What is your favourite genre for reading? And your least favourite?

[Guttersnipe]

Fantasy or sci-fi come first. Then it's horror, mystery, crime, drama, or thriller. I don't mind biographical or semi-biographical novels. Westerns are fine when they don't disparage Native Americans. I totally understand the dislike for mainstream romance. My late grandmother had boxes full of romance novels. Blechhh. I wouldn't read one if you paid me, not even paranormal ones (Twilight and the like make me retch). It seems like escapism for people with no imagination.

 

[Rodders]

I thought Dean Koonz’s Lightening was a romance at heart. I really enjoyed that book.

I don’t read enough romantic fiction to be able to say that I don’t like it. It’s just the genre I’d pick last. Probably more because of perception than anything.

 

[JunkMonkey]

Science fiction is my 'go to' genre. Fantasy is further down the list - anything with the words 'elves', 'dragons', or 'prophesy' mention on the blurb just gets put back on the shelf unopened. Consequently I don't read a lot of fantasy.

I keep meaning to read a Barbera Cartland or two. The romance novels I have read have been so incredibly awful that they have been beyond funny.

Next up is a Georgette Heyer (who I have never read before) called The Black Moth

'... I could not bear to see you throw yourself away on a highwayman, my dear.’

Jack Carstares, now rightful Earl of Wyncham, returns to the England he left in disgrace seven long years ago.

Still bound by the rigid code of the eighteenth- century, Jack is determined not to claim his title, and turns highwayman. Crossing swords with libertine Duke of Andover, the ‘Black Moth’, he foils the attempted abduction of pretty Diana Beauleigh — who very properly falls in love with her wounded rescuer.

But the Duke’s dark passions would not rest...

Oooh 'Dark passions'! How can anyone resist finding out what they are....

"How are your dark passions, my Lord?"
"Restless, Hudson. Restless."

 

[Guttersnipe]

@JunkMonkey I feel similarly about fantasy novels involving dragons and the like. Or barbarians, for that matter. The reason is because I've read enough of them. Fantasy is a genre of infinite probabilities and that's such a narrow path some authors choose. I liked Michael Ende's Momo so much because it shows how unique fantasy can be.

However, I am kind of a sucker for comedic fantasy, so I migt read the odd Robert Asprin.