Do genres help or hinder your reading?

Do genres help or hinder your reading? Some people are very loyal to their genres of choice. Genres can be a way to connect with other readers, provide a language to talk about books you love using tropes, and help steer you in the direction of books you may like when you visit a bookstore. Genres can also help narrow down the world of reading choices. But do they narrow that world too much? Do genres keep you from reading books and discovering new types of stories you may enjoy? Do you enjoy different genres when you're reading in different formats? Are some genres objectively better or more beneficial than others? And what about books that fit into multiple genres?  

Whether you only read certain genres or you read without reference to genre - or you're somewhere in between! - this conversation will give you something to think about. Join us as we wade into the world of genres.
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Books we're reading in this episode: 
The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston
Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston
Under the Henfluence by Tove Danovich
Beach Read by Emily Henry
Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld
Hook, Line, and Sinker by Tessa Bailey
Throne of Glass series and Crescent City series by Sarah J. Maas
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Sources (links provided when available and citations shortened to fit) listed in the order they appear in the episode: 

• Dwyer, Meredyth, and Sandra Martin‐Chang. 2023. “Fact from Fiction: The Learning Benefits of Listening to Historical Fiction.” https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.2177.
• Fong, Katrina, Justin B Mullin, and Raymond A Mar. 2013. “What You Read Matters: The Role of Fiction Genre in Predicting Interpersonal Sensitivity.” https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034084.
• Jensen, Jakob D., et al. 2016. “Narrative Transportability, Leisure Reading, and Genre Preference in Children 9-13 Years Old.” https://doi.org/10.1080/00220671.2015.1034351.
• Kidd, David Comer, and Emanuele Castano. 2013. “Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind.”https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1239918.
• Mar, Raymond A., et al. 2006. “Bookworms Versus Nerds: Exposure to Fiction Versus Non-Fiction, Divergent Associations with Social Ability, and the Simulation of Fictional Social Worlds.” https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2005.08.002.
• Mar, Raymond A., Keith Oatley, and Jordan B. Peterson. 2009. “Exploring the Link Between Reading Fiction and Empathy: Ruling Out Individual Differences and Examining Outcomes.” https://doi.org/10.1515/COMM.2009.025.
• Panero, Maria Eugenia, et al. 2016. “Does Reading a Single Passage of Literary Fiction Really Improve Theory of Mind? An Atte

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Intro and outro music: "The Chase," by Aves.

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Read on!

Transcript

[All Books Aloud intro and theme music]

Martha: Hey Liz, how are you?

Elizabeth: I am doing well. How are you, Martha?

Martha: I am good. I'm excited to talk about our topic today, but before we dive into it, what are you reading?

Elizabeth: Since the last time we've talked, I read the book that you were reading at some point, the Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston. I liked but did not [00:01:00] love it. I would say, I liked it though. I finished it along the lines of our episode about whether you finish things or not. I didn't stop reading it after, the first 20 pages, so obviously it passed that test.

Martha: it must be good. I guess we can't really keep track of what your star rating would be for the ones you didn't read because you didn't finish 'em. But it would be interesting to see like only three star and above makes the cut of what you finish or, two star and below probably doesn't.

Elizabeth: yeah, that is actually usually the case. I very rarely will give one or two stars on good Reads because I just won't finish it if I'm not

Martha: Yeah. Yeah.

Elizabeth: enjoying it.

Martha: That makes sense.

Elizabeth: I've been devouring a book called Red White and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston, I think is how you say their last name.

 And I'm a little behind the curve on it because it came out in 2019 and was really, really popular and had always been on my list to read, but I just never got to it. And so I've been reading it and I absolutely love [00:02:00] it. I'll just quickly tell you 'cause I think you should read it 'cause I think you'll like it.

It's a fictionalized. Obviously very fictionalized, love story between, a, British Prince, and the son of the president of the United States. And in this fictional world, the president is a woman. Basically it's set in the 2016 election. If a woman who isn't Hillary Clinton, it's not even a fictionalized version of her, it's just a different woman had run for president and won and was president in 2019.

It is very spicy.. Oh boy. Very spicy. So anyway, yeah, I've been reading that and really enjoying it. I'm also listening to an, audiobook called Under The Henfluence, Tove, Danovich. It's all about chickens, basically, as you can tell from the punny title. And I've been enjoying that too. that's what I'm reading. What are you reading right now? 

Martha: I finished Beach Read by Emily Henry. I think I had just started reading that the last time we talked. So [00:03:00] I finished that and I also finished Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld, which you recommended to me. And it was great. We already texted about it 'cause we couldn't wait to chat about it.

But it was such an easy read and it was so fun and felt so real. And I don't wanna spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it, but I would highly recommend that. And then I started the second book in Tessa Bailey's, Bellinger Sisters series. I read, It Happened One Summer, a couple months ago, a month ago, and now I'm reading Hook Line and Sinker and I'm about 70 pages in and it's good so far.

They're just really lighthearted, easy contemporary romance novels. On Audible I finished, the series Throne of Glass. I think I had two books left and I finished those. And I started Crescent City, which is Sarah J. Maas', third [00:04:00] series that I'm listening to. And it is really good. It's kind of a lot, especially when you're listening to it in the beginning. Because she's building the world and introducing all of the characters and there's a lot more players than the other series. And it's set in like a modern time. , so they have phones, computers, that sort of thing.

So it's, really different from her other series.

Elizabeth: Hmm.

Martha: So I'm getting into that and I really like it. 

So let's get into our topic today we are talking about genres.

