“What do you like to read?”
I get this question a lot: when I tell someone about my book-reviewing gig for Shelf Awareness, or when someone sees the long book lists I keep here on the blog and at Goodreads. I also get it when a friend comes to my apartment for the first time and sees my bulging bookshelves. (Though in that case, it’s usually drowned out by, “Wow, that’s a lot of books.”)
Broadly, I love both fiction and nonfiction: novels, memoirs and biography, travel writing, mystery, poetry, middle-grade and young adult lit. But I’ve been thinking lately about a few sub-genres I adore.
These aren’t official classifications in most bookstores, but they share definite characteristics, and they are my literary catnip.
For starters, I love clever British mysteries – preferably with an engaging detective or two and not a lot of gore. Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie remain my favorites, but I also love Jacqueline Winspear, Rhys Bowen, Carola Dunn, Charles Todd and Charles Finch. (All of these authors have created protagonists – some professional detectives, some amateur sleuths – whom I adore.) I am a longtime Anglophile, and there’s something about watching a mystery unfold in my beloved England – especially with plenty of tea and biscuits on hand.
Related: I enjoy the occasional dive into Sherlockiana. I haven’t read all the original Conan Doyle stories, but I have relished a few books and series that feature the great detective. My favorite Sherlock riff is Laurie R. King’s fantastic series about Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell, but I also enjoyed A Study in Charlotte (a 21st-century YA take on Holmes and Watson), Nancy Springer’s middle-grade series featuring Sherlock’s younger sister Enola, and The Great Detective, Zach Dundas’ fantastic nonfiction history of the Sherlock Holmes phenomenon. (Also, it’s not a book, but I can’t forget the BBC Sherlock.)
Continuing with the British theme: I love gentle interwar British fiction. Miss Read’s tales about the village of Fairacre fit this bill, as do D.E. Stevenson’s warmhearted novels of life in England and Scotland. These books are not dramatic or world-changing and that is precisely why I love them: they are stories of ordinary people living quiet, beautiful lives.
There isn’t an official name for this genre, but I love dual-narrative fiction that shifts back and forth in time, twining two different storylines together until they meet in the end. Kate Morton and Beatriz Williams both do this very well, but I’ve read other books that employ this technique to great effect. (Most recently: Maggie Leffler’s The Secrets of Flight; June by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore; Natasha Solomons’ The Song of Hartgrove Hall.)
Like a lot of inveterate readers, I adore books on books. These include novels set in bookstores (Parnassus on Wheels, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore); books about the reading life (Ex Libris, Voracious, Howards End is on the Landing), and novels that feature books as a key plot point (The Word Exchange, The Bookman’s Tale). Jasper Fforde’s literary fantasy series featuring Thursday Next, book detective, is its own wildly quirky variation on this theme.
What are your favorite sub-genres? (And does anyone have a more elegant name for this phenomenon?)
cakes, tea and dreams 
We share many of the same favorite sub-genres – as you know! I too love British mysteries, gentle mid-century and interwar British fiction (speaking of which, have you read any Dorothy Whipple? I’ve only just learned of her existence and can’t believe how much I have been missing out!) and books on books.
Time travel novels are literary catnip for me. Something about the idea of plunging back into another time is just irresistible. I don’t love every time travel book I’ve read – not a big Outlander fan, for instance, and I really disliked The Time Traveler’s Wife – but when a time travel book is good it really gets under my skin in the best way. I love Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis, and Time and Again by Jack Kemp – I couldn’t put either of those down.
What a great post! I might borrow your idea. 🙂
Borrow away! I like some time travel books – so now I am curious about the ones you mentioned. And I don’t know Dorothy Whipple – but she sounds like fun!
Do check them (and Whipple) out! And Time and Again is by Jack Finney, not Jack Kemp. To my knowledge Bob Dole’s running mate never authored a time travel novel. Goodness, I need more sleep.
I too love time travel books. Replay is a favorite and also just discovered the One Damn Thing After Another that was really good. Books about books are another favorite.
I don’t know either of those. Intrigued!
Do you remember the great bookstore that used to be on Turl Street? (It has closed, but the bar/restaurant that was also there has expanded, so still something vaguely lit-supportive still exists there) I loved their classification system….vampire (stories where characters have a parasitic relationship), dark and stormy (any light mystery in an evocative locale), sunny at the white cliffs of dover (ww2 novels – happy), love in a cold climate (non-reciprocal love stories), spells and bells (magic), etc…..I loved browsing just to see what I could find where. 🙂
Yes! I also recall them having a category called “Informed Rants.” Fantastic.
Fantastic classifications! I love bookstores with a sense of humor like that. 😄
I am only now discovering the Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes series and I am HOOKED. I’ve just finished reading The Beekeeper’s Apprentice and plan to binge-read the rest. Both Russell and Holmes are such well-drawn characters.
I also love dual-narrative fiction. Or really anything with multiple points of view. I have read any original Sherlock Holmes, but I really want to checkout some of the spinoffs. I love Jane Austen fanfiction, retellings, etc.
I love those Sherlock Holmes stories.
One of my favorite genres is collections of letters written between two women – Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, and Carol Shields and Blanche Howard. It doesn’t seem to be a huge genre, perhaps its more of a sub-sub-genre, but oh! Those women. So much wisdom. 🙂 Let me know if you have any to suggest for me.
I love collections of letters too. Have you read the letters of Julia Child and Avis DeVoto? So witty and wonderful.
We have many tastes in common. I love your list above and have a new British detective novelist to check out. Thanks.
I also love memoir, and that funny sub-genre of memoir which is a combination of essays – Rebecca Solnit comes to mind – the way she weaves various unrelated themes together is quite amazing. And Kathleen Winters’ Boundess. Actually both of these books are Memoir/Travel. So that’s another sub-genre. This is fun!
Oh, that’s a good one too! I love travel memoirs, essay/memoirs and the books that are all three.
Awesome sub-genres! My favorite work of Sherlockiana is a collection called The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It answers the question: “Ok, but what if the vampire was an actual vampire?” In other words: Holmes meets real fantasy/sci-fi characters, including a VERY scary Death Fetch.
I’m also a big fan of a sub-genre of one of your sub-genres: self-metanarratives! Books like The French Lieutenant’s Woman and Walter Moers’ City of Dreaming Books, which are not only about the concept of writing books, but about the writing of those specific books!
I’ve actually been doing a series of posts on weird mystery/horror sub-genres on my blog this month. My favorite, so far, has been feminist godpunk horror.
[…] If you’re craving more sub-genre recs, see Katie Gibson’s list of her favorite literary subgenres at Cakes, Tea and Dreams. I totally second her love of books about books — to which I’d […]