged to the Book of the Month Club. We got all the biggies. I was 4th on the list in my house, mom, dad, and granny were ahead of me. There is a listing of the main selections for each year on this website: http://www.booksofthecentury.com/.

The site also lists best sellers in fiction and nonfiction for each year.

1960 Fiction Bestsellers
1. Allen Drury, Advise and Consent
2. James A. Michener, Hawaii
3. Giuseppe di Lampedusa, The Leopard
4. Irving Wallace, The Chapman Report
5. John O’Hara, Ourselves To Know
6. Marcia Davenport, The Constant Image
7. Mary Ellen Chase, The Lovely Ambition
8. Taylor Caldwell, The Listener
9. Nevil Shute, Trustee from the Toolroom
10. John O’Hara, Sermons and Soda-Water

[OtterBooks]

Originally Posted by morriss003

Ouch!! You youngin's can be a pain in the okole sometimes. I suppose a lot of you think Paul McCartney's famous band was Wings.

Paul McCartney was in a band?

[LadyKate]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Well, strictly speaking it might be a tad to personal to call it a genre, if I did it would have to be "Parental Genre".
I was casually browsing the Kindle Store for some new reading material when I came across James Michener's Hawaii. Haven't I read that I asked myself, but reading the description and comments I realized that I probably hadn't read it before, but I knew I'd seen it somewhere. After a while it dawned on me, it used to be on my mothers's night stand when I was a little girl just starting school.
This piqued my interest enough that I bought the book. It also got me thinking about what my parents used to read, and I decided to look for other books I remembered, Leon Uris's Exodus came to mind, Clavell's Shogun was another example. Anyway, I bought a bunch of books that I recalled them reading. Is this something the rest of you do? Usually you'd have to find something like this in a used book store, but with e-books they are suddenly easy to get hold of. I suppose some part of me is trying to find out more about who my parents were.

Guess I'm of the parental genre in person lol. My parents had horrid reading taste (dad was penthouse and mom was the very occasional harlequin) Guess that is why they never understood my need to read.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

My parents never read anything other than my dad reading the newspaper. It's a miracle that my brother and I turned out to be avid readers.

Hm. When younger, my Dad read westerns, but he stopped doing that at around the age of 15, because he suddenly got the idea that reading was something that only children do, or something you do when stuyding something.

My mom read romance, together with my aunt, but she stopped reading those when my aunt switched to reading only "It really happened" stories/biographies about gruesome abuse of kidnapped people and such.

Therefore, both of my parents effectively stopped reading long before I was born. My aunt still reads her gruesome true stories that are often worse than anything Stephen King can dream up.

I read books for school, and later started reading mostly fantasy, with some sidesteps into adventures, the (ancient) classics, crime, detective, sci-fi, and mysteries. I've always been a reader, finishing my "reading levels" at school 4 years ahead of schedule. My parents often told me that if I didn't stop that, I'd read my brains out.

On the other hand, my sister doesn't even seem to know what a book is.

Normally I don't really "switch genre"; I sometimes drift off from one genre into another one. Do you know this? I use it to find new authors in roughly the same genre, but it does cause you to drift off, obviously:

The Literature Map

The closer an author is to the one you put in (which is in the middle), the more they write in a similar genre or style. See attachment...

[Nabodita]

Wow, this thread really brought back some amazing memories! I grew up with a huge, and I mean huge library at home. My grandfather started the collection and my mom carried on the tradition. Their tastes, and therefore mine, were eclectic.

I started reading 'adult' books when I was twelve. Never had any problem getting my hands on anything I wanted to read... it was all right there; although my mum did make it very clear that Harold Robbins was a no-no!

Lets see, there was Exodus, Trinity and QB-VII. Some War and Peace and Crime and Punishment (and no, my life is depressing enough as it is, I'm not going to re-read those!). I loved anything I read by Steinbeck. Liked Allen Drury, Pearl Buck, James Hilton.. oh and To Kill A Mockingbird, one of my childhood favourites and one that I've re-read several times. Oh and not to mention the mystery stories a la Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, Dorothy Sayers and P D James. There was also a decent amount of Asimov and Arthur C Clarke. Missed Michener.

I also have to admit that my mum had more than 450 Mills & Boons (her collection started when she was living in England in the early 70's) and I've read the whole lot!

Right now I'm going through the 'Urban Fantasy' genre; presently reading the Allison Beckstrom series by Devon Monk and bought Divergent (Veronica Roth) to read next.