Books

There are many sub-genre’s to the book-reading world and I think it’s important for every writer to at least know their genre.

Here is a Comprehensive List of All Genres and Sub-Genres:
 

GENERAL FICTION

Chick Lit (diaries, etc., for the girls)

• Bridget Jone’s Diary by Helen Fielding
• Diary of South Beach Party Girl by Gwen Cooper
• The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus

 
Domestic Drama (life from comedy to tragedy)

• Shadow Ranch by Jo-Ann Mapson
• Girls in Trouble by Caroline Leavitt
• The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy

 
Sports (variations of the Roman circus)

• Waggle by Joe Redden Tigan
• Shoeless Joe by W.P Kinsella
• North Dallas Forty by Peter Gent

 
Vampire Lit (ouch! that hurts)

• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice
• Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire by Mike Mignola & Christopher Golden

 
LGBT Lit (life, love, and romance)

• Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
• Edinburgh by Alexander Chee
• Call Me by Your Name by André Aciman

 
Humor (from acid satire to funny ha-ha)

• Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
• The Wishbones by Tom Perrotta
• The House of God by Samuel Shem

 
War Stories (oh the horror… from ancient to modern)

• The Iliad by Homer
• Maus by Art Spiegelman
• The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
• All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
• Mister Roberts by Thomas Heggen
• Suit Francaise by Iréne Némirovsky
• MASH by Richard Hooker
• The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh

 
Mélange (a little of this and a little of that)

• Fear of Flying by Erica Jong
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
• Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurry
• Crank by Ellen Hopkins
• The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

 
 
HISTORICAL FICTION

Romance (love and longing set in the past)

• Green Mansions by H.W. Hudson
• Katherine by Anya Seton and Philippa Gregory
• Ashes in the Wind by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss

 
Detective Thriller (mysteries solved in pre-tech times)

• The Alienist by Caleb Carr
• Hawkenlye mysteries by Alys Clare
• The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox

 
Adventure (adrenaline mixed with exotic times and places)

• Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian
• Tales of the South Pacific by James Michener
• The Physician by Noah Gordon

 
Family Saga (the generations interact and intertwine)

• Fall on Your Knee by Ann-Marie MacDonald
• Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• Roots by Alex Haley

 
Drama (history, heroism, and courage collide)

• Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally
• Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe
• Raintree Country by Ross Lockridge Jr.

 
Mulit-Volume Historical Sagas (etcetera etcetera)

• The Taj Quartet series by Paul Scott
• The Winds of War and War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk
• The Wales Trilogy by Sharon Kay Penman

 
 
ROMANCE

Creatures of the Night )love, bloody love)

• Dark Possession by Christine Feehan
• Dark Lover by J.R. Ward
• Jacob by Jacquelyn Frank

 
Historical Romance (romance coupled with history)

• Fires of Winter by Johanna Lindsey
• The Talisman Ring by Georgette Heyer
• The Rules of Seduction by Madeline Hunter

 
Regency Romance (love and intrigue in early nineteenth-century England)

• Night Secrets by Kat Martin
• Regency Buck by Georgette Heyer
• The Rules of Seduction by Madeline Hunter

 
Paranormal Romance (making woo-woo)

• A Wish in Time by Laurel Bradley
• The Dream Thief by Shana Abé
• A Love Out of Time by Rick Adkins

 
LGBT Romance (boys together, girls together)

• Lessons by Kim Pritekel
• Turning Point by Lara Zielinsky
• Strings Attached by Nick Nolan

 
Inspirational Romance (chaste women chasing)

• Indigo Water by Lisa Samson
• Guilty of Love by Pat Simmons
• Counting Trouble by Deeanne Gist

 
Contemporary Romance (mix and match love in modern setting)

• Knock Me Off My Feet by Susan Donovan
• Houston, We Have a Problem by Erin McCarthy
• Truly Madly Yours by Rachel Gibson

 
 
MYSTERIES & THRILLERS

Detectives (mysteries solved by PIs and others, sometimes amateurs)

• Hot Six by Janet Evanovich
• Deadlock by Sara Paretsky

 
Cozy (minimum violence, maximum intrigue, amateur sleuth)

• The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side by Agatha Christie
• Dead Days of Summer by Carolyn Hart
• The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith

 
Christian (religious mysteries, both in and out of the cloister)

• Murder, Mayhem & a Fine Man by Claudia Mair Burney
• The Root of All Evil by Brandt Dodson
• Irish Gold by Andrew M. Greeley

 
Noir (hard-boiled guys, hard-boiled pros; darker, meaner, streets than the average PI novel)

• I, The Jury by Mickey Spillane
• Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
• The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
• The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

 
Forensic (mysteries solved with science and technology)

• The Angel of Death by Alane Ferguson
• Post Mortem by Patricia Cornwell
• Break No Bones by Kathy Reichs

 
Police Procedural (inside details of how a cop solves crimes)

• The Onion Field by Joseph Wambaugh
• Voices: A Thriller by Arnaldur Indridason
• Gorky Park by Martin Cruz Smith

 
Courtroom/Legal (lawyers, lots of lawyers)

• Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow
• The Rainmaker by John Grisham
• Proof of Intent by William J. Coughlin and Walter Sorrells

 
LGBT Mystery (gay love played out in the arms of mystery)

• Rising Storm by Jlee Meyer
• Honor Under Siege by Radclyffe
• Second Season by Ali Vali

 
Historical (mysteries solved the old-fashioned way)

• Badger Moon by Peter Tremayne
• The Widow’s Tale by Margaret Frazer
• Dark Star by Alan Furst

 
Thriller (racing pulse is de rigueur)

• The Godfather by Mario Puzo
• Hard Rain by Barry Eisler (movie)
• The Secret Servant by Daniel Silva

 
Ghost Story (from hauntings to interactions with spirits)

• Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
• Shadowland by Peter Straub

 
Horror (terror on the page and on the screen)

• The Shining by Stephen King
• The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

 
Spy (what’s none of their business is their business)

• Kim by Rudyard Kipling
• The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John Le Carré
• Goldfinger by Ian Fleming

 
 
SCIENCE FICTION

Soft Science Fiction (grounded in social sciences: psychology, sociology, and anthropology)

• Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
• The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
• The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

 
Apocalypse and Post-apocalypse (what happens furring or after devastation)

• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• On the Beach by Nevil Shute
• A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.

 
Cyberpunk (alienated characters vs. a high-tech world, often involving computer implants)

• Neuromancer by William Gibson
• Dune by Frank Herbert
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

 
Feminist Science Fiction (gender roles explored in utopias and dystopias)

• The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
• The Gate to Women’s Country by Sheri S. Tepper
• The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

 
Comic Science Fiction (skewed worlds filled with humor, both broad and subtle)

• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
• The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison
• Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

 
First Contact(first encounters between humans and aliens)

• Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
• The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle
• The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

 
Colonization (the creation of habitats beyond Earth, destroyed & created)

• The Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Moving Mars by Greg Bear
• The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey with Tod McCaffrey

 
Military Science Fiction (wars and combat, interstellar or otherwise)

• The War of the Worlds by H.G Wells
• Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
• Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman

 
Time Travel (travel into both past and future)

• The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
• Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
• Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

 
Steampunk (technology and rebellion, powered by steam)

• The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
• The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore & Kevin O’Neill

 
Hard Science Fiction (stories grounded in physics, astro-physics, and chemistry)

• Contact by Carl Sagan
• 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
• Foundation by Isaac Asimov

 
 
FANTASY

• The Odyssey by Homer
• Beowulf
• The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
• The Once and Future King by T.T. White
• The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
• His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman
• The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
• The Magic of Xanth by Piers Anthony
• Everlost by Neal Shusterman
• The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant by Stephen R. Donaldson
• Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
• Chrono Crusade by Daisuke Moriyama
• Bleach by Tite Kubo

 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY & MEMOIR

Boot Strap (I once was down, but now I’m up)

• The Pursuit of Happyness by Chris Gardner
• Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam
• Born on the Fourth of July by Ron Kovie

 
Political (illuminations and explorations of interesting people and challenging times)

• Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama
• Mankiller: A Chief and Her People by Wilma Mankiller with Michael Wallis
• The Haldeman Diaries: Inside the Nixon White House by H.R. Haldeman

 
Family(usually dysfunctional, since happy families are all alike)

• Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
• Brother, I’m Dying by Edwidge Danticat

 
Celebrity (earned fame; we’ll skip the other kind)

• Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin
• Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C.G Jung with Aniela Jaffé
• Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste by John Waters

 
Travel (running away from life or towards adventure in exotic places)

• Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World by Rita Golden Gelman
• States of Mind by Brad Herzog
• Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence

 
Survival (the awesome power of human will)

• Night by Elie Wiesel
• Adrift: Seventy-Six Days Lost at Sea by Steven Callahan
• The Pianist by Wladyslaw Szpilman

 
Extraordinary Lives (far above the madding crowd)

• Tuesday With Morrie by Mitch Albom
• The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
• My Land and My People: The Original Autobiography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet by the Dalai Lama

 
Confession and Conversion (pleas and apologias)

• Blind Ambition by John Dean
• Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood by Koren Zailckas
• In Retrospect by Robert S. McNamara

 
Spiritual Memoir (peace at last)

• The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
• The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris
• Memories of a Spiritual Outsider by Suzanne Clores

 
Writer’s Memories (the yearning to speak and breathe free)

• Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
• Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt
• Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown
• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard

 
 
NEW JOURNALISM

• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
• The Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer
• The White Album by Joan Didion
• Paper Lion by George Plimpton
• The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe
• Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by hunter S. Thompson

 
 
LITERARY FICTION

• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
• Look Homeward, Angel by Thomas Wolfe
• The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrel
• As I lay Dying by William Faulkner
• Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
• Atonement by Ian McEwan
• The Last of the Just by André Schwarz-Bart
• The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles
• St. Urbain’s Horseman by Mordecai Richler
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davis
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
• Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
• The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
• One Hundred Years of solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
• Plainsong by Kent Haruf
• The Last Novel by David Markson

 
 
Thanks goes to Nancy Lamb and her book The Art and Craft of Storytelling for the list.