reading phases

[archersangel]

i was thinking that i've gone through many phases in my reading life. besides children's books; i went though a teen romance thing in my teens. around the same time, maybe a bit before, i was into the sweet valley series (the high school stuff & the kids ones) pre-teens was the babysitters club & something called the sleepover friends. i've gotten away from ghost stories, both fictional & real. currently i'm in a historical fiction phase, mostly the tudor era. as for mysteries and books of the sc-fi or fantasy kind, i seem to permantaly attached to those.

so my question is; have you noticed phases in your reading tastes? if so what are they?

Comments

[shanaqui]

Crime fiction, at the moment. Which isn't surprising -- I'm doing a crime fiction course.

[sid]

I think I did most of my sci-fi reading back in junior high school. In grade school I read everything about horses I could get my hands on, but also mysteries and biographies of famous early American figures. Around age 20 I discovered Harlequin romances and read those for years - I also very briefly dabbled in Gothic romances (until I noticed how badly they were written!). I went through a major Regency romance phase - I still enjoy those occasionally.

And basically today, it's Regencies or detective stories or Age of Sail novels. So detective/mystery is the genre that's stayed with me always. I just picked up a mystery by Harley Jane Kozak (Mrs. Sara O'Neill) at the library today.

I've always pitied people who don't enjoy reading.

[archersangel]

I've always pitied people who don't enjoy reading.

my brother doesn't for the most part, unless it's manga or a video game guide. our mom read to us just the same, but it didn't take with him the way it did me.

[sid]

It's just, at the very minimum, a totally portable source of entertainment that doesn't require batteries or internet access. I had to wait for 40 minutes today while my car underwent a tire rotation and oil change - no problem! :-)

[giveamouse]

I've always pitied people who don't enjoy reading.

Maybe it says more about the company I usually keep, but I'm completely baffled when I discover that someone I know doesn't read. Part of me thinks, "I'm sorry, are we living on the same planet?"

I've also been repeatedly reminded by my spouse that most people really don't read any longer fiction before middle school. I have a tendency to expect that other people are more like me than unlike me, despite all the evidence to the contrary. The assumption must be human nature...

[st_aurafina]

I don't know why, but I didn't like YA fiction when I was the right age for it - I didn't start liking it until I was well into my twenties.

Right now, I'm reading historical fiction too, as well as re-reading a lot of childhood classics, like The Dark is Rising, Madeleine L'Engle, the Narnia Chronicles (except for The Last Battle. *shudders* Still can't deal with that book.)

[psyche29]

I only found The Dark is Rising sequence about a year or two ago, and I'm just a few days shy of 32 right now. I fell in love with it and have reread them each several times since stumbling across them.

And I am Narnian at the core - have two sets of those books, and they're all well-loved (read:falling apart).

I only just read A Wrinkle In Time a few months ago, and was a little disappointed in it; I'm not sure what I expected, and may need to give it another chance.

[psyche29]

something called the sleepover friends

OHMYGOSH. I LOVED The Sleepover Friends! I'd forgotten about them - those were good books.

I tend to aim lately for fantasy and YA stuff, even though I'm well past the age at which it's general aimed. I've always loved a good old Harlequin/Silhouette romance, but have periods of caring and not caring about whether or not I read them.

And I'm slowly beginning to read more non-fiction, things like William Sloane Coffin and Elie Wiesel, etc., though fiction will almost always win-out for my affections.

[sweet_sparrow]

I had a "Famous Five" phase when I was younger, but mostly I'm a fantasy genre reader. I've always read more than just one genre, but everything else has always taken a backseat.

Lately, I've been trying to balance my reading out a little. (By which I mean I buy books in non-fantasy genres and let them sit around until I'm in the mood to read them and read scads of fantasy whilst they wait. ^-~ Once my TBR pile is reduced, I'm hoping I'll be more successful, though.)

(Yeah... My reading habits aren't really very interesting...)

[giveamouse]

When I was about 8 or 9, I got really into all the Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories. As I got a little older (approaching middle school), I moved on to other mysteries, but looking back I wasn't very discriminating (John Grisham, etc.)

I never really had much of a Young Adult fiction phase, because I started getting into computers more in high school, and spent more time reading non-fiction about various technology-related stuff.

I discovered sci-fi and fantasy just before college, but then didn't really have time for much fiction until after I finished college. Since I finished grad school, I've been snarfing down lots and lots of sci-fi and fantasy, approaching an average of 2 books a week or so over the past few years. (Occasionally I get bogged down in work, and don't have much free time to do much of anything at all, so my mean's going to be pretty far off from my median...)

Oh, by the way, I think this is my first post to this community! Hi, everyone!