What genres did you read when you were younger that you don’t now?

[BabCNesbitt]

I was looking through the new Kindle deals today and it struck me that I’d have bought loads of the self-help books in there that I now have zero interest in. Same with the kind of authors that I only read because they were worshipped by blokes I fancied (all those bloody “rebellious young men” ones - Kerouac and Bukowski, I’m side-eyeing you). What genres or types of books have you left in the past, and are you ever tempted to go back and reread? (And if you’re now reading books that your younger self would have hated, I want to know that, too!)

Yes yes to the bonkbusters! Jilly Cooper, Jackie Collins etc…

And horror books Dennis Wheatley and Stephen King.

I went through a phase as a young teenager of reading a lot of Catherine Cookson. I tried one as an adult and could not get into it at all and found the writing style really not my thing.

I still like dystopian fiction. I read quite a lot of that as a young teen and still enjoy a good tale of Armageddon! Though I have always preferred there to be a happy(ish) ending.

Interesting about lots of people going off Steven King. I got into his books at about 16 and have read a lot of them over the years but not for the last ten years or so. I might have to try one and see if I'm still a fan or not. As an adult with children I do now look back on reading It and wonder why the fuck he put a scene in about 11 year olds having sex.

There is no way I would read lord of the rings now, or any other fantasy crap and I read tons as a teenager.

i tried to re-read the women’s room recently and couldn’t get past page 10.

judith krantz and the flowers in the attic series would also be a hard no now.

still love John Wyndham and Stephen king’s the stand is a great book.

I don’t like fantasy either, but I do think Lord of the Rings is a great work. Poor old Tolkien has been ruined by his fans. So many people read and then imitated him that he pretty much spawned the fantasy genre single handed. But he wasn’t really a fantasy writer himself. He was trying to write something profound and epic. Like I said, I’m not a huge fan, but I do think he succeeded. It isn’t fair to lump him in with the silly little nerds who imitate him. Tolkien was a serious intellect, an Oxford professor who knew 20 + languages and would read Dante in Italian for fun.

I loved horror, but am way too squeamish now. Though I do still read and admire M. R. James.

I also loved anything metaphysical/spiritual - reincarnation, ascended masters, etc.

Oh, and psychedelic literature. I read a lot of Timothy Leary, Castaneda, Thomas Wolfe and Aldous Huxley. I now consider Castaneda a charlatan and Leary an attention-seeking liar and egomaniac who ruined the entire movement. Huxley I still love and re-read constantly.

Used to read Aga sagas in the late 80s and 90s. Joanna Trollope books, but haven't read any of her more recent offerings. Maybe the aga saga is just well out of fashion now.
I tried a few chic lit books but never really got into them.

What used to be called chick-lit. Colourful covers, quirky best friends and all that.

Like a few pp's have mentioned, horror. Graham Masterton, Stephen King, James Herbert. Also blockbuster type novels by Jackie Collins and the like. And Catherine Cookson and Maeve Binchy type stuff. I wouldn't read any of these genres now. Nothing against them, but I moved on. They were part of the journey to finding out what I really like. But I still wouldn't be able to categorise what that is as it's a huge mixture from the classics through literary fiction to detective novels/police procedurals and lots of non fiction.

Early teens moved straight from Anne of Green Gables to Forever Amber. Stayed with historical romance for a while via Victoria Holt and Anya Seyton.

Progressed to Dennis Wheatley / The Devil Rides Out etc.

Back to historical novels like Noel Barber's fabulous Farewell to France.

Love a Dennis Wheatley! Might revisit them - thanks for the reminder

I guess romance / mild supernatural / classics eg Catherine Cookson, Margaret Dickinson, Meavy Binchy / Barbara Erskine, Brontes, Edgar Allen Poe etc. but although I still enjoy Poe, I now prefer much faster paced book, as I can't be doing with endless paragraphs of description anymore. Then again I don't have the tolerance for anything badly written, written in first person (unless it's a biography) or where the author has clearly got bored with the plot and the ending is either very abrupt or a massive let down!

James Herriot / Gerald Durrell etc.

I also had a phase of reading Mills & Boon. 😂

I used to read a lot of chick lit in the 90s - not sure why as I was never into designer clothes and that kind of lifestyle, and the stories were very formulaic. I still have some of my favourites but now I'd only read them for a huge wave of 90s nostalgia.

Nowadays if I want an easy read I go for a psychological thriller. It's interesting that some former chick lit writers, such as Adele Parkes and Lisa Jewell, have moved on to writing domestic thrillers.

I no longer relay on what my parents could be persuaded to order from a Book Club catalogue. I can't remember the details but you got something like six cheap books then had to buy a certain number a year. Studying the catalogue thoroughly took a lot of time. Then a casual 'if you don't mind Clan of the Cave Bear.
And I no longer read from the local library. During that tricky gap between teen and adult I read everything Stephen King, biography, my mum's Victoria Holt, Dad's Sharpe books, Blott on the landscape. Everything.
I now go for the Booker list and get cross and then go back.

I used to love fantasy books as a child, then ghost stories before crime fiction. I'm not into ghost stories or fantasy as an adult. But still read crime fiction.

I go in and out of reading true crime.

I did classics as part of my degree and happily read the texts then. I can't be doing with Homer and Virgil anymore though! Although maybe I'll get back to it when I'm even older than I am now! 😃

@Beetrooty I'd forgotten the phrase Aga saga 🤣

I used to devour Jeffrey Deaver-type crime/thriller fiction, or the Scandi equivalents - you couldn't pay me to read those now.

Other than that I don't think my tastes have changed that much (apart from having moved on from all the boarding school books I used to adore!), although I think I appreciate a good audiobook more now.

I still love historical fiction, Terry Pratchett, what I've heard described as "middle-class people doing middle-class things" e.g. Barbara Trapido, William Boyd, Clare Chambers.

Science Fiction esp Philip K Dick. Fantasy.

Horror, crime, misery lit, aga sagas, bonk busters.

My teenage self would be surprised at the amount of non-fiction I now read.

From 10 - 14 I read almost exclusively Dr Who books and science fiction. I don't read either now.

Romance never read it now. Mainly thrillers and prize shortlists.

I read a lot of fantasy fiction in my teens but just find it all ridiculous now.

I also remember reading a couple of misery memoirs that were recommended to me by someone. They were very compelling but also horrendously depressing. I wouldn't choose something like that now.

Science fiction. I adored it and read voraciously from about 13-17/18 but never read it now even though I still read non stop. think of all those books very fondly though and remember many of them. It’s like they set me off on my more adult reading journey and ‘Only Forward’ will always rank as one of my favourite books.

Oh me too! But then the world became dystopic, so I stopped.

Also used to read Miss Read books as a teen. I came across a load of them in a holiday cottage on a wet week in Cornwall and read them there.

I can’t read historical bodice-rippers any more; ditto fantasy.

I used to rather enjoy the odd one of those chick lit Shopaholic/fluff fiction/Lisa Jewell type novels when I was younger - I’d rather carve my own eyes out with a spoon than read one now. 🤣