My fav!

I’m not in your league. Right now I am reading, A Body To Die For by Kate White (murder with a smart, sharp-tongued woman to help solve the crime); Imperium by Robert Harris (a trilogy about Cicero, fascinating); Henry V (a bio by Dan Jones).

I love mysteries because they have a solid ending. I like solutions. Hate unresolved conflicts and non-endings). One of my favorite books is The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey.

Books like The Shell Seekers.
Also classics like Austen and Dickens.

Also like big thick long readers

My dad said I was the only kid he knew that would go crazy over a non-fiction historical or reference book. He added to my library 2x a year up until he passed away when I was 28.

I want to experience better worlds vicariously

My cousin has a historical-fiction coming out in November. I'll enjoy that.

Definitely that era, but some people don't like satire, although Flashy is far from just satire.

-- Mal

The Flashman series purports to be the publication of discovered memoirs of Harry Flashman, the villain of Tom Brown's School Days. He is a liar, a coward, a cheat, a rogue, and a womanizer, who somehow managed to achieve great fame as a military officer in some of the greatest disasters of the Victorian period. His awards include a KCB, a VC, the US Medal of Honor, and numerous other decorations; he rose to the rank of Brigadier General. The books are hilarious, satirical, and yet deeply honor the others whom Flashman swindles, betrays, and abandons, all the while reaping undeserved laurels. They are written in the first person, and include extensive footnotes of the sources Fraser consulted to write the story. Withal, they're not everyone's cup of tea. Few persons of stature escape the satirical pen of the author, although Fraser does paint the common soldiers in an attractive light (having been one himself, he probably sympathized with them).

His WW2 memoir, Quartered Safe Out of Here, is an excellent account of the little-remembered Burma Campaign, and his short stories of Private MacAuslan, the "Dirtiest Soldier in the World," are quasi-memoirs of his own time as a junior officer in the post-WW2 Empire.

My favorite author, but again, there are many who don't like his style. He freely uses words that are now considered unfashionable, since he writes as a Victorian gentleman who never worried about such things. Thus, he is accused of racism, which is inaccurate; in fact, he is just about the opposite. But his most controversial book, Black Ajax, about the great heavyweight boxer Tom Molyneux, is criticized because it accurately portrays the racist attitudes of Britain in the early 19th century.

-- Mal

The best book of historical fiction I've ever read is "Trinity" by Leon Uris.

Been reading it all my life. As to fiction, sci-fi, mystery, and some historical fiction (George MacDonald Fraser is my favorite author). I consider Stephenson's Baroque Cycle (including Cryptonomicon ) to be one of the best "books" of the 21st century (if we consider a trilogy and a companion novel a "book" ).

Favorite authors include the aforesaid Fraser and Stephenson, Glen Cook, Robert Heinlein, Terry Pratchett, John D. MacDonald, Roger Zelazny, and Lois McMaster Bujold, on the fiction side. Make of that what you will.

-- Mal

There's something so compelling in them to me

Oregon native here, started with Ann Rule's "Small Sacrifices", then her "Stranger Beside Me". I have all of her books, some of them signed.

Biographies, Children's literature, True Crime, Thriller and Horror.

I love a good series! Even if the plot is different in each book, I like being with familiar characters and locations. Also I hate reading them out of order if the storyline is continuous; I always feel that I am missing information if I read out of order . Sometimes I get locked into a series and don't surface until I have finished them all.

having said that:
espionage fiction
archaeological adventure (I have several good authors in that genre)
Mysteries; light or heavy
Supernatural especially if setting is New Orleans
historical fiction
Setting in Florida especially South Florida
Fantasy sometimes
anything by Carl Hiaasen.

I do not read Sci-Fi, Westerns, romance, and rarely read non fiction - I read to escape

Also like Grisham a lot.

But I guess mysteries win. My favorite is the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters.

and perhaps to introduce to some of you, one of the greatest scifi/mystery writers of the 20th century...

Master of the short-short, a remarkable output guaranteeing months of reading pleasure..

Fredric Brown

known for:

The Screaming Mimi
Martians Go Home

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fredric_Brown_bibliography

Some mystery, action, and comedy too.
But I've been reading 3 to 33 book series on my Kindle for 5-6 yrs. Thousands and thousands of books. I usually read a 300 page book in a day or less, and my Kindle keeps track of the days I don't turn it on (less than a week total in that time.)

I'd seen Twilight Zone, atomic monster movies, then Outer Limits somewhen from 7 yrs old onwards- so one day I saw a SF novel on my dad's side of the bureau maybe when I was ?9, or 10. He said yes.
I didn't understand it all, but I was hooked, and never looked back! 😄

Some of the best World & Galactic Civilization Building along with Great Characters both human and other sapients goes to David Brin's Uplift Universe.

Simak, Clarke, Asimov. Some of Harlen Ellison's Anothologies. Connie Willis.

In Non Fiction I've read some History, Science, Politics.

On rare occasion other kinds of fiction.

Fiction: Mystery

I'm working.

Second place is science fiction. I’m a nerd at heart lol.

and articles.
I read sci-fi and history, also.

Tikki