Elizabeth: Genres. Do they matter? 

Martha: do they matter? Yeah. More specifically, do they matter? Yes. So where do you wanna start?

Elizabeth: I wanna know what are your initial thoughts about this topic? Like your personal experience with genres and the way that you read, because obviously now we have similar tastes in genres, but I wonder if your taste in genre has always been the same?

Martha: I think that [00:05:00] we have overlapping tastes, but I definitely know that there are some differences. I think that there are definitely genres that I tend to gravitate towards. It's an interesting discussion because so many books could be categorized into multiple genres, so it gets really complicated really quickly. I wrote a list of all of what I think are my favorite genres, and then I have a few that I tend to stay away from with a caveat.

So I think my favorites are contemporary romance, romance in general, fantasy, historical fiction Chick Lit, which I hate that it's called Chick Lit, just as an aside. And then fiction classics. Not all the classics, but in general, young adult, which we can get into a little more. [00:06:00] And I would say, I don't generally think that I like sci-fi, but I love Dune, for example. So this is where I think genres can get you into trouble because, there's a reason why we categorize things. It serves a purpose, but is it serving us when it comes to genres or is it limiting us? I think that's the big question.

Elizabeth: Yes. I do think that's the big question. Spoiler alert.

Martha: What's your hot take?

Elizabeth: Yeah. My librarian take on this. Comes from, again, Nancy Pearl. Am I gonna mention Nancy Pearl in every episode? I think I might, we might need to turn it into a drinking game where, when I mention Nancy Pearl, we take a drink.

Martha: seriously. That's okay.

Elizabeth: Basically when we talked about this in grad school, her, what seemed like a controversial opinion at the time is that we shouldn't have genres and that books should just be [00:07:00] shelved by author last name. And her main reason why that I have actually come to be more sympathetic with this, this whole idea.

The longer that I have been a librarian, and the more I've read in different genres, is that it limits people more than it helps. That it keeps people from reading things that they might like because they think that they won't like it if it's not in a genre that they're familiar with. I think that there's a lot there and there are definitely arguments for and against that. 

But that's, that's basically, the biggest question in all this is do they help more than they hinder? Because what you said is exactly the case, right? There is so much overlap and, I can't think of a single book that I've read recently that fits neatly into just one of these categories.

And it's true that humans do like to categorize things and partially that comes into play, but the main reason for these genres is [00:08:00] a business one. The publishing industry needs to know how to sell the book to bookstores and bookstores wanna know where to put it on the shelf.

 And bookstores, unlike libraries, are organized by genre. 

My interaction with this is, different from a booksellers being a librarian, our books are organized in a different way. And so having a leisure reading collection is always sort of a question, how are you gonna organize it? Because people are used to browsing books like that by genre, but that's just not our organizing principle.

So it would take so much work to shelve them that way. So I've sort of come at this from a different direction, but I do think it's worth pointing out that the reason for these categories is at least now mainly, for the industry to be able to sell books and for bookstores to be able to easily , know where to put it on the shelf, not because it actually fully describes any book.

Martha: Mm, that makes sense.

Elizabeth: In terms of genres that [00:09:00] I love and read, and ones that I don't. I have confessed before that I used to be much more narrow in my reading choices than I am now. And I would say that before I went to grad school, my reading was pretty much, limited to classics and literary fiction. I just took myself really seriously. Little Baby Elizabeth English major was just,

Martha: Yep.

Elizabeth: you know,

Martha: Yep.

Elizabeth: that's just the way it was. I don't know why. I mean, I have theories, but anyway, so when I went to library school and, specifically was taking classes about reader's advisory, which is what librarians call it when they are, suggesting books to people, advising them on what to read, we had to have read things in every genre.

You have to be conversant with the genre if you're gonna recommend things to people. And, this type of genre of [00:10:00] fiction that the industry calls it genre fiction, which is essentially referring to anything outside of classics or to literary fiction, which we can get into at some point because it's just so ridiculous that those two genres, are not lumped in with all the other genres.

But, genre fiction, science fiction, fantasy, romance, those are the most popular genres and most people read those. So if you're gonna work in a library and make reading suggestions to people, you have to be conversant with those genres. And so, as I read more in those genres, I realized, lo and behold,

Martha: Oh, I like this.

Elizabeth: yeah, of course I do.

 So like you said, I have some caveats, I'm not a huge science fiction or fantasy person, but I've read books in both of those genres that I've loved and I've read books that I haven't, I, would say I'm a huge romance reader right now, but my romance tastes are a little bit different than yours or

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: maybe another romance reader. I'm not really into the sort of standard romance. I always want it to have sort of a different angle,[00:11:00] if that makes sense.

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: We can talk about that at some point during the romance episode maybe.

But I also really like, especially for audiobooks, I love listening to mysteries and thrillers and suspense on audiobook, but I don't really love reading it on paper. So that is interesting because it goes back to 

Martha: Yeah. Interesting.

Elizabeth: format conversation and historical fiction. I also love.  And then Chick Lit or women's fiction. Yeah. I would say is another one of my huge genres and it's what I write. And yeah, I hate that name because it , it sort of is, I mean, there's so much wrong with it, but also I totally love that my audience for anything that I write would be women, because

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: that's fine with me. That is who I'm basically writing for because I'm writing for myself and 

Martha: That's your perspective. Yeah, 

Elizabeth: exactly. So that it's actually fine with me. I've come, to make peace with it.

