Booking Through Thursday - Trends

Have your book-tastes changed over the years? More fiction? Less? Books that are darker and more serious? Lighter and more frivolous? Challenging? Easy? How-to books over novels? Mysteries over Romance?

My tastes in books have definitely changed over the years. I go through serious phases and get obsessed easily (me? no!) In high school I was heavily into science fiction (Bradbury and Clarke) and westerns (L'Amour and Grey). Some of that was because of availability. My grandfather had a second hand store and we had trading privileges. He didn't move many books, but he allowed us to bring a box of read books and pick up a box of unread books. Most of the books were westerns or romances. I think I read two or three romance novels and determined that they were all the same (boy meets girl, boy wants nothing to do with girl, big disaster happens, boy and girl fall madly in love and live happily ever after, etc.). I know that they aren't all like that, but I didn't have to wait for Dan Brown to understand about formula writing. Yes, I totally understand that the westerns were just the same, I just enjoyed the locations more. Something about the rough West had stronger appeal to me than the Moors or coasts of New England.

In college I developed the Heinlein fascination. I'm not quite sure if I liked the books or I just kept reading to see how much more outrageous he could get. After college, I discovered Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler. They were my favorite reading when I went on business trips. Two or three of those were perfect for each trip. Next up, I started exploring non-fiction. I spent several years reading various books on chaos theory and then its application to management.

Now, I always have several books going. Usually I have one for my book club (currently The Archivist's Story), a history or two (Team of Rivals is nearly finished), and a young adult or kid book (I just got my copy of Well Witched and can't wait to start!!!!).