How to Identify Your Favorite Book Genre

Some book sellers assist countless customers in their search for books. It is simple to assist people who know exactly what they want, but the real challenge is assisting customers who have a hazy idea of what they require.

If you're having trouble finding the best books for you, determining your favorite book genre will help you find the books you're looking for faster.

Take it one step at a time. Recognize the overwhelm, then try books from a variety of genres, rate your favorites, identify the qualities you enjoy, pinpoint the genres that have those qualities, or create your own, as I did.

Consider the sunk cost of hundreds of hours spent reading the wrong books if that sounds like too much research and analyzing. What would you rather do with your time?

Recognize the Overwhelm

There are SO MANY BOOK GENRES. That's great because it means you'll find one, two, or ten that you'll enjoy.

The issue is that there are TOO MANY.

How many are there, and what are they? These categories include;

• romance
• fantasy
• science-fiction
• non-fiction
• history
• mystery
• horror
• historical fiction
• love
• historical romance
• biography
• thriller
• contemporary
• graphic novels
• classics
• memoir
• suspense
• young adult
• children
• women
• middle grade

What about genres within genres? What are they and how many are there?

The number and names of all the subgenres are certainly debatable.

Amazon has over 16,000 listings.

In her blog post for fiction writers, Tonya Thompson identified 144 subgenres of fiction.

For example, in the Mystery genre, she lists 22 different subgenres. She describes each one's characteristics and provides examples of titles in the subgenre.

• Amateur Sleuth
• Bumbling Detective
• Caper
• Child in Peril
• Children’s Story
• Cozy
• Culinary
• Disabled
• Doctor Detective
• Furry Sleuth
• Hardboiled
• Historical
• Howdunit
• Legal
• Locked Room
• Multicultural and Diverse
• Paranormal
• Police Procedural
• Private Detective
• Whodunit
• Woman in Peril
• Young Adult

Determine Why You Read Novels

This will assist you in narrowing down your options.

Do you want to learn something new or have some fun?

Reading for information, as a general rule, means sticking to nonfiction genres. Reading for pleasure usually entails fiction.

What Should I Read Next? by Anne Bogel is a popular podcast because she has nailed the reader's dilemma—finding the next great read.

Try Books from a Variety of Genres

Once you've identified your reading motivation, fill your book stack with titles from a wide range of genres and subgenres.

Choose a Western, a Mystery, a Sci-Fi, and a Romance. Choose a business book, a self-help book, and something political or spiritual.

Make an effort to have at least ten books in your book stack.

You could start with Tonya Thompson's list of sample books in each subgenre.

Add to your list any interesting books that come across your radar—friends' recommendations, books that catch your eye while browsing, titles that keep popping up in your social media feed.

Rate for your favorites

• Please list your favorite books.
• Consider your all-time favorite books.
• What other books have you recently read that you enjoyed?
• Which books did you enjoy as a child?
• What is it that they have in common?
• Which genre do they belong to?
• Which of your favorite books seem to defy categorization?
• Which books have you been let down by or despised?
• Eliminating what you don't like is a critical step in the process.
• Accepting that the genre you're looking for might not exist under that name is also important. You may have to make your own.
• Perhaps your ideal book genre is a mix of several, a cross section.

Identify the Characteristics You Admire

Are plot twists, for example, one of your favorite aspects of reading, while cliche plots are anathema to you?

Is it necessary for your heroes to be flawed and relatable?

Are you fascinated by the customs of bygone eras or distant cultures?

Which mood do you want your books to evoke?

Is it important how morality is portrayed in the books you read?

These are book discussions that readers want to have, but classifications that the literary world opposes.

If readers want them, we think that's a good enough reason to mention them.

The bottom line is that books do not have content ratings, so you have no idea what you're getting when you pick one up. There isn't enough time in the day to read halfway through books that aren't right for us. We need content ratings and subgenres that will let us know when we've found our tribe and can stop looking. We can set up camp right there and be content for the rest of our lives, or at least a decade. Because it's difficult and there's no instruction manual.

Find a favorite book genre that has those characteristics, or make your own.

You can name your favorite book genres and subgenres once you've determined which qualities are most important to you.

You'll undoubtedly find favorite authors who stand out from the crowd within a genre.