Martha: I think it's interesting too that [00:12:00] within romance, I guess I've noticed it more with romance because of the way the algorithm works and what my TikTok for you page shows me. But I've noticed specifically in the romance genre that people are also using the different tropes to categorize them. So, enemies to Lovers or whatever the different tropes are, , which isn't so much a genre coming from the publishing companies . It's like a natural way that people have started lumping these books into certain categories and, I think it's just a way for them to know, oh, I love the enemies to lovers trope or , that sort of thing.

So maybe we could talk more about that when we go into romance novels. 

Elizabeth: Yeah, definitely. , it's a way for you to be able to talk about the book without spoiling it to indicate what you liked about it and what you think the other person might like about it if you're having a conversation about books, right?

Martha: mm-hmm. Makes sense. 

Elizabeth: That's really useful.[00:13:00] 

Martha: And maybe if there were no genres, that's what people would do is just 

Elizabeth: Yeah. 

Martha: Talk more about the tropes than the specific genres.

Elizabeth: Yeah. I think that there are lots of other ways that we could find things that we like to read without it having to be categorized in that way. But like you're saying, you have to have something to hold onto, right? Like, you have to have something that gives you details about the book without spoiling anything.

So, I don't know. It's a tricky question. We can see if we've, we can see if we can figure out a solution by the end. That's a tall order, I doubt that we will.

Martha: Well, we could try.

Elizabeth: I will say as a, not a devil's advocate because I don't think that the devil is in this argument at all, because all reading is good and, however you find books is good. But as [00:14:00] a, a sort of argument against the idea that genres, do more, limiting than they do. Good. I looked at the research about this topic before this episode as is my way, and I found a couple of articles specifically about young people that I thought were really interesting.

And one article specifically was talking about how finding a genre that you love at a young age can have a big effect on your reading in the sense that, I mean, this seems obvious right, when you say it out loud, but, if you find something that you love reading when you're young, And that means that you read more.

And so you become a reader, which is something that if you're going to be a reader, quote unquote, as part of your identity and as something that you do often that is usually established by age nine to 11 according to the research. [00:15:00] And that has a huge effect on your academic success in many areas. And so finding a genre that you love as a kid is a really high predictor of educational success, which then, of course, in turn is a predictor of all sorts of other types of success.

Martha: I'm thinking about the books I read. At those ages and the two that stick out the most were the Chronicles of Narnia and His Dark Materials, the Philip Pullman trilogy, the Amber Spyglass, Subtle Knife, and Golden Compass. So those are both fantasy and fantasy is a, genre that I still really love and read a lot today.

So I can anecdotally relate to that and I'm interested to hear the research.

Elizabeth: Yeah. And that, it's interesting too to think about that with you because you have said before that [00:16:00] you sort of have never been a big reader and that you came to to reading later, right? Like that's something that we say even in our intro to this podcast.

But maybe it actually is that you just took a break until you found this format that works in your adult life.

Because if you were really into reading fantasy as a kid and you still like to read that, that makes me. Feel like the reading was actually there the whole time, but maybe it's just that as an adult you had to find your format.

Martha: I think it was there, but, I wasn't an avid reader. I wasn't what I would call a bookworm. I liked books, but it just wasn't my first choice of entertainment in the same way that it is now. So, yeah, maybe I don't give myself enough credit, but I think that it's just that I didn't read as much when I was a kid as I do now.

And there definitely was a break middle school through high school, I read the books I had to, and not for fun.

Elizabeth: Yeah.[00:17:00] Whereas for me I always have loved reading and I always have been a bookworm. And I started reading those classics that I always define myself as, like that being the type of thing that I read really early and, the type of books that we had to read in high school, I loved, I was that kid who was like explaining, great expectations to all the other kids so that they could write their papers about it.

Martha: That's awesome. There's a lesson. Start your kids reading the classics and then they'll be AP lit stars when they're in high school.

Elizabeth: right. Something else about that is, let your kids read whatever they want. I don't know. That could be a whole other 

Martha: That's a whole other episode. Yeah. 

Elizabeth: because I was reading classics when I was a kid that, in a lot of ways wasn't old enough for, but my brain just sort of glossed over the stuff that I didn't understand. It did me a lot more good than harm to read those I would say.

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: One of the articles that I read about research into the reading [00:18:00] of kids; what the research is trying to figure out is how do we get kids to be readers at that critical age of nine to 11? Right? So one of the key concepts that one of the articles talked about is called transportability, which is a trait in a story or a book that determines how likely the reader is to become involved in the story.

So other research calls this involvement or transportability different things. But basically it's that idea that they're looking for something to get kids involved in reading so that they wanna keep doing it. And as with all of this reading research, there are people in several different disciplines that are working on this.

And so the specific thing that they're interested in, Is different, which makes forming an overall picture of the literature in this area. a little bit tricky, but in the educational literature at least, it's very focused on [00:19:00] finding what are the things that get kids to read and keep them reading?

What are the motivations? and one of the intrinsic motivation factors is that involvement.

So this article on transportability, they were looking at types of stories to see if different types of stories, had a higher transportability than others. And basically what they found is that there was a gender difference. They found that for boys, transportability was, related to interest in mystery and scary stories.

And for girls in the study, was related to interest in stories about relationships and dating, survival in the wilderness and knights and wizards. So some sort of, you know, obviously socialized gender stuff there. But I thought it was interesting because it's like, okay, so if you know that you have a boy that you haven't been able to get into reading, it's possible if you try giving them, a scary story or a mystery story, they might get into it.

