According to a recent article in WIRED magazine:
“There are multiple theories for the genre dominance in digital
publishing, including the appeal of anonymity offered by e-reader devices,
which don’t display the cover of a potentially embarrassing book for all the
world to see. But the digital delivery system
also offers immediacy and ease of access for material that often is serialized
and written to make you want to know what happens next, as soon as
possible. Liate Stehlik, senior vice president and publisher at HarperCollins,
subscribes to that idea, at least partially. Genre fans, she says, became
“early adopters” of the digital format because e-books are the optimal format
“for people who want to read a lot of books, quickly and frequently. Digital
has replaced the paperback, certainly the paperback originals. I think the
audience that gravitated to eBooks first really was that voracious reader,
reading for entertainment, reading multiple books in a month across multiple
genres. “ http://www.wired.com/underwire/2013/06/digital-publishing-genre-fiction/
While I find the idea of a “plain wrapper” e-book pretty silly,
and I disagree that paperback novels have quite yet gone the way of the dodo
(nor do I want them to), I thought the concepts
about genre books and their user base of fast, frequent and, high quantity
readers, espoused in the WIRED article, were quite interesting.
We may be Mystery Buffs,
History Mavens, or Sci-Fi Fans, but many readers often repeatedly choose to enjoy the same type of
book over and over. Reading not just for
entertainment, but also for comfort, we like knowing what to expect from a book,
perhaps not the individual plot, but in terms of the broad feel, style, setup or resolution of
a story. As readers, we know what we like, and we know what we want, and that is often a story in a particular genre.
The majority of our library’s collection is broadly divided
between “Fiction” and “Nonfiction”, but DPL does make use of genres to organize
a substantial part of the collection. For instance, within Fiction, we have
separate shelving for Romance Paperback, Inspirational Fiction, Mystery,
Science Fiction, Fantasy, Western and Graphic Novel. The CamelliaNet catalog also allows readers to browse and filter results for digital material by genre.
Following is a list of some
literary genres and sub-genres. Whether available in electronic or print
format, we have books from all of these categories available at Decatur Public
Library! What are you favorites? (Personally,
in nonfiction, I love reading MEMOIRS, and in fiction I lean heavily toward Speculative Fiction and its various sub-genres.)
If you are ready to branch out beyond old standbys, what piques your
interest to try as something new? This is by no means a complete list of genres;
can you think of others?
Space Opera Fiction
in Verse
Hard Science Fiction Political
Satire
Urban Fantasy Experimental
Fiction
Urban Fiction Historical
Romance
Amish Inspirational Pulp Fiction
Cyberpunk Family
Saga
Steampunk Magical
Realism
Travel Adventure Sword & Sorcery
Action Fanfic
Brit Lit Alternative
History
Children’s Lit LGBT
Lit
Dark Fantasy Humor
Literary Fiction Short
Story Anthologies
Offbeat/Quirky Movie/Television
Tie-In
Cozy Mystery
Crime Noir
Southern Gothic
Horror
Contemporary Fiction
Contemporary Romance
Paranormal Romance
Chick Lit
Dystopian Fiction
Conspiracy Thrillers
Military Suspense
Classics
Erotica
Medical Suspense
Historical Fiction
Illustrated Picture Books
Police Procedural Mystery
YA Fiction
A few nonfiction genre categories:
Photo Essay Biography
Memoir True
Crime
Self Help Pop
Culture
Politics How-To
Travel Guides Playscripts
Poetry Crafts
&/Hobbies
Sports / Leisure Narrative
History
--Heather W. Ward, Reference Assistant
