My Genres

I love the gothic fiction genre. Short story writers such as Joyce Carol Oates, Flannery O' Connor and Shirley Jackson get my blood flowing and heart moving, making their works the true "page-turners" of literature for me. Also, works such as Bram Stoker's "Dracula," Oscar Wilde's "The Portrait of Dorian Gray" and Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde" capture the essence of what truly makes us, as human beings, afraid. It is this emotion that intrigues me the most, because we all fear something and these works of fiction play into our emotions and hit that nerve that resides deep within us all. But of all the gothic fiction writers, there is none so skilled and masterful as the father of horror himself, Edgar Allan Poe. Some of my favorite short stories of his are "The Black Cat," "The Tell-tale Heart" and "The Masque of the Red Death."



Another genre I really enjoy is surrealism and magic realism in Spanish Literature. A few of my favorite authors that represent the best of the magic realism front are Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende and Laura Esquivel. I love Gabriel García Márquez's short stories, one of my favorite being "Un Señor Muy Viejo Con Unas Alas Enormes" (A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings) and my favorite novel of his being "Crónica de una muerte anunciada" (Chronicle of a Death Foretold). But, of all the Spanish literature I have read, my favorite writer would have to be Horacio Quiroga who is the Latin American equivalent of Edgar Allan Poe. My two favorite works of his are "El almohadón de pluma" (The Feather Pillow) and "El hombre muerto" (The Dead Man).




One of my dreams is to travel the world and experience as many different cultures as I can. So, while I am monetarily impaired due to being a poor college student, a good way to get my culture fix is to read culturally rich novels. Some of my favorite novels are "Joys of Motherhood" by Buchi Emecheta, "Waiting" among many of his short stories by Ha Jin, "River Sutra" by Gita Mehta, and "A Thousand Spledid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini. But, of all the novels I've read from a different cultural perspective, "Sister of My Heart" by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni has been my favorite. It depicts the lives of two girls who live in a time period of change, but in a culture of stagnant traditional values. Really, any literature that makes you look differently at the world and gives you an opportunity to see life from another's point of view is a really eye-opening experience that is worth reading.



The last genre I enjoy is Pop fiction. If someone tells me about a great new book they read that just came out, sure I'll give it a try; and I've read quite a few good ones that way. I love reading anything Dan Brown writes like "The DaVinci Code" and "Digital Fortress." I also loved Philip Pullman's "Dark Materials" series. I've found that with a lot of pop fiction, most of the time there is some sort of romance. Some of my favorite romantic novels are "Scribbler of Dreams" by Mary E. Pearson and "Bridges of Madison County" by James Waller. But as most of you know, the most popular romantic series sweeping the nation at the moment is the "Twilight" series. And yes, I am a "Twilighter" - but to the most lenient sense of the word. No, I don't have Edward Cullen posters invading my bedroom and no, I don't have "Twilight" screensavers. I just appreciate the books as a great mixture of fantasy and romance.

So, there you have it. That's my reading style in a nut shell. =)