I just thought that that part was interesting when it came to genre and [00:20:00] that it might be the type of thing that, for that, purpose, genres are really useful because if you find a story that your kid loves, or if you're a teacher and, you have a reluctant reader, but you find a story or a book that a kid loves genre is great because then you can go and find all the other books that are similar to that in the same genre to give to

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: that kid. Right? So. It's only one study that found that, obviously it's not universal, but I do think that that idea of genres being useful in that way was something that I hadn't considered before and that I thought was definitely relevant. Especially if I was gonna say that genres, you know, shouldn't exist

Martha: Shouldn't exist 

Elizabeth: I felt like it was a good counterpoint. , I'm gonna argue with myself, right? Because I'm the one that said in the beginning that genre shouldn't exist. But it does create this shorthand that everyone is familiar with and on the same page about. 'cause the genres that you listed in the beginning, are really similar to the list of genres that I used for my research where I was [00:21:00] interviewing people about their leisure reading habits and.

That list I got from, various different, industry sources and also various different research studies of people who had done research into this area. And it's not like I found lists of genres that were completely different, right? We all have agreed on this, basic list of genres like science fiction, fantasy, romance, mystery, thriller.

 It's a common language and there is something to be said for that. 

I think. With your personal reading, do you feel like genres help you find books that you might be interested in? Or do you think that they limit you, do you feel like you see something and you're like, oh, that's in a genre that I don't usually read.

I think I might not read it or I might not like it.

Martha: I think both. I definitely think that it helps me find books that I will like to stick with genres I like. Good Reads helps with that a lot too. And they tend, to stick you in the same genre, as the book that you just read to give you [00:22:00] recommendations.

 I do think it can steer you away from books that you would like. Recently I went to my local bookstore and was just strolling through the aisles and didn't really have a book in mind that I wanted to buy, I was just browsing.

And so I went straight to the contemporary romance section and started looking at books. Whereas if I had gone into that bookstore thinking, oh yeah, I'm open to sci-fi. Let me peruse those books and see what looks good, then maybe I would've picked up a sci-fi book that I would've actually really liked.

Because like I said in the beginning, I've read sci-fi books that I do really enjoy, but it's not a genre that I seek out. And I don't know if that's because I've read sci-fi books I don't enjoy, or I just haven't read as many sci-fi books. So that's one way I think it can limit you, is you [00:23:00] close yourself off to those possibilities.

And I could have just as easily picked up a sci-fi book that just by the look of it. I thought I wanted to read, but I didn't even check that section. So I walked away with the Tessa Bailey book.

Elizabeth: Right. When you're physically browsing in a bookstore, that's the time that I feel like the, the sort of possibility that it's gonna hinder you from finding something that you might like is the highest, right? Because you're physically only looking in certain areas, 'cause all of the books are shelved in the same place.

Whereas even with something like an algorithm on good reads or on TikTok or whatever, It feels like there's more of a chance that you might sort of sideways move yourself into something else. Like it feels more fluid,

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: you know, navigating books that way. Whereas if you're physically only looking in one section, you're only gonna see those books. And I do wonder, I feel a similar way about sci-fi [00:24:00] because I don't read it as much, and there are so many books that even when I do go into the sci-fi section, with Alex, my husband, who is a huge sci-fi reader and will sometimes tell me about sci-fi books that sound really interesting and sound like I would like them, it sort of feels overwhelming because I feel like I'm not conversant with the genre.

Martha: like you don't speak the language you're not familiar with, with the sci-fi tropes, so to speak 

Elizabeth: Well, right. I was gonna say, it goes back to what you were saying about tropes, because I'm sure that there's indicators on the covers or in the descriptions about the tropes or the elements that might draw one person in

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: and maybe steer another one away. But I just am not familiar with those, and so I feel like maybe I don't pick up on it.

Martha: Yeah, so you're looking at these books and just, you have no clue, there's no indication of whether you would like it or not. Whereas if you're on [00:25:00] Goodreads or TikTok or something like that, people are talking about why they like the book, and then you get more of a clue about, oh, would I like this too or not?

Elizabeth: right. So I do wonder if just having no genres and having all the books out would just increase that feeling. Or if it would mean that we would then come up with different ways to talk about

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: why we liked a certain book or why we didn't, you know?

Martha: I think the latter would be what would happen.

Elizabeth: The other thing I will say about my experience of this question of, does it help or does it hinder, is that, again, as a librarian, I feel lucky that I get, to sort of come at these topics from both angles, right? Like my personal angle as a reader, but then as a librarian, it's totally different because being the person who manages, the leisure collection at my library, I have to choose books in all different genres because it's not just me that's using the collection, right?

So I can't just choose books that I like. And [00:26:00] so in library school we, learned about the principles of collection development and, ways to check yourself and make sure that you're buying books that are, 

Martha: diverse.

Elizabeth: Diverse and diverse in all sorts of different ways so that they are, representative of all of the books that are in that area and that all readers would like to read.

And so when I'm doing that, I do very regularly find books in genres that aren't my normal genre that I'm reading a description of it and I'm like, oh, that actually sounds really interesting. I'm gonna put this on my TBR because this isn't in a genre that I would ever think of, but because I'm looking for books in all of the genres for this collection, I'll find it.

And so, I feel like that does broaden, my actual reading, my personal reading so much that that is part of what makes me think that if we just didn't have these genres, people might read more widely, but maybe, if we as readers were just more intentional about looking at books in the other genres even

Martha: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And there would be a [00:27:00] learning curve of, you know, picking up on, the language, so to speak, of the genre. But once you did that, you could easily move between all of the genres and not limit yourself. 

