Keywords
Citation
Hannabuss, S. (2007), "Genreflecting: A Guide to Popular Reading Interests Sixth Edition", Library Review, Vol. 56 No. 1, pp. 89-91. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530710722122
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Genreflecting, a study of popular reading genres and a bibliographic guide to them, first appeared in 1982 with Betty Rosenberg as the author and compiler. For anyone buying or reading or studying popular reading, it has been a point of reference for many years, and now reading consultant Diana Tixier Herald provides us with the sixth edition (the fifth dates from 2000). She is known for other bibliographical guides – on teenage genres, fantasy and science fiction. Libraries Unlimited (as a visit to their website, www.lu.com, will confirm) has a stable of such guides – on African‐American literature and Christian fiction, mystery and detective fiction, romance, horror and junior genreflecting (“good reads and series fiction for children”).
Popular reading is always changing, and many authors are prolific, and so any bibliographical guide is likely to obsolesce quickly. Genreflecting in its various incarnations has kept pace with these changes, picking out “classics” or well‐established works in fields like historical fiction and westerns, crime and adventure, romance and science fiction, fantasy and horror and identifying trends in “emerging” genres, in this case Christian fiction, women's fiction and “chick lit”. Hybrid forms or “genreblends”, like gay detection, spicy historical, romantic science fiction, urban fantasy and social gospel novels, are noted and will keep on emerging as new ideas and new tastes evolve. These things are of close interest to librarians in the area, above all public library lending and those buying books about books for academic collections, as Herald recognizes with a short series of early chapters on reader's advisory issues – genre fiction and libraries, its history (particularly in the USA), interviews with readers and publishing and providing genre fiction. Cross‐media popularity (the book and the television mini‐series, books that appeal to both adults and young readers) is another factor of importance. Further reading about these issues is provided.
Most of the book is given up to guidance and information about the genres, each section starting with an essay on the genre noting its scope and appeal, history and associated historiography. For people responsible for buying books about books, this material is of particular relevance. History comes first, with classics (Cather and Cooper, Graves and Renault, Scott and Michener), then by period and place (pre‐history Auel, Middle Ages Dunnett, British Delderfield, exotic Clavell and Wilbur Smith, the Americas David Nevin and Gore Vidal), sagas like Cookson and then bibliographies and encyclopedias and writers’ manuals. This format is repeated with westerns (appeal, history, reader's advisory implications, classics like Zane Grey and Jack Schaefer, a thematic journey through native Americans and mountain men and cattle drives and range wars, comedy and celebrity, women and young adult). Short stories and awards and “Western picks” follow. Crime fiction adds up to about one‐third of all popular reading, with its classical mystery and hard‐boiled crime, and police procedurals and legal thrillers. Writers like Paretsky and Grafton, Margolin and Martini, Turow and Evanovich, Fairstein and Deaver add to earlier ones. Herald identifies works by setting (like works set in Canada or Italy, Michigan or Bosnia), brings out gay and Hispanic and Asian detectives, genreblends, crime capers and awards.
Always difficult to organize, the adventure genre comes out well, with Buchan and Le Carré, Oppenheim and Higgins, Forsyth and Richard North Patterson, cipher thrillers like The Da Vinci Code of Dan Brown, techno‐thrillers by Tom Clancy and bio‐thrillers by Tess Gerritsen, disasters by Michael Crichton and naval adventure with Sharpe (created by Cornwell). Then romance, starting with classics and exploring suspense, the paranormal, historical romance, family sagas and ethnic romance. Comparison is made with “women's fiction” (in the final chapter, sketched out because well‐covered elsewhere) and “chick‐lit” (careers and relationships, sexy and sassy and trendy). Science fiction is competent, fantasy imaginative and horror comprehensive by mainstream standards.
For anyone wishing to add to what they already know from the “who reads what?” and “if you like this, you will also like that” canon of guides to popular reading, and to the public lending right statistics (UK) and listings of popular sellers in journals like Publishers Weekly and The Bookseller, Herald has identified many good things. Standing back from the mass of detail in this field is a challenge, so noting the rise and rise of Christian fiction (like the Left Behind series, the counterpart in its area to the Harry Potter books in theirs), the cross‐generic works, how fiction incorporates the preoccupations of the age and the economic importance of the North American market for consumer publishing, all make very good sense in and for any such work as this one. Hardback for libraries and paperback for bookstores and personal purchase recommended. It will also form an instant subject index for a librarian starting on one for their fiction stock.
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