What are you reading in 2025?

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

It's a helpful distinction to make in that it is a quick signal for what I'll enjoy and what I'll hate. I'll take genre fiction as entertaining beach read over boring-ass "literature" all day every day.

Yeah, I hope no one thinks I'm disparaging airport/beach reads. I just breezed through the new Hiaasen earlier this summer and he'd fight you if you called his works literature. (Although the best ones probably have a toe into Mark Twain territory.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Honestly, quite a few literary fiction novels are also short, light, or otherwise suitable for beach reading.

I honestly think that's one of the reasons Jane Austen's works have endured. They're very snackable.

The only definition of literary fiction seems to be that it can’t be pigeonholed into another genre (mystery, thriller, romance, fantasy etc).

I think literary qualities don't require the work be sui generis. It's more about an ambition -- realized or otherwise -- to do more than just barrel through a plot to the end. Terry Pratchett's books, once he really got going, are about a lot of things, even though they're zippy fantasy novels. He was knighted for his works' literary merit.

Most established* writers of literary fiction (Allende, Atwood, Chabon, Ishiguro, Rushdie, etc.) are sufficiently mature and secure to not really care if their work gets shoved into genre even if it’s of significant literary merit.

Oh, I think Rushdie spends a lot of mental energy on wanting to be regarded as a Great Author.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I honestly think that's one of the reasons Jane Austen's works have endured. They're very snackable.

She wasn’t considered “literary” at the time of writing. She is only literary now because she was so good that she is still entertaining people 200 years later.

 

[prabe]

Yeah, I hope no one thinks I'm disparaging airport/beach reads. I just breezed through the new Hiaasen earlier this summer and he'd fight you if you called his works literature. (Although the best ones probably have a toe into Mark Twain territory.)

Last night I read Russell Banks' The Magic Kingdom, which is A) historical fiction, B) probably literature, or something close, and C) an interesting counterpoint to Hiaasen (and Dorsey) in the sense that you can see the foundations of their Floridas in the one Banks writes about. (FWIW, I enjoyed the heck out of the book. I don't have a solid enough grasp of your preferences for this to be a rec.)

Also I finally have Fever Beach on my TBR stack, because copies finally appeared at our local library of choice.

 

[prabe]

She wasn’t considered “literary” at the time of writing. She is only literary now because she was so good that she is still entertaining people 200 years later.

I thinks she's "literature" because people are still trying to teach her 200 years later. I personally wasn't able to get more than a chapter into whichever of her novels they subjected us to in high school, and at this point I can't even get past the first sentence of Pride and Prejudice--it's just too smug and smarmy for me to want to read any further.

 

[jian]

Oh, I think Rushdie spends a lot of mental energy on wanting to be regarded as a Great Author.

He certainly used to - like Atwood, he was really grumpy about Midnight’s Children (which is about psychics) being classified as sci-fi in 1981, but it won him the Booker so that was fine - but these days genre fiction is more respectable and he’s an indubitable literary giant and almost-martyr so he probably doesn’t care as much. He was, for instance, much less bothered about Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990) being called children’s fantasy (which it definitely was).

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I thinks she's "literature" because people are still trying to teach her 200 years later. I personally wasn't able to get more than a chapter into whichever of her novels they subjected us to in high school, and at this point I can't even get past the first sentence of Pride and Prejudice--it's just too smug and smarmy for me to want to read any further.

They are very easy reading. I think what you are saying is it’s not to your taste.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

That said, a large portion of genre fiction is the equivalent of airport or beach reads, with the authors only seeking to entertain. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell or the Bright Sword are definitely literature. Most of the 100+ Dragonlance novels definitely are not, though.

Oh yeah...I would even go so far as to say "that a large portion of genre fiction is the equivalent of airport or beach reads, with the authors only seeking to entertain." Though of course, you can write to entertain AND still have something to say that's worth saying (see, as you mentioned, Sir Terry Pratchett).

I also think that a large part of why some people think writing (or music, or movies, or television) was better in the past is because most of the garbage has been forgotten over time, leaving those with qualities that endured.

 

[prabe]

They are very easy reading. I think what you are saying is it’s not to your taste.

What I'm saying is I couldn't get into whatever the book was in high school, and these days I find her actively detestable. So, yeah, not to my taste.