Elizabeth: when we're talking about this, I think about my research study that I did where I was interviewing people about their reading, and whenever people talked about what genre they read, they would talk about their genre. Right. Or like my genres, it was very personal. It was almost like it was a part of their personality or a part

Martha: Or their identity. 

Elizabeth: Yeah. That they're a romance reader or they're a sci-fi reader. And, that's great. I certainly am not judging the way that anyone wants to talk about their personality or their identity, but I do wonder if , because we get so attached, to that being a part of who we are, that we limit ourselves.

Right? Going straight there in the bookstore, like you were saying and not even giving other things in other genres. A chance.

Martha: I am sure we do that, in a lot of ways, even outside [00:28:00] of just reading, what we identify with can certainly limit our experiences.

Elizabeth: The experience that we have. Yeah, for sure. Another thing related to that, is that I also think that part of this comes from other people's reactions to us. In terms of what we read, or at least what we think other people's reactions are.

So this is a big part of the romance thing, right? I don't do this anymore, but I used to be shy about telling people that I was reading romance, or even I would go so far as to say, embarrassed to tell people that I was reading romance, mostly because of what I thought I knew their reaction was going to be.

And sometimes it was that reaction, right? Like, oh, why are you reading that? You know, that's such a waste of time. Or , oh, the sort of guilty indulgence thing again. Don't you feel like you should be doing something better with your time? Being the implication. , especially with romance, I think there is that moralizing, shaming element, but I also think with other [00:29:00] genres, that there's some baggage that comes along with them.

 Have you ever felt that? 

What's been your experience with that?

Martha: Yes. I would say definitely, romance for sure. But for me personally, I've experienced that more with YA young adult. 'cause I'm in my thirties now and I still enjoy reading young adult novels, but I feel silly saying that, and we had a conversation about this recently, young adult doesn't necessarily mean it's for kids, it's young adults.

So even people in their twenties, these stories, you know, they're stories about young adult people and even if they were teenagers, I shouldn't feel weird about reading those stories. They're just books. Right. So yeah, I've definitely felt that when it comes to the young adult genre, and I'm trying to think of why, you know what, what does, where does that come from?

 I think for both young adult and romance, for me personally, it's [00:30:00] this connotation that they're not very smart. They're not smart books. So you're not a very smart person if that's what you enjoy reading.

Elizabeth: Yeah, I think that you hit the nail on the head with it. I think that that's why I limited myself, to , things that I thought were smart when I was younger because I wasn't as comfortable in my own skin or confident in my own intellect, right? I somehow felt that I had to, I mean, I didn't know I was doing this at the time, but looking back and, armchair psychologizing myself,

I feel like there was an element where , you think it says something about you, what you read, right? But that's all wrapped up in what society says about those books. It's not like you and I just came up with that on our own.

There is definitely shaming and, denigrating that happens about, some of these genres. And I think that the two that you pointed to specifically romance and [00:31:00] young adult are probably the two examples where it happens the most. And I don't think it's a coincidence that most of the readers for, those genres are women.

 I think that it is a very gendered 

Martha: most of the writers as well, I would think

Elizabeth: Yeah.

Martha: are women too. So interesting

Elizabeth: yeah. I mean I think that there is some very obvious social structures that are being perpetuated by making people that create and read that art feel lesser than

Right. I do think that there is this idea that, well, I'm just gonna say it.

I think that it's not just that, all genres other than romance and young adult are intellectual or make you smart. I think it's specifically literary fiction and, classics we pulled out as a separate category. But I think that literary fiction and classics to me feel like they're sort of the same category.

Even though that's a little ironic [00:32:00] when you look at some of the classics and how they were thought of in their contemporary day

Martha: Right.

Elizabeth: Because they're old and because they've achieved a certain. Level of, literary criticism in academia, they get lumped into literary fiction,

Martha: they stood the test of time

Elizabeth: right. I think that it's that genre specifically that the people who write that, the people who read it, and even people who don't write or read it, but just talk about books, think that somehow that genre is better than other genres. That it's smarter, that the writers are more accomplished.

 Those are the books that win all the prizes, right? Those are the books that get reviewed in the New York Review of books in the New York Times, in, all of the places that are sort of the high social cache places. Right? And so I do think that it's worth talking about that genre specifically because 

I wonder where that came from. I enjoy literary fiction, but I think [00:33:00] that it is a genre, just like all the others. It has its tropes, it has its commonalities. Literary fiction, at least the literary fiction that I've read, is basically not allowed to have a happy ending.

Martha: Right?

Elizabeth: You know? And if you think of romance as like has to have a happy ending, basically either a happily ever after or a happily for now, is the way that they talk about it in romance. And that that's just a part of the genre. And that's one of the things that people point to as the reason that they think that it's lesser than because it's predictable.

Literary fiction is just as predictable. But on the flip side, you know, That it's not gonna have a happy ending. How unhappy it is.

Martha: right.

Elizabeth: Maybe you don't know. Right? Like you don't know if it's gonna end in tragedy or if it's just gonna end in a sort of ambivalent, quiet despair,

Martha: Where you're questioning what happens after. Yeah. So exactly 

Elizabeth: just as predictable. 

Martha: right. [00:34:00] Exactly What you're describing is a big part of the premise of Beach Read by Emily Henry. So I don't wanna give away too much, but the two main characters are both authors of different genres, and they make a bet and they swap genres for their next book to see if the other person can do it.

And so Emily Henry describes this whole debate throughout the book of why the perception of the female character's writing and what she feels like people think of her because she writes those kind of books and vice versa. And so, Yeah, highly recommend that book. If you're interested in this topic, definitely read that book by Emily Henry Beach Read, and you need to read it, Liz.

