Reader Mailbag: Your Favourite Genres
In the October 2026 newsletter we asked readers for their favourite genres.
Here were their responses:
B: In no particular order, I like me some fiction of these genres:
Literary, but none of this 250-page-long-sentence stuff. They can be almost any genre but I hesitate to pick up space opera, fantasy and romance books, doing so only occasionally. And I like a lot of books that
beyond being called literary defy classification in any other genre.
Tough guy books, always nice to imagine someone of that caliber trying to make the world go right against all odds.
Epics! Preferably long epics a la Shogun, A Winter’s Tale, Gone with the Wind, Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.
Gothic, with spooky, scary ambiguous things that go bump.
Thrillers / police procedurals / mysteries including blends of all three, especially when there is great character development. They can be westerns, crime, disaster, politics, war, horror, espionage, domestic, etc.
Humour: Books that are mainly humorous or mix in a bit of humour between the serious parts.
History: I love being brought back to a time the author has researched well and picturing that world as the story unfolds.
Dystopian: I like one of these occasionally, but right now I think I’ve had my fill of the climate-based ones.
Thanks for your fun to read informative newsletter!
Chris: My favorite genre continues to be historical fiction and, luckily, there is a lot of really good historical fiction out there, such as ‘The Pillars of the Earth’ by Ken Follett and Philippa Gregory’s books. Historical fiction books are often really big books, too, which are fun to read on long trips! I’m also carefully dipping my toe into time travel books. Like you, I prefer them to be believable on some level.
Debbie: My favorite genres are:
*psychological thrillers…started getting into these late last year, now it seems I’m addicted 😁
*mystery & thrillers
*police procedurals
*women sleuths
Sam: I’d have to say my favorite is believable thrillers, particularly espionage and adventure-type thrillers. Detective ones can be pretty good too. The books where someone is getting killed on every page (or it seems like that), I kind of go “meh” – it’s just not real. The Nelson DeMille type novels where you have a detective going through all the detailed detective work and noting down the things they actually notice and use, that’s what I like.
Doris: My favourite genre is British crime, especially series with the same characters. That means I get hooked and don’t read many standalone books 😁 at the moment I’m hooked on Jack Logan (your recommendation) and Whitby’s Frank Black series. I become very unsociable when I’m reading those 😁
Ann Marie: I love mystery & espionage more than anything
Susan M: I like to read books of historical fiction especially about women. The author Marie Benedict is a great writer, and I have read almost all of her books. She goes above and beyond to do research for each of her novels, so I learn a lot with each story.
Martina: My favorite genres used to just be anything horse (or animal r) related, but that was waaaaaaay back when I was younger! Nowadays I read a lot of different genres, like bios, non-fiction, nature, young adult, mysteries, romance, horror, sci-fi, fantasy. The genre I’ve been reading the most of lately is the romantasy genre, and I really prefer it with dragons bonding with humans like in Fourth Wing and Dragon Riders of Pern. So many new books out in all different genres like you mentioned in the newsletter! Not enough time for them all, but it’s good to have choices!
Mishawn: My favorite genres are Psychological Thrillers, Detective Thrillers and Scandanavian crime noir.
Kim: Good morning!
I look forward to delving into your “genres” section of the website. In my mind I carry about three genres, so it should be interesting. My genres are sci-fi, murder, and sappy. LOL You see why I Iook forward to investigating the possibilities!
In the 70s and 80s I read only sci-fi. I may be the only person on the planet that read the entire Battlefield Earth series. Seriously loved Heinline in my hippy days but read all the big-name authors from that era. Now I read only murder. People try to recommend a book and my first question is “are there are dead bodies”. (My husband thinks I’m planning his demise!) Actually, as long as there is action that MAY lead to a murder it will be something I’m ok with. Sappy includes almost everything else. Everyone loves The Women and A Gentleman in Moscow. I get why they are much-loved books, but I’m constantly waiting for something to happen. I don’t have enough time for that. So that’s my take on genres – three. 🙂
Donna: I enjoy most genres. However before Urban Fantasy become a trope I liked to call my reading Science Fantasy. I’m not into the science aspect of Science Fiction but enjoy a good story. My dad got me hooked on Edgar Rice Burroughs-The Martian Chronicles and Andre Norton-The Witch World Series. Hence my love for the two. Spy novels are a close third. John Le Carre was my introduction. Thanks dad!!