Example of a booklover’s search for the Favourite Book Genre

Reading has been your lifelong survival strategy, and until about 12 years ago, your access to books was limited to small collections.

Fortunately, those collections were well-curated and well-stocked with the types of books that piqued my interest.

But then came the day when you had access to tens of thousands of titles, including digital, and you struggled more than ever to find the books you loved. In fact, you began to wonder if they were even alive.

You gradually came to enjoy the hunt for great books almost as much as the pleasure of reading them. It's been a journey, one that is still ongoing and has as many twists and turns as an unpredictable novel.

Your favorite novels, Peace Like a River, Hannah Coulter, This Tender Land, Jewel and Gilead, are listed under fiction when you go to the library. That's not going to help you at all. You are not going to like every other novel in the fiction section.

You tried to identify the qualities you were looking for by looking through your favorite books.

There are some groups on Goodreads called clean and wholesome fiction.

That was very close to what you were looking for, but it was just a hair away.

You went to word hippo, one of your favorite places to search when you can't find the exact word to express your sentiment, and after several searches and some head scratching, you landed on your best attempt to articulate your ideal genre.

Your favorite books are morally uplifting, well-written literary novels.

That's quite a mouthful.

It's unlikely to fit into Amazon's 16,000-item limit.

But that's exactly what you are looking for. Those are your top qualities, your sweet spot.

Even if it doesn't exist as a recognized subgenre, you now have a vocabulary to bring to the table.

The goal here is to have a bucket to put your favorite books in, as well as a way to identify them so you know when you've found one and where to find more.

The Advantages of Reading Novels

Reading books pushes you to become a better person.

You must first learn how to read before you can read. You must force yourself to interact with meaningless lines and squiggles until they become stories, characters, and ideas. Once you've mastered picture books, you can move on to children's novels. Novels with no illustrations. Literature from the past. Foreign language books Reading is a perseverance exercise in which you constantly push yourself to achieve more than you did with your previous book.

Reading allows you to immerse yourself in a variety of realities.

Every one of us plays a unique and valuable role in life. Even if we are happy in our current roles, many of us wonder what it would be like to live in a different place, work in a different job, or even be a completely different person. Books, for brief periods of time, liberate us from the confines of our own reality. They transport us beyond our own world and into the real or imagined worlds of others. They satiate the nagging "What if?" question.

Reading books expands your horizons.

When you look at life through the eyes of another, you get different perspectives on the most common situations. Talented authors will naturally elicit empathy for their characters, and empathizing with points of view that differ from your own can be unsettling. Extremely unpleasant. While reading does not guarantee that you will agree with different points of view, it does provide you with the opportunity to comprehend them.

Reading isn't just for learning new things. It also serves as a vehicle for introspection. Many bibliophiles can trace their love of reading back to a fond memory, such as being read to by a parent or discovering their first favorite book (Winnie the Pooh, Dr. Seuss, or Enid Blyton, anyone?). Reading about familiar places, times, and people, or rereading favorite books, helps us recall details from our own lives. It serves as a reminder of who we are, where we are, and how we got here.

Reading novels aids in forgetting.

Chronic escapism is not a healthy habit, but neither is dwelling on stressful life circumstances all of the time. Allowing your mind to focus on things other than your challenges can be extremely beneficial and even necessary in small doses. Reading, like exercise, provides a safe, healthy, and productive outlet for negative thoughts. It provides a safe haven for your mind to rest until you regain the strength needed to overcome your obstacles.

You don't have to be alone if you read novels.

You will go through many transitions in your life. Changing schools, jobs, or cities may necessitate the replacement of old relationships with new ones, and successful adjustments can be more difficult or time-consuming than anticipated. Whether it's the comfort of a favorite book or an emotional connection to relatable characters, books provide a consistent source of companionship when you feel like the only person you can rely on is yourself.

Reading gives you life.

If you enjoy reading, you've probably found it to be a rejuvenating activity that renews your energy and elevates your mood. Numerous book lovers have testified that reading gives them a sense of purpose, helps them persevere in the face of adversity, and reveals parts of themselves that they were unaware existed. Reading makes us feel optimistically, breathlessly, and tenaciously alive for all of the reasons mentioned in this article and more.