Elizabeth: I need to read it. Yes. I'm making a mental note right now. That's so great. That makes me love her even more. because we're not the first [00:35:00] people, that have identified this. Right. I mean, women who are writing romance get this constantly , Emily Henry is a great example of a romance writer who is, I mean, her books are whip smart.

Her characters are so smart. It is hard to write dialogue like that. And another characteristic that people talk about in literary fiction that they think makes it superior is the language, right? The author pays more attention to the language. The description is gonna be lusher, the language is going to be, more considered, but it actually takes a lot of skill to make your language in a book be background enough that it doesn't distract the reader and that the reader isn't focusing on what you're saying. They're focusing on the

Martha: Mm-hmm. 

Elizabeth: right? In literary fiction, you actually want the reader to be distracted by the words, you want them , to pay attention to the beauty of the language. But again, [00:36:00] it's just the opposite. The same thing, but the opposite of. These other genres that are denigrated as being lesser than they all take skill to do. I just love that idea. Like, I wonder if a, if a writer of literary fiction could write

Martha: A good romance 

Elizabeth: Compelling page Turner? Yeah.

Martha: Well, I haven't read any of Curtis Sittenfeld's other books, but I feel like she's a good example of that because Romantic Comedy was kind of her first romance novel. Right? And she pulled it off.

If we can even call it a romance novel. But she pulled it off and similar to Emily Henry, it was whip smart. 

Elizabeth: It was so smart. God, it was so smart. I don't know if I would call Romantic Comedy a romance. Honestly. I think that it might

Martha: women's fiction.

Elizabeth: side of women's fiction because the woman is the only point of view. A lot of times in romance you get the point of view of both characters

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: I mean the other character could be woman too, but you know what I mean.

 In Romantic [00:37:00] Comedy, the couple is heterosexual, and so you only get one p o v. And also the POV character is the only one that changes throughout the book and she does change. That's something else, that often is talked about as differentiating between romance and women's fiction or literary fiction is that in literary fiction, in women's fiction, the main character has an arc of change from the beginning to the end, 

Martha: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: Right?

Like that there's this deeper level, where the character changes from the beginning to end. And that often in romance that's not the case, that the main driver of the story isn't the characters changing, it's whether or not the characters are gonna get together and how. 

Martha: Yeah.

Elizabeth: But as we talked about at the beginning, that is not always the case

Martha: Yeah, I'm thinking about all the romance novels I've read recently. I'm like, that's such a big generalization. 'cause pretty much every one I can think of, the main characters change

Elizabeth: yeah, well,

Martha: have an arc they change Yeah. That's the problem with genres.

Elizabeth: Yeah, that's the [00:38:00] problem with genres. It's exactly what we've been talking about

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: is that there's so much crossover. But I mean, that's the conventional wisdom. Right. And Curtis Sittenfeld, before she wrote Romantic Comedy, I wouldn't say that the books that she was writing were literary fiction.

I don't think that she would categorize them that way either. They were more what people often call general fiction or commercial fiction, and not even maybe commercial fiction. It's hard to, it's actually hard to categorize her, which might be why she is so great and why I like her so much.

But the reason I was hesitating about Romantic Comedy being the first romance she wrote is because she did a retelling of Pride and Prejudice called Eligible that I really, really loved and that you should read, Martha. Everyone should read 

Martha: I need to put that on my list.

Elizabeth: It is so great. It's a contemporary retelling set in Ohio.

And I don't usually love Jane Austen retellings because I love actual Jane Austen so much that I always get frustrated because none of the contemporary retellings ever do her justice. But I actually think that this one did [00:39:00] because Sittenfeld is just such a great writer. So yeah, you should read that.

But I would say that her writing is really varied. It's hard to put her in a box. I feel like she doesn't write in one genre or another. Okay. Sorry, that got us off on a tangent a little bit, but something that I, something that I did wanna talk about about literary fiction is that I wonder a little bit if part of the narrative around literary fiction being better does actually also come from academic research.

Because I knew from my research into leisure reading that there was some academic research that linked. Reading literary fiction specifically with some benefits. And so I went into my academic databases to see if I could, find what that was. And I didn't do a like extremely thorough search, but this is what I came up with.

 In the early two thousands, there were some researchers in psychology that linked reading [00:40:00] fiction with empathy essentially. The concept that they talked about is called theory of mind in psychology. But basically it is the adult version of what we were just talking about in kids. Like you get involved in the story and you end up feeling like you are experiencing the story.

And then after they would have people read fiction like that, they would give them this test that tested their empathy for other people. The test that they gave people, was they had them look at, I wanna say 36 pictures of someone else's eyes. 

Just the eyes of photos of people and then had them intuit, their mental and emotional state, just from their eyes.

So that is really interesting and it possibly could show if people are empathetic, but it also is a very specific, it's a very [00:41:00] specific thing, right? It's one test that could show you that. And it's good for a research study because you're having people do a very specific thing.

You're having everyone do the same thing so that you can compare. But it just feels a little bit like a stretch to me to say, oh, because people could read the. Emotional state of these eyes that we gave them, that means that that fiction increases empathy, but whatever that is the find, that's the finding that they came up with.

 They first published it in 2006 and then they replicated the study in 2009, and then after that study, other researchers came along and, were also trying to replicate that because it was a pretty big finding. and then there was one group of researchers, specifically in 2013 that did a study that said, okay, it's not just fiction, it's actually specifically literary fiction that does this and in their study, they compared, results from this same empathy test where they looked at the eyes,[00:42:00] between people who read literary fiction and then people who read other types of popular fiction and people who read, nonfiction.

