FICTION CONTINUES ITS RISE AS READERS’ GO-TO GENRE
By Carol Memmott and Anthony DeBarros
Fiction — led by Kathyrn Stockett’s The Help as the year’s No. 1 seller — was 2011’s go-to genre for the majority of book readers, analysis of data from USA TODAY’s Best-Selling Books list shows.
Choosing novels over non-fiction is a long-term trend; fiction has climbed from 67% of the titles in USA TODAY’s weekly top 150 in 2007 to 78% last year.
And the reason the retiree sitting in the beach chair next to yours and the businesswoman relaxing in the airport lounge are reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo? We’re craving that “Calgon, take me away” moment.
“People are interested in escape,” says Carol Fitzgerald of the Book Report Network, websites for book discussions. “In a number of pages, the story will open, evolve and close, and a lot of what’s going on in the world today is not like that. You’ve got this encapsulated escape that you can enjoy.”