Hi Roze, I'm wondering whether you could add Literature as a category in the poll, as that's mostly what I read these days.
There are a lot of interesting novels that I would have to categorize as Literature, even though they're popular, because I don't know how else you would describe them, except possibly as "Mainstream", such as
The Wasp Factory,
Catcher in the Rye,
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,
Catch 22,
Life of Pi,
Cloud Atlas etc.
But also greats like
The Grapes of Wrath,
Animal Farm,
Nineteen Eighty-Four,
Midnight's Children, anything by Kafka etc. which are more obviously considered "Literature".
And Aldous Huxley's
Brave New World - I know you could call it Science Fiction, but it is also Literature, like Orwell's work. And then of course you've got the Latin American magic realists and metaphysical writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and my favourite Jorge Luis Borges.
Not to forget exasperatingly clever postmodern metafiction such as Italo Calvino's
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller.
Now I don't want you to think I've just reeled off my school curriculum, because these are books and authors that I read for myself for fun.
I used to read a lot of Horror and Science fiction then moved onto more "serious" stuff, and now I don't feel inclined to read any more Horror (no more Richard Laymon for me lol, although I still think writers like Clive Barker offer something special), but will always try to find time for Science Fiction, my favourite being Philip K Dick.
The first book I ever read as an adult, which made me realize that reading was fun, was Stephen King's
The Tommyknockers, and that's why I first got into Horror - because I thought I liked Horror. Whereas in fact what I liked was Stephen King's writing. He's a great writer. He instilled my love for literature and reading.
I don't hold much hope for the Literature category catching up with the Science Fiction and Fantasy genres in the Poll, though lol. Probably be just me voting.
EDIT: actually, maybe you should have a Mainstream category as well.
)