And then of course they had a control group of people who didn't read at all. that to me feels like the crux of where some of this comes from. I mean, I think this idea of literary fiction being better is much older than 2013.

That headline of reading, literary fiction, increasing empathy is something that I hear a lot when I hear people talking about reading, on podcasts or in articles that I'm reading or just on, the internet, talking about reading. I feel like that gets that headline, that one liner that reading literary fiction increases, empathy gets talked about a lot.

And it,

Martha: yeah.

Elizabeth: it's just a little bit, I don't know, when you actually look at the study, I wonder about making such a broad generalization.

But then there were other researchers that came along within a couple years of that 2013 study being done that have disputed it [00:43:00] completely and have said that , we did this study and we didn't find that literary fiction, specifically did this.

It's just fiction in general versus nonfiction. And also we had some problems with this study in 2013. and then there also was an article I found that, had similar results that were genre specific, but they were in other genres, not in literary fiction

Martha: Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Elizabeth: which problematizes it even more

Martha: Yeah. Even further 

Elizabeth: So that was also in 2013 and they called it interpersonal sensitivity.

And so at first I thought that they were actually testing something else, but then when I looked at the details of the study, they were using this same eyeball test. They just called it interpersonal sensitivity. Instead of calling it empathy, which I also think is a little tricky, right? Like it's sort of, if you're not looking closely at the research, you could think that it does all of these different things when actually they're all using the same test.

So whatever you think that that test where people look at people's eyes is doing, [00:44:00] that's what they're testing. But this study in 2013 found that the effects of four genres specifically positively affected what they're calling interpersonal sensitivity. But using this same test, domestic fiction, romance, science fiction, fantasy and suspense thriller,

Martha: hm.

Elizabeth: no literary fiction to be found.

So, that's not to say that we should just discount all these results completely, right? Because this is science, this is how science works, researchers do a study, they find something and then other people try to replicate it and either they do replicate it and so then that becomes even more established.

But that still doesn't mean that it's a hundred percent true. It evolves over time and the things that stand the test of time then become conventional wisdom. But it's sort of a scattershot because like one study does not make

Martha: Truth.

Elizabeth: conventional wisdom or knowledge,

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: So we have to be really careful and I mean, it's even a good reminder for me to [00:45:00] be really careful when we're having these conversations that just because one study found something doesn't mean that that 

Martha: Right, right. 

Elizabeth: the final word on the subject. ,

Martha: All reading is good reading. I feel like that's just what we need to cling 

Elizabeth: yeah. Well, 

Martha: to, right?

Elizabeth: That's just our thesis statement of this podcast, I think. But I think specifically when it comes to this psychology research, I would say that. In looking at all these studies, I think , that reading fiction increases your ability to, whatever you wanna call it, right? But to put yourself in someone else's shoes, so to speak, enough that you could intuit what their emotional state is from their face

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: and whether you wanna call that empathy, whether you wanna call it sensitivity, whether you wanna call it theory of mind.

It does have a social benefit in addition to all of the academic and educational benefits that, the research and education is interested in. So I think that that is important, and I don't wanna throw that baby out with [00:46:00] the bath water. I just think that defining it specifically by genre is problematic and is not, from what I can see, isn't really actually supported by the whole body of research.

Martha: Interesting.

Elizabeth: Something that the studies did talk about when they were talking about this eye test, to acknowledge that they were talking about neurotypical people, right? Is that they, specifically would, use the eye test with people who were diagnosed with autism or Asperger's. Or, similar neuro divergences that make it so that you don't have the ability as much to interpret or to intuit what other people are

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: thinking or feeling because your brain works differently than other people's.

So all of the studies actually that use this eye test did talk about the fact that it was. Tested on people who had those neurodivergences and they did perform more poorly on it than people who are neurotypical. And that they talked about [00:47:00] that as being a way that they knew that the test was functioning the way it was supposed to, basically, because they would expect people to do poorly on it who have those different neuro divergences,

Martha: like another level of control, so to speak. 

Elizabeth: A control for the test, yeah. 

I also resent genres as a writer.

Martha: Yeah.

Elizabeth: I know that we've talked a little bit on other episodes about how I come at these topics as a writer and. Just because of what we were saying, that books generally don't actually neatly fit into one of these genres. But when you as a writer are querying a book to agents to try to get an agent to represent you, and then when the agent is then pitching the book to publishers to try to get them to buy the book, you have to tell them what genre it fits in, where you want it on the bookshelf in the bookstore. And it's so rigid

Martha: Yeah. You're putting yourself in a [00:48:00] box.

Elizabeth: yeah, and you have to, right. So like that's how I've had to make my peace with the label women's fiction, because that is what I write. I write books where women are the main characters and they are going on a journey of growth, internal growth.  And there's often a romantic relationship, but that's not the main.

Martha: Focus. 

Elizabeth: not the main, focus , of the internal plot. The internal plot is the, is the main characters, development as a person. And that just is women's fiction. There's no getting away from it.

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: I used to want to try to write literary fiction again because I thought that that was like the only good genre to write, but as I have actually written manuscripts, when I look at them, I'm like, okay, this is one thing. And I have to say that it, that it is that, but, they also feel to me so much richer than that because I know that I'm also putting other elements into them.

