Find a Book from a New Genre for January Challenge

What’s Inside: I have to find a book from a new genre for the January book Challenge. I will look at 23 genres and list my favorite living books from them in order to find the genre I am least familiar with. Get ideas for books for YOUR TBR shelf from this list!

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New Genre Challenge

The book challenge for January 2025: Find a new genre to read a book from. Tricky. If you have been reading for many year, you may find it difficult to even find a new genre, much less a book from within it. Follow along with my struggle because I make some great recommendations of living books.

Favorite Living Books in these book subgenres: Fiction

Drama

This is hard to pick a favorite. I’ve read extensively (for an engineer) in the Drama category and I even minored in it at an engineering institute. If I had to pick a favorite Shakespeare, it would be A Midsummer’s Night Dream, even though everyone in the world ranks Hamlet as the best play ever. If I had to pick a non-Shakespeare, it would probably be The Importance of Being Earnest because I like Wilde’s humor.

Fable

While I am particularly fond of Aesop’s Fables, I think my current favorite was a recent read called The Richest Man in Babylon. I think it’s a fable. It has economic lessons conveyed through parables.

Fairy Tale

Fairy tales are an odd category for me. There are so many delightfully illustrated children’s classics, yet often the original folk story was horribly violent.

For instance, which version of Little Red Riding Hood do you prefer? The one where she is eaten? Or the one where she is saved by being cut out of the wolf belly? Most of the ones today have Red saved in the end, like James Marshall’s version or Jerry Pickney’s version. If you want to have fun with this category, get all the versions your can find in the library of a very familiar fairy tale and read them all!

I usually prefer the humorous fairy tale that is a clever twist on the original story. We read a very fun series as a family read aloud called the Sisters Grimm who are descendants of the Brothers Grimm and find out that Grimms’ Fairy Tales were actually written as a history book.

I think my favorite modern fairy tale is The Princess Bride.

Fantasy

I’ve read a lot of fantasy to try to keep up with some of the books my son likes, but my all-time favorite fantasy book series has to be The Chronicles of Narnia. I usually prefer the unabridged version in the original written order, but we have a nice set of dramatized audio CDs that make a good car trip re-listen to.

Fiction

I am not sure why this is a separate category from all the other fiction. I guess it is a catch-all for everything that doesn’t fit.

With that in mind, I’ll say my favorite fiction book is Pride and Prejudice if that falls into this category.

Fiction in Verse

This may be my genre where I haven’t read much in. Probably because it is not my favorite category. I think of Milton.

I found a list that I might like to try, though, with some intriguing recommendations called 6 Favorite Novels in Verse at Everyday Reading.

I think I have read Sharon Creech’s Love that Dog, but I might want to read Shakespeare Bats Cleanup because I enjoy Shakespeare, or maybe Linda Sue Park’s The One Thing You’d Save because I enjoy reading her regular novels.

I’m still learning how to read and enjoy verse (other than Shakespeare) but I think I can handle a children’s book in this genre.

We’ll see if they count as living books.

Folklore

Not exactly sure what this is. Maybe Johnny Appleseed? Not sure it is a separate category. How is it different from Tall Tales? Unless hyperbole is lacking. Or Fairy Tales? Unless is is country specific?

Big question mark in my mind. If I figure out what is in this category, I feel confident that I’ve already read something from it.

Historical Fiction

A total favorite. I have so many favorites within this category. It’s hard to narrow down. Classics like A Tale of Two Cities or A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court are two big titles I can think of off hand. Gone with the Wind technically counts in this category. I’ve recently been reading some YA historical fiction by Michael Morpurgo that is really fun. Like Kensuke’s Kingdom.

Horror

Not my favorite category. I do not like being scared or dreading what will happen. Frankenstein is, of course, the classic Horror book.

Humor

I totally love the humor genre. Classic humorists for me include Oscar Wilde, P.G. Wodehouse, and Mark Twain. I also enjoy satirists like Kurt Vonnegut. For nature and travel commentary, Bill Bryson makes me laugh. And I always laugh at Dave Barry. Some of these may not be classic living book writers.

