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What types of books do you read?

What types of books do you read?


  • Total voters
    86
I only read fiction if it's been recommended to me and I like the look of it (A Song of Ice and Fire, some Terry Pratchett and stuff like that).

When choosing books I usually pick non-fiction ones. Some of my latest reads:

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Almost always non fiction, history, entertainment, etc. Lots of science.

Love the kindle with the backlight...on 108 degree nights I can sit in the pool and read in the dark.
 
I think Capote was fiction? I got into reading noir crime novels for a while; Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, I'd recommend Jim Thompson his stuff really holds up and he really lived done of the crime stuff he wrote about.

Capote wrote a lot of great fiction, but "In Cold Blood" that I referenced, was the true story of the murder of the Herb Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas by two ex-convicts. That worldwide best seller set the standard for generations for the true crime genre.

You'll be unable to put it down once you start it.
 
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Mostly fiction but the best book I read this year was Unbroken the true story of former Olympic track star Louis Zamperini who survived World War II Japanese POW camps.

Other books I read this year:

Certainty
Defending Jacob
Evil Deeds
The Girl On The Train
Invisible
Terror Cell
The Litigators
 
Capote wrote a lot of great fiction, but "In Cold Blood" that I referenced, was the true story of the murder of the Herb Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas by two ex-convicts. That worldwide best seller set the standard for generations for the true crime genre.

You'll be unable to put it down once you start it.

Thanks man. I thought about reading In Cold Blood, never got around to it. I'm looking to switch genres so I'll give it a shot.
 
I admit that my vote was a misnomer to avoid the guilt of reading mostly fiction. :D
I was once accused of being out of touch with the real world to which I responded "I'm painfully aware of the real world. I'm just not sure why people like to live there."

But some non-fiction attracts my attention now and again. I've read some books on Ban-Ki Moon because I find the man fascinating though I still haven't gotten through his own book focusing on human rights. I've read some of Stephen King's non-fiction books, mostly about his own life and writing such as Dance Macabre and On Writing.
But for the most part I like to live my literary life in fictional worlds (everything from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to Brent Weeks, excluding Romance).
Though. More and more, I enjoy writing more than reading these days.
 
For me, 95% fiction. That's the opposite of when I was working and my reading was 95% non-fiction.
 
How can one not read ALL the poll choices (or at least, have them all register on one's consciousness) before voting, I always think when someone posts to say, "Uh, I voted wrong." But I did. Vote incorrectly.

I chose fiction, when I meant a mix of both fiction and nonfiction. I read fiction and poetry up through college, and then somehow lost the habit. In fact, I lost the book-reading habit and just read massive amounts of non-fiction material in magazines and newspapers. The birth of the internet sealed my doom, it seemed.

In the past couple of years, I've made a conscious decision to read mostly fiction books, making exceptions for a few nonfiction subjects which interest me. Ebooks changed my life!
 
I came across this passage from Robert Heinlein book Glory Road concerning the main character reading habits at least five decades ago and knew at once that I did have at least something in common with this sword swinging and dragon killing hero.

But I didn't go to sleep. The truth is, I've got a monkey on my back, a habit worse than marijuana though not as expensive as heroin. I can stiff it out and get to sleep anyway--but it wasn't helping that I could see light in Stars tent and a silhouette that was no longer troubled by a dress.
The fact is I am a compulsive reader. Thirty-five cents' worth of Gold Medal Original will put me right to sleep. Or Perry Mason. But I'll read the ads in an old Paris-Match that has been used to wrap herring before I'll do without.
I got up and went around the tent. "Psst! Rufo."
"Yes, milord." He was up fast, a dagger in his hand.
"Look, is there anything to read around this dump?"
"What sort of thing?"
"Anything, just anything. Words in a row."
 
Non-fiction. History, intellectual history, social history, policy history, political science, public administration texts.
 
Since I am a java programmer, I read a lot of technology ebooks. Mostly java but I will read about ruby, python, .net, and many other technologies. Mostly interested in web development books. On the fiction side I like reading mysteries.
 
What types of books do you read, or do you read books at all?

I am trying to figure out quantum field theory in my spare time. I am still trying to figure out the Dirac and Klein-Gordon equations, as well as Feynmans' path integral technique in electrodynamics. The more you learn about this stuff, the more mind-blowing it gets. It seems the universe is a far, far weirder place than we can even begin to imagine- far weirder than any science fiction author could dare to imagine, or hope to think his/her readers would find even remotely plausible.

