Today's two part discussion begins with how we've developed ourselves as bloggers. I have been blogging since 2008 and the decision to do so stemmed from my desire to continue recommending books and talking about books after I'd left my job as a bookseller.
I review online for Bookbitch.com and have since 2006 but I wanted an outlet to talk about books and movies and tv shows and anything else I wanted to talk about. My primary reviews have always been for BB and I use my blog for extras - adding more personalization and discussion to my reviews (I write a separate review for my own blog).
Since last year's Armchair BEA, I've started doing blog tours with TLC as well as jumping on board with some of the publisher promoted blog tours, which has done a lot to pick up traffic to the blog. I've been hosting more giveaways - and started using Rafflecopter for that (love it!).
It's all fairly little steps but ultimately my desire is simply to share great reads.
Genre Fiction:
The second part of today's discussion is genre fiction. I lurve this topic!
Horror is still my number one favorite genre. I cut my teeth on it. The first book I read on my own and can say I truly enjoyed was a Jeffrey and the 3rd Grade Ghost title. I was hooked! I spent every cent I had on RL Stine and Christopher Pike books, eventually working my way through every horror-ish title I could get my hands on in the juvenile section of the bookstore.
And yes, I've branched out quite a bit in the years since. I read just about any genre you can name these days and I especially adore cross genre reads that incorporate elements from all over the literary landscape! My three favorite combos with horror are mystery/thriller (of course), fantasy (awesome!), and sci fi (I want more of this).
Some favorites:
Anything by Stephen King, of course! King incorporates a lot of fantasy elements into some of his stories (The Dark Tower series, for example).
Summer of Night by Dan Simmons - a truly fantastic coming of age horror story!
The Man From Primrose Lane by James Renner - not exactly horror but it is horrific. It's cross genre for sure and contains elements of sci-fi, mystery, thriller...
Stephen M. Irwin's The Broken Ones (sort of mystery/dystopian/horror)
10 comments:
I enjoyed reading about your insights into genre fiction :)
You are so brave! I can't read scary books...I read a true murder book and couldn't get it out of my head for weeks...but in a bad way! I'm too chicken, so kudos to you!
I love scary books! I need to read more! I used to read some King but I kind of got over him, and now I want to read the Dark Tower books sometime! I might have to check out some of the other books you mentioned, too!
I love scary book! I grew up on horror!
Hope you enjoy the rest of Armchair BEA!
Horror books are the one genre I haven't really gone into...I'm a chicken!
I don't mind reading horror that's scary, but don't like it when it's too violent. I've never read the Dark Tower books, but I came to Stephen King very late in life after reading his book On Writing.
Love horror. Joe Hill is my newest find. Wish King would not end his books so poorly because he is a master at writing amazing characters. I have read The Stand 3+ and want to re-read Under the Dome becuase I love the people so much.
I'm sort of wimpy so I haven't explored the horror genre at all!
You've listed a couple of "new" authors for me - I will need to check them out - oh boy, my poor TBR stack LOL!
Post a Comment