Take my opinions with a grain of salt and pre-screen any modern books your kids read. Remember the rule: it has to work for your family.

Legend

Note sure what the legend category is. Books about the Flying Dutchman? Or King Arthur?

Mystery

This is a well defined category with authors like Agatha Christie, P.D. James, and Dashiell Hammett. I do like the Thin Man series (warning: lots of drinking in that book!) And for borderline pulp fiction, I always enjoyed “The Cat Who” series by Lilian Jackson Braun.

Mythology

Does this include Star Wars?

Poetry

So much to say about Poetry, for a person who didn’t enjoy the genre. Start with children’s picture book poetry if you think you don’t like the genre. I loved The Village Blacksmith  or Emily Dickinson: Poetry for Kids or From a Railway Carriage. But I can’t quite graduate into a poetry book with no illustrations!

Realistic Fiction

Stories that can actually happen. Like Hatchet (warning: even though it’s a story about a kid surviving in the wilderness, it’s really a story about divorce). Or Because of Winn Dixie. Or even my favorite, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Science Fiction

I’ve read a lot of science fiction. It’s hard to say what my favorite is. I like the stories that have a lot of real science in them as opposed to just ideas that might be possible. One of my favorite series in the YA category is the Simon Bloom books, like Gravity Keeper. Super clever because they toy around with real science laws here on earth, as opposed to just sending you off to another galaxy where anything goes.

Short Story

I confess: I am not a big fan of short stories. The character and plot development happen so fast that I think it is much harder for an author to be great at it. Few achieve it.

If Washington Irving’s Rip Van Winkle counts as a short story, then that may be my favorite. But I feel like it is pretty long for a short story. I think the best short stories are probably horrible in their endings, like The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, so maybe that’s why I don’t like them!

I prefer hope and redemption at the end of a story. Or at least a good moral lesson.

Tall Tale

There are some fabulous Tall Tale picture books for children. Like Paul Bunyan or Johnny Appleseed. I like the ones illustrated by Steve Kellogg.

I’m including my Bookshop.org Bookshelf here in case you like to support local bookstores. But check out any book from the library first to see if it’s a keeper!

Non-Fiction sub-Genres

Biography/Autobiography

Again, there are so many great biographies to choose from! Sometimes I find the more obscure the person, the more interesting the biography. I mean, George Washington has how many biographies written about him? They can’t all be great. Genevieve Foster wrote some good biographies for young readers.

My sons took a biography class in 9^th grade English with The Ron Paul Curriculum  (you can read one son’s review here). They looked at what made a good biography and what didn’t. Interestingly, Mark Twain’s autobiography was on the “it stinks” list. He is a great author and satirist, but rambled crazily in his autobiography – so it didn’t make a good story. See their complete list of biographies that they read in 9^th grade in the Living Books Read in High School list my son compiled.

Essay

Essays are a tricky category. Everyone has read essays at some point. But do any stand out? They are very useful for studying historical accounts. Can’t say that I have a favorite off hand. Many are worth reading. Like Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal. Some can be quite long. They feel like short stories, except that they are non-fiction.

Narrative Non-fiction

Black Hawk Down (warning: graphic war violence and language) is narrative non-fiction. Technically so is The Blind Side, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (warning: a disturbing story in many ways), and The Boys in the Boat. I’ve only read the last 2 books, where I went straight to the movie version of the of the first two. Great stories! Even though they are non-fiction. I actually like this genre quite a bit IF there is a great story teller doing the writing.

Nonfiction

I think you have to mention Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank in this category. Democracy in America is pretty good too. This category is way to broad to have a favorite! I think this is a broad catch-all category.

Speech

Sometimes great speeches have great picture books with their words. I remember reading a bunch of them to my kids when they were little after we went to the library. But I can’t seem to find any of the titles I remember. I’ll work on it and get back to you!

Enough Genres?

There you have it. That’s quite a lot of information, but you should now have enough to select a genre that is mostly new to you for a free reading book in the January Book challenge.

Keep on Learning

Download the Book Challenge Log & Tracker

Don’t forget to download your free copy of the Book Challenge 2025 if you haven’t already. It’s a book challenge for free reading time with your whole family. Enjoy!

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