Another Thursday is upon us, and that means it is time for yet another Booking Through Thursday prompt. What will it be this week, you ask? Here you go…Prompt: God* comes to you and tells you that, from this day forward, you may only read ONE type of book—one genre—period, but you get to choose what it is. Classics, Science Fiction, Mystery, Romance, Cookbooks, History, Business … you can choose, but you only get ONE. What genre do you pick, and why?
(*Whether you believe in God or not, pretend for the purposes of this discussion that He is real.)
I think that my response would be—surprise surprise—HORROR. Why, you say? First of all, because I enjoy it immensely. There is nothing better than a good scare. Second because it is, as I have argued over and over again in papers during my undergrad and grad careers, a genre that deals with topical social issues and is a genre that both reflects and reacts to social change. You want to understand what made up urban American anxiety in the late 1960s, read Rosemary’s Baby, or the mid-1970s? Read The Shining. Or even in 2010? Read Under the Dome or Horns. Third, “Horror” is such a wide net to cast as a genre that I would get all kinds of books! The Genre Masters: Stephen King, Ira Levin, Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, Joe Hill, Ramsey Campbell, H.P. Lovecraft. The more literary: Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Henry James, Edgar Allan Poe. The lesser-knowns: James Herbert, Charles Grant, F. Paul Wilson, Graham Masterton. The Science Fictioners: Ray Bradbury, Robert A. Heinlein, Jack Finney, Harlan Ellison. The Non-Fictioners: Wade Davis, Jay Anson. Pop Fiction, Haute Littérature, Pulp Fiction, Allegory, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly … it’s all there under the horror umbrella. So, yeah, I’d tell God I want to read horror from this day forward.
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