HDC Chooses: Favorite literary non-horror fiction?

[_____V_____]

Of course, we are all fanboys of horror. But other than that, which examples of genre fiction do you consider close to yourself?

And do you have a favorite author(s) in that particular literary genre? Let's hear it.

[Disease]

You don't have dirty realism on the list....

[_____V_____]

There's no biography/autobiography either.

Its a list of literary fiction genres, but, I will add that in, too.

Classic case of sitting to count the trees, without eating the fruit.

[Disease]

Dirty realism is fiction though.

Classic case of only picking the fruit you have tried before...

[ChronoGrl]

I tend to lean toward scifi, though I hate to classify it as sci-fi.

What I'm thinking of specifically are both Oryx and Crake and Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood - They're technically sci-fi, but more of a sub-genre of post-apocalypse.

If not that, I definitely do dramady... David Sedaris and Jon Irving (The World According to Garp is one of my favorite books of all time)...

But that's only recently. I don't read half as much as I should or used to. :(

[urgeok2]

I really dont care for horror fiction oddly enough ..
I used to read it as a kid - eventually it all seemed like crap to me.
never read it now until i get curious about what people are talking about ... i'll check something out - and then i'll have my dislike for the genre reconfirmed.

so my reading list is pretty much exclusively non-horror.

Sci-fi is my guilty pleasure...

Modern classics are my true love :

- kipling
- dickens
- sommerset maughan
- D H Lawrence

and my all time favorite author : Graham Greene


i read a lot of autobiographies (autobiographies - NOT biographies)
about actors, filmmakers, and musicians.
I dont care about personal history - i love reading about the process of making films - what was going on when the movie was being made ..etc.

been reading a ton of those lately


favorite book ever : something wicked this way comes - Ray Bradbury

[Angra]

Damn..

I find it very hard to remember any books that wasn't horror in some way.

I guess the only one i can think of (because i'm looking directly at it from my couch) is "Evil" by Jan guilou. :D

If it is really based on his childhood he was one damn tough kid.

[Angra]

Oh of course. Gaimans Neverwhere.


In Denmark Gaimans works can't sell. That really pisses me off coz it means that he wont be translated anymore. Not since Coraline. :mad:

[Roderick Usher]

My tastes are all over the place.

I'm a big fan of the works of Jim Thompson. Awesomely gritty crime drama.
The Getaway is one of his best, along with The Killing.

I dig Umberto Eco as well. The Name of the Rose and Foucault's Pendulum are excellent, heady reads.

And John Kennedy Toole's modern classic A Confederacy of Dunces is one of my all-time favorite books. Absurdist humor there.

The Beat's really knock me out too, especially William S Burroughs' Naked Lunch, Junky and Queer . Kerouac's On the Road changed my life when I read it (I was 15)

[neverending]

Sci fi for me. I love Bradbury, Vonnegut and Ellison and a million others.

Fantasy too- particularly Tolkien and Fritz Lieber's Fahfrd & the Grey Mouser series.


Nice poll, V.

[Zero]

hmm- i guess it is philosophical/contemplative. i guess i like 'odd literary' stuff - not quite surreal but weird and formally innovative. my list of regular authors:
haruki murakami
david mitchell
saramago (the guy who wrote blindness)
i'm loving the new juno diaz book - brief wondrous life of oscar wao
there was a great book called Remainder i really dug a few years back and a book called raw shark texts (which was ok but not as good as i hoped). a great french novel called school's out that has really stuck with me for years.

[Elvis_Christ]

Not sure what they would come under in the poll but I'm a big fan of Charles Bukowski, Jim Carroll and Kurt Vonegut.

[fortunato]

I have favorites too all-over-the-place to pick just one off of that list.

Actually, two of my favorite books ever, The Sirens of Titan (Vonnegut) and The Crying of Lot 49 (Pynchon) cover several genres just by themselves.

I do love classics, too, though. The Brothers Karamazov, Spoon River Anthology, and Animal Farm are a few other favorites of mine.

Oh, I could go on forever, though.

The last great canonical book I read was A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. It's truly one of the funniest books I've ever read.

[ChronoGrl]

Sci fi for me. I love Bradbury, Vonnegut and Ellison and a million others.


Ditto, ditto, ditto on all of those names... Been a while since I've indulged in their writings, though. I should really pick them up again.

[monalisa]

Satire/ Comedy

If it's not gonna make me gasp, I want it to make me laugh.

Hmmmm, I see a pattern there, but I think I'll leave that alone. :D

[Angra]

Whatever happened to Jenna26?

[Doc Faustus]

Ditto, ditto, ditto on all of those names... Been a while since I've indulged in their writings, though. I should really pick them up again.

It costs like thirty bucks, but I wholeheartedly recommend the Essential Ellison.

[roshiq]

Crime, Mystery or Detective stories
Sci Fi
Thriller & Espionage

[Disease]

Not sure what they would come under in the poll but I'm a big fan of Charles Bukowski, Jim Carroll and Kurt Vonegut.


Buckowski and Carroll are dirty realism, but ____V____ seems to be ignoring it. Vonegut is haed to categorise but can easily be pushed into sci fi....

[ChronoGrl]

It costs like thirty bucks, but I wholeheartedly recommend the Essential Ellison.

Oooooooooooooooo - Nice. 'Twil add it to my Amazon Wish List now.

My friend loaned me a collection of HP Lovecraft short stories which I've never been through. It's shameful that I've never read any Lovecraft.

[Doc Faustus]

It's hard to get through collections of Lovecraft. They're always kind of shoddily assembled. Good stories to start with include the Colour Out of Space, the Hands of Erich Zann and Pickman's Model.

[ChronoGrl]

It's hard to get through collections of Lovecraft. They're always kind of shoddily assembled. Good stories to start with include the Colour Out of Space, the Hands of Erich Zann and Pickman's Model.

The collection he loaned me is Dagon and Other Macabre Tales. It includes "Herbert West - Re-animator," which I'm excited to read.

[Doc Faustus]

Some gems in there. Cool, poetic Bizarro histories and the brilliant Supernatural Horror in Literature which will make you salivate over several probably unreadable Gothic novels that will never get reprinted.

[scouse mac]

Peter F Hamilton can roll out excellent Sci Fi novels, anyone who likes the genre should check out his Nights Dawn trilogy.

Preferred genre is Fantasy, especially Tolkien and Robert Jordans Wheel of Time series.