Armchair BEA Mystère et l'Amour!

Design credit: Emily of Emily's Reading Room

The bookish focus for today's Armchair BEA is our favorite genre fiction. First of all, before I get into the topic, I just want to say how pleased I am that Armchair BEA is addressing genre fiction this year specifically. I do feel like genre fiction is marginalized in the book blogging community, especially in big events like Armchair BEA, so I'm glad the organizers decided to focus on genre this year.

SO. My favorite genres are mystery and romance. My first love was actually mystery. When I was an itty bitty, I read TONS of mysteries of the MG variety. The first book I ever read on my own was Bunnicula by James Howe, and after that I was a big fan of Barbara Michaels, Mary Stewart, the ghost mystery books by Bruce Coville, and any other mystery I could get my hands on. I even wrote a mystery when I was in the 3rd grade!

Then, as a teen, I switched to romance. I admit before then I was a bit snooty about romance. But I was at my grandparents' house one day and I was super-bored and I'd just finished a book... So I decided to pick up Stranger in My Arms by Lisa Kleypas, which was lying on the table next to my grandfather's chair (my grandfather is a huge romance fan, by the way). I was immediately sucked into the story. At the end of the day, my grandfather was like, "Fine, you have this book, but I want it back," and after finishing that novel I was 100,000% a romance fan. I threw myself into the genre and read everything that sounded even vaguely interesting.

Romance is still my favorite genre, but right now I'm not feeling a lot of romance novels. I think my tastes have just changed. Not that I don't still love romance! I do, but I'm not a fan of series or urban fantasy, and most of the contemporary and historical romances I read these days seem too same-y. Look, I know people read books for different reasons: some read for beautiful writing, some for great characters, some for deep meaning, and that's all fine. But I read mainly for a great story. That's what attracted me to romance in the first place, but nowadays I feel like story is last is on the long list of Important Things to Put in Romance Novels. And that gives me the Rage and the Sadness.

Right now, I love books that combine my two favorite genres: mystery and romance. Honestly, I feel like these two genres are related because they're both about questions: Who will I fall in love in with? Who committed the murder? Is that guy who he seems (probably not)? Questions are what drive novels narratives, and I feel as though these two genres do their best at telling stories and focusing on questions we all care about.

So what's your favorite genre?

Discus this post with me on Twitter, FaceBook, Google+ or in the comments below.

Amateur Sleuths

Amateur sleuths--people who have no formal training, yet somehow solve mysteries--are a standard of the mystery genre. From very intelligent people who consult for free, like Sherlock Holmes and Peter Wimsey, to people whose only qualification is a good eye for human nature like Miss Marple, there are amateur sleuths all over mystery fiction.

For a long time I just assumed this was A Thing That Happens In Books But Doesn't Happen In Real Life, like I don't know, zombies? Instalove? We all know These Things happen in books, so I never thought much about it. But then I started reading classic mystery novels, and for some reason they made me think maybe amateur sleuthing was a real thing. For example, in The Man In Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart, there's a character whose hobby is solving crimes according to the philosophy of Arthur Conan-Doyle. And this is treated as an acceptable, relatively normal diversion (incidentally, hobbyist sleuths are also common in Alfred Hitchcock movies). This is basically when I seriously started to wonder if amateur sleuths actually existed.

There are organizations of people who are not detectives and solve crime (the Vidocq Society, for example), and amateur detectives often solves mysteries when it comes to missing persons cases or other crimes the police don't have the resources or background to investigate. There's even a "how to be an amateur detective" page on the interwebs.

Amateur sleuthing is actually probably a lot more common than you'd think, but by far the most common hobbyist detectives are... wait for it... mystery writers! Yes, Castle and Murder, She Wrote might not be as far off the mark as you'd think. Mary Roberts Rinehart herself was asked to consult on several unsolved cases by both police and victims. I'm not aware of any convictions or appeals happening as a result of her investigations, but she did "solve" many of these crimes by writing books about them. Lois Duncan of I Know What You Did Last Summer fame investigated the murder of her own daughter, and John Grisham was sued over his amateur detective activities, which involved obtaining confidential documents without permission (so badass). Other common modes of employ for amateur detectives, both on- and off-the-page, are lawyer, insurance investigator, and someone who works in a research field (i.e., librarian, archivist, historian, etc.).

So while the recurrent amateur sleuth may largely exist in the mind of mystery writers, sometimes they do make it off the page and into real life, especially when it comes to their creators!

Do you know of any real-life instances of amateur sleuthing?



Further Reading:

• The Vidocq Society
• "Activities for Amateur Detectives" by John Marcheur on eHow
• Improbable Fiction: The Life of Mary Roberts Rinehart by Jan Cohn
• "Amateur Sleuthing Lands Grisham in Real-Life Court" by Tom Jackman, The Washing Post
• "'Who Killed my Daughter?' Eight-Year-Old Unsolved Slaying Still Plagues Writer Lois Duncan" by Susan Schindehette, People Magazine

Discus this post with me on Twitter, FaceBook, or in the comments below.

An Equal Opportunity Book Lover

Image created by austinevan

Mjmbecky at One Literature Nut asked a great question on her blog yesterday about what we like to read:

The other day on Twitter, I sat in on a great conversation about what books people associate us with. What types of books do we choose, and why? Have you ever found yourself liking an author or genre for awhile, and then losing interest or simply burning out? Are there books that you just don't enjoy and never read? Have you ever tried something you don't usually like and found you actually enjoyed the experience?

Ever since I can remember, I've loved reading about romance.  So I'm definitely partial to romances, although I do go through periods when I burn out on them and don't read them for a while.  Even when I'm not reading romances, though, I'm always interested in the romantic part of a book first and foremost (this is why I read way too many romances--they're like IVs for romance-addicted veins).  If there isn't any romance?  Well, then it better be the greatest damn book ever, because otherwise I'm *yawn!*  Err... what?

Aside from romance, though, I like to read almost any genre except for:

• Westerns (no particular reason, I just never got into them)
• Chick lit (first and foremost, it's usually sold in trade paperback format, and that's too expensive for me.  Also, with a lot of chick lit books I've read--admittedly not that many--I felt like they were episodic and didn't have a strong plot and storyline.  Add that to very little romance and no HEAs and it's not happening for me)
• Erotica (pretty much ditto the same reasons as chick lit)

Other than that, though, I love genre!  I'm a genre girl all the way.  It's not that I think literary fiction is bad, I just have absolutely zero interest in reading it.  I love formulas and seeing how writers play with the rules of a genre and readers' expectations (that's not just limited to books, btw--I also love genre paintings, and I'm a huge J.M.W. Turner fan (the best genre painter EVER, imo)).

Another thing I've been partial to in my reading since I started (as in literally the first book I read on my own) is the paranormal.  Nearly every book I went crazy over as a kid had some supernatural element in it--vampires, ghosts, witches, you name it.  Unfortunately, now that the paranormal has become über-popular, I'm burned out on it.  I have tons of paranormal romances and urban fantasy books in my TBR pile right now, and no desire to read them whatsoever.  Maybe part of the attraction of those books was that it was a very, very niche market back in the day.  Or maybe I've just read way too many.  Either way, it's sad.

Someone recently called me a very eclectic reader, and looking back on all the books I read, I suppose I am.  But I don't really consider myself one at all.  Maybe because no matter what I'm reading, I'm basically looking for the same thing:  romance, a great story, characters to connect with, and above all a book that can provide an escape from reality.  I'm an equal-opportunity book lover as long as said books provide that.


How about you--what do you like to read?

Powered by ScribeFire.