Jenny M: I guess I am full of contradictions.
Some of my favorite books are Fantasy but that genre also holds some of my least favorite books.
Louis L’Amour is one of my favorite authors but I wouldn’t say I like Westerns.
I definitely don’t like Romance but every now and then someone recommends one and I like it.
I’m glad there are subgenres. I like Survival Fiction, but that can be anything from Hatchet to The Martian. I like most Time Travel books. I read a lot of Mystery but like more psychological than criminal and generally don’t like courtroom or spy stuff so I guess Mystery is too general.
So that’s me – how to make an easy question difficult, haha.
Ramesh: Favourite genres……hands down spy thrillers. I started with Helen Mchines,almost 50 years ago,and I am still addicted to them.Their is a joy in holding onto a good spy thriller and taking my own sweet time to finish it.
Mark: Interesting question. Until March, I would have answered science fiction and fantasy. With my wife, older daughter, and best friend all interested, I’d gotten back into it in 2009, and in the following 17 years read over 1,200 novels and about 15,000 short stories.
Then, bizarrely, I suddenly and very surprisingly shifted to world literature. I’ve had great fun working with Gemini (Google’s AI), curating a list of what eventually ended up as 500 books, a main list of 200 (all the big names, the War and Peace/Tale of Genji/Iliad and Odyssey group), 100 honorable mentions, and a 200-item long list. Nearly every country in the world is covered, and all important genres, with the proviso that it’s an *essential* world literature reading list, and therefore has very few recent books. Some 30 or 40 of the books I’d read at some point in the past; since March, I’ve read 16 from the list (they tend to be much longer books; five of the 16 have been over 400 pages; one, Kristin Lavransdatter, well over a thousand). Simultaneously, I’m continuing on a long-term project of reading biographies of all the monarchs of England (I’m up to Henry VIII), and ancillary literature. For example, as I read through the kings from Richard II through Richard III, I also read the corresponding Shakespeare plays.
Thinking about it, the only thing I can come up with is that I’d run out of worthwhile science fiction and fantasy to read. I think that Solaris and The Three-Body Problem are the only two significant science fiction novels I haven’t read (and Solaris is on the world literature list!); I refuse to read modern identity politics and virtue signaling with maybe a spaceship thrown in (the best review I’ve read in a long time referred to one well-known exemplar as “pronouns in space”). So, new mountains to climb.
AJ: My first favorite are spy novels, then thrillers, then cozy mysteries. However since there are so many more cozy mysteries, I spend more time reading those than I do the first two categories.
Maureen: I have 2 favourite genres. I love police procedural books and prefer series. I love following the books through and getting to know more about the characters. I also love spy thrillers, either standalones or series.
Debbi: I’m a bit fan of historical fiction, love learning about different times throughout history even if the story is fictional, there’s enough truth to get the gist of how it was in that time.
Also love thrillers, Connelly, Baldacci, Coben etc. they are good fast reads and sometimes I figure it out and sometimes I’m surprised.
Wessel: My two favourite genres are spy/crime thrillers like the Jack Reacher or Harry Bosch novels and I love humorous stories by authors like Carl Hiaasen and Dave Barry. A special mention has to be given to political satirists like P.J. O’Rourke and Bill Maher who love exposing the ridiculous side of politics. Laughing at the absurdities of serious matters is highly satisfying.
Hollins: My favorite genres are mystery and science fiction. They became my favorites over 60 years ago when I started reading the Hardy Boys and Perry Mason mystery books and the Dune and Foundation science fiction books.
Phil: My favorite genres are mysteries, suspense, westerns and history.
Vicki: I call myself a “centrist” reader. I read across almost all genres. When I have to give an answer to that question I give a response of science fiction and fantasy, mystery and suspense, and romance. I don’t try to break it down further into sub genres. This being said, I read a lot of general fiction and domestic fiction, historical fiction, and the occasional non fiction. The only ones I don’t actively read are horror and westerns (although those sneak in, too). There’s so much to read.