In the second manuscript that I [00:49:00] wrote, I had a mystery woven throughout, but I can't call it women's fiction slash mystery, like it has to be one or the other

Martha: Well, I was just thinking as you were talking that the interesting thing about genres is if a book was exactly what you described, a female character going on a journey with this arc of development, that's women's fiction. But if you add a dragon element to it, then it's a fantasy, right? I mean, 

Elizabeth: Oh, that's really interesting. 

Martha: probably have multiple labels if you looked it up on Goodreads. But in general, if there was, if this woman was a Dragon trainer, in a land that wasn't what we know of as planet Earth, it would a hundred percent be fantasy, even if it ticked all the other boxes of women's fiction.

Elizabeth: you know, that's really interesting. I think that is the case for [00:50:00] science fiction, but it's not the case for other things. So when I just said that in the last manuscript I wrote, I had a mystery. Having a mystery in a book doesn't make it a mystery in the same way that my book now has a romance in it, but it doesn't have all the elements that readers who read romance look for in a romance.

So like, just because it has a romance in it that doesn't make it a romance. But I do think that if it had a dragon in it, it would be called fantasy for sure. Right. So that is an interesting thing to think about as well. Like 

Martha: maybe I'm diluting the fantasy genre too much to just make that claim, but you know, that's where my brain went. A specific book in my head, that's fantasy. I'm thinking of as you're describing women's fiction. It ticks all those boxes except the fantasy element.

Elizabeth: Well, yeah, I mean, because we're doing shorthand, right? It doesn't have to just be a dragon, but if there is a book where it is, you know, a single character point of view, and it's a woman, and she has a growth arc, [00:51:00] but there's an element of magic in it, or it takes place on another planet or whatever. Those things would trump

Martha: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: Right? It's not scientific.

Martha: No, 

Elizabeth: It's definitely not scientific or, I mean it's subjective. Which is the thing that I think that I'm sort of railing against. As a writer, this is something that is a constant frustration to me because, when you're trying to get into the industry from that side, the publishing industry, from that side of things, you're constantly running up against these things that you feel like should be objective, but they actually are completely subjective and there's just nothing that you can do about it.

This is the corporate culture of book publishing. And it's also frustrating as a reader, but that frustration is a different experience of frustration.

Martha: Yeah, two different perspectives.

Elizabeth: yeah. maybe it's helpful as a writer too, because it probably helps to, sell the book when the time comes. I haven't gotten there yet, so I wouldn't know. 

But yeah, I don't know. I do wonder if in some [00:52:00] future utopian society where we just had books organized in some other way, if it would work better. Like the way that libraries organize books is by subject generally. Public libraries use the Dewey Decimal system.

Academic libraries in the US at least use the Library of Congress. So it's by subject, which is much easier to do with nonfiction than it is with fiction.

Martha: Right, because I was gonna say, like that book that we were describing, that doesn't really exist. How would you, what would the subject be?

Elizabeth: Yeah,

Martha: Dragons magic.

Elizabeth: well in Library of Congress, which is the one I'm the most familiar with, 'cause that's what my library uses, you would have multiple subject headings. You would have fantasy dash, dash dragons and you would have, you know, women's fiction or domestic fiction or whatever , there would be different tags for a lack of a better term that you could use. I think that it makes a lot more sense to me and that I think it would work a lot better in a digital environment because you could [00:53:00] see yourself clicking on various tags and being like, I want a book that has all these tags and I don't care what genre it's in.

 Just show me all the books that fit these filters or these tags, and that would be awesome. And that's essentially what some of the websites already do. I don't know if you've ever seen that NPR book, curator tool that they always put out at the

Martha: Mm-hmm. 

Elizabeth: end of the year 

Martha: No, I haven't

Elizabeth: Oh my God, oh my god, Martha, I'll send it to you this year when they put it out.

I spend just hours and hours and hours playing with it. But it's essentially a very well designed, very well coded version of what I was just describing. I think in a digital world that works really well. I still don't have a solution for the physical world though, because the book can only be in one place On the shelf. So there has to be one central organizing principle, whether it's a genre or whether it's author last name, or whether it's main subject. You know?

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: I don't know.

Martha: Okay.

Elizabeth: As usual we haven't solved the problem.

Martha: Okay. So to wrap up this conversation, I have a [00:54:00] question for you, Liz. We kind of alluded to it earlier in our conversation now that we've talked about genres in depth. If you were the one running the world, should genres stay or should they go?

Elizabeth: Oh God. Putting me in the hot seat. I think that if I'm answering that question right now, today, I would say that they should stay because I don't have an answer for bookstores or libraries for where they put books. I think that if we get to a world where we're only finding books digitally, they definitely should go 'cause they aren't, they're not serving as much of a purpose, I don't think so. As usual I am contradicting what I said in the beginning.

Martha: That's good. That means, you know, it's not just confirmation bias. 

Elizabeth: Stay or go.

Martha: I think that [00:55:00] genres would stay however we should approach them differently. Any shame or guilt around the genres that we read should go away completely. And we should challenge ourselves to read books from genres that we wouldn't normally gravitate towards.

And actually, that might be a goal of mine for 2024, is to add books from different genres into my TBR list and read a few a year.

Elizabeth: I love it. I love that. Yeah. I think as always, our thesis is all reading is good,

Martha: Mm-hmm.

Elizabeth: so just read what you want. But also, yeah, the idea of broadening your horizons is always a good thing too.

Martha: Yep. So whatever genre you're reading, just read on my friends. 

Elizabeth: Alright. Stay tuned for more episodes about bookish topics. Find us wherever you get your podcasts and make sure to subscribe.[00:56:00]