But it's real. And there are mountains of data to support it. That makes it even weirder.

And, it's a nice form of escapism. It's a world of cold hard numbers and things that eventually make sense if you stick to it long enough, of cold hard facts and incontrovertible logic- very different than the real world full of complicated, erratic, unpredictable people with moods, tastes, and temperaments which change by the second. I deal enough with those all day long. In the evening, nothing like a good particle physics book to help relax you and get you ready for bed.
 
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What types of books do you read?

mostly fiction, with the occasional biography / non-fiction.
 
Philosophy, military strategy, political science and economics.
 
Lately my kick has been suspense thrillers that are not really suspense filled or very thrilling, but they have very likable characters with fun to follow story lines. It's like the authors intentionally put the suspense aspect on the back-burner. That or I have read so many that I am just not drawn into the plot lines anymore.
 
I mostly read fiction, however it's out of necessity. I personally prefer non-fiction, however I am too cheap to buy books, so I just buy books from library bargain bins. And it so happens that they have mostly fictions in those bins.
 
I tend to lean towards military history and biographies. Have read some politically focused books. My favorite of the first genre is "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" by James D. Hornfischer. For the later genre it would be "The Parties vs. the People: How to Turn Republican and Democrats into Americans" but Mickey Edwards.
 
Horror
Military thriller
Sci-Fi
Humor
Comic books
 
What types of books do you read, or do you read books at all?

I'm mostly into thrillers like John Sandford.
I've just discovered deceased AJ Quinell (who wrote Man on Fire - on which the Denzel Washington movie was based on). The character of John Creasy had 4 more sequels after Man on Fire.
I enjoyed the first one, so I got them all.

I've also tried and enjoyed Robert Crais (The First Rule).............so, I'll be adding him to my list too.
Right now, I'm trying out author CJ Box (Joe Pickett series, Shadow Reels).

Every now and then, I like zombie novels. 5 Roads to Texas comes to mind.
 
My favourite authors is JD Salinger and my favourite book is Franny and Zooey. I have read all of JD Salingers books ( there are not many ) and his short stories on the The New Yorker website. Jack London is also my favourite author and I have read a lot of his books and short stories. But mostly in my life I have read a lot of books that I hated just because I wanted to know what people were talking about when they referenced them. So-called classics. I do not read anything modern and I hate booktube types that all think they are literature experts because they learned some book writing formula in college. For example - I used to like Terry Brooks books when I was a kid. Magic Kingdom for Sale series. According to these booktube morons Terry Brooks is not a good author. God knows what they would say about Jack London. Even I would admit that Jack London wasnt exactly a great writer in some ways - but at the same time he was perfectly suited for the audience he was trying to reach. Seriously though - who the hell are these booktube idiots to be telling me that Terry Brooks is not a good author? 90% of the pathetic morons are Harry Potter fans that never grew up that now think its hip to read degenerate so-called Adult Fantasy but you can tell that most of them prefer Young Adult. Ha. But yeah I prefer stuff in the public domain because I dont think anything modern is worth my time - and because I dont really like to pay for books. I would also mention that I like Edgar Allen Poe. He almost seems like an alien to me. He must have gotten one hell of an education. I like that he says a lot of things that make you think. "The hopelessness of hope itself". I dont really read horror/macabre apart from him - not much anyway - mostly I just like the way he writes.

Lately I read a lot of science fiction pulp audiobooks on youtube. Most of them are terrible but some are really good. Years ago I came across these audio files from an old radio show called Mind Webs that were 'speculative fiction' short stories and I really liked most of them. I never read much science fiction before that. But yeah lately I listen to a lot of the sci fi pulp magazine stuff from 50s/60s on youtube. The sometimes I will pick out authors that I like and read/listen to their books which can also be found on youtube a lot of the time. I just finished reading the first three Foundation trilogy books by Isaac Asimov. Im not a huge fan of his and I didnt think that the Foundation trilogy was great - he doesnt know how to finish a story most of the time but he has good ideas. Kind of like Phillip K Dick. But both do have some good stuff. I like Robert Sheckley, Randall Garrett, Harlan Ellison. Arthur C Clarke ... H Beam Piper. Guys like that.

Pretty much everything I read is American. Ha. James Clavell is a good Australian author. I used to like Paul Jennings when I was a kid too.
 
I notice no one's mentioned poetry. I read like I read every other genre.
 
Years ago I did a drunken tour of my library. I don't know why. Warning: This WILL make you nauseous.






 
only one answer is possible!

that is a senseless poll then
 
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