You know the books… the ones you are drawn to but even you are not always exactly sure why. It may be a long-term addiction… or it could be fairly new… but either a genre, a topic, or certain type of book draws you to it time and again.
We may not even care to admit that we like to read them. In fact… we may overreact if caught reading them or if someone speaks against them…
Relax. Sheila says relax. 😉 I have them too. Mine fall under the category of books that may be defined as dorky…. but I really have found that I like reading about companies…. corporations… and the people behind them. I mean I loved the move Social Network (about Facebook). And I loved reading about Steve Jobs, The Makers of the game Doom, Straight Flush (about the college kids who brought the online poker industry to an all time high, and most recently Creativity Inc about the success of Pixar.
I think I am drawn to the creative thinking process. I am so amazed at the brilliant people who come up with things like the IPOD, creating video games, developing winning strategies. I guess what they all have in common is success. And if I am honest… I am drawn to it.
On the darker side… I also like to read the occasional true crime.
What does that say about me? I am not sure I want to know….
What is your guilty pleasure read? Craft books, how to books, vampires, dystopian, harlequin romances, books about animals….. Oh my! Share 🙂
For fun…. (I like fun!) leave a comment with your answer and I will enter you into a giveaway for a $15 Amazon gift card to purchase one of your guilty pleasure books of your choice. I will email the winner the gift card on Friday of this week.
I can not wait to hear what your guilty pleasure reads are 🙂
Book Journey 
I guess mine would be novel that contain time travel. It feeds both my interest in science fiction and historical fiction.
Perfect!
Oh my guilty pleasure books are romantic comedy with a bit of mystery thrown in. I love those “Mind Candy, Cinderella” love stories. Not the hot and steamy ones, I like the PG or G rated romantic comedy stories.
LOL – sounds like more my style too… PG 🙂
Harlan Coben’s books are the closest I come to guilty pleasure reading.
OOH LOVE him!!!!!
I really don’t feel guilty about anything I read, but I do feel guilty about the snacks I eat while I’m reading.
LOL – perfect Martha!
My guilty please books are thrillers. Thanks for having this giveaway.
I like a good thriller once in a while 😀
I’m not sure I have what I would call a guilty pleasure in books. But my potato chip reads? Mysteries.
Now Hannah I would have guessed yours to be knitting books/magazines to get ideas for that amazing items you make! 😀
I read some of those, too, but I don’t get most of my patterns out of books, actually. And it’s certainly not a guilty pleasure! 😀
😀
My guilty pleasure reading (that I really don’t keep secret) is paranormal/fantasy series: The Black Dagger Brotherhood, Cat and Bones, Kate Daniels, Carly Davidson. Recently, I’ve been reading NA (new adult) romance/teen angst series and loving them too.
Mine are not really a secret either, I think it is funny how I will write an (that I think to be) exciting review on these type of books and receive little feedback in the comments. Not everybody’s thing… LOL
I don’t have guilty pleasures. I like what I like and don’t care who would care about it. I read all manner of books that interest me. I’m the same with everything. I’m a grown woman and I watch Looney Tunes and iCarly. 🙂 I like what I like. Perhaps some would feel guilty at reading all the erotica I read, but I love it, especially good BDSM. 🙂
Perhaps guilty was not not the best choice of words…… 😆
My guilty pleasure reading consists of lengthy British sagas which I enjoy and are memorable. Thanks for this great giveaway.
Now that sounds fun!
I, like you, enjoy a good biography. I am also a sucker for a good historical fiction or “women’s fiction.”
OOH I like those too…
I’m a sucker for the dominant male romance/erotica… I don’t read it much, but I always love it when I do, haha. What is it about the “tall, dark and handsome” stereotype that is so appealing? I recently started The Black Dagger Brotherhood, which ALSO combines my guilty pleasure with my favorite sci-fi/paranormal/fantasy genres – LOVE IT!
Not my genre- but I know a lot of people enjoy them 😀
Mine is romance because it keeps the memory of my mom close. It is all she read at least what I remember…..
Ahhh, thats sweet Paula!
Giving classic books to dear friends and waiting to hear their comments…. GWTW…
Oh! AWKWARD! LOL…. 😀
I think my guilty pleasure are definitely things in the chick lit genre that don’t demand too much thought to read, from romantic comedy to Elin Hildebrand to Anita Shreve. I am a sucker for pretty covers, too! And I read lots of YA fiction, especially when my kids say, Mom! you have to read this. I love that they want to share their loved books with me.
Oh yeah pretty covers! 😀 I like Elin Hildebrand too.
Guilty pleasure? Happily ever after romance….and Anne Rice
Some day I am going to get through an Anne Rice 😀 I have a friend who adores her writing and I try… and I try 😀
In High School it was Harlequins and Bodice Rippers(Sweet Savage Love!) Now it’s travel memoirs or books about people look moving to foreign countries especially Paris. And even though my daughter’s sixteen I still like to read books about early motherhood struggles Especially the numerous ones!
Great response! I have never read a Bodice Ripper. LOL
My guilty pleasure is any book with a beach scene on the front! The only thing that would make it better is if I was at the beach reading it!! I also love Contemporary YA!
That works for me 😀
My guilty pleasure would be cookbooks. I will sit for hours and read them, word for word like a novel! I bought a cooking magazine while on vacation once and sat with it on the beach until the sun went down. 🙂
LOL – I can see you doing this Angie!
My guilty reading pleasures include YA (so what if I’m not a teen anymore, more adults read it now anyway 🙂 ), Romance and for as long as I can remember I’ve read chic lit. People talk the last one down a lot, but I absoutely love it! And as for romance books, I’ve only just started talking to people about reading it because of the stigma’s attached to it here in the land of Oz.
I am with you Jess, I really enjoy YA! I think it is because the emotions are so high 😀
True crime and chick lit for me.
Ahhh…. I love that you read true crime too. 😀
Anything that has to do with kings or queens! Wouldn’t you love to be in a real castle just once and see all the intrigue and drama first hand? I would! I’ll keep dreaming…..
Ah yes, royalty 😀 I just want to wear those dresses!
I must say that manga with some risque themes of sex are my guilty pleasures. I used to read romance novels a couple years back but can’t seem to get back into them.
I have tried Manga – it did not stick but I think it is a fascinating genre!
According to my husband all of my reading should be guilty pleasures. He thinks I’m too frivolous. Of course, I have gotten him interested in Terry Pratchett recently…
I always say there are worse things I could spend my time and money on 🙂
some chick lit fluff for me 😉 relaxing take the load off your mind kind of reading!
thanks for asking, Sheila, and offering some FuN in this book blogging business ;))
Awesome! Thanks for joining in the conversation 🙂
my guilty pleasure reads are douglas preston, clive cushier, james rollins – those adventure indiana jones novels – love them!
OOH I have read none of these but do love Indiana Jones. I may need to look into these 🙂
My guilty pleasure books: Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic series, Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson books, RaeAnn Thayne’s Hope’s Crossing romance series, and the Vampire Academy/Bloodlines series by Richelle Mead.
So basically my guilty pleasures are chick lit, humorous fantasy for kids, relatively sweet contemporary romances set in small towns I’d want to live in, and some paranormal romance.
Thats all fun! I was going to mention on mine Harry Potter… but I figure everyone knows 😀
Celebrity bios I guess you would call them…the one by The Sister Wives….Find Me by Rosie, I guess sort of like the People magazine articles I read only longer 🙂
I like some of those as well. 🙂
I guess mine would be steamy romances.
Thanks for adding to the discussion 🙂
I forgot to add I’ve been reading them since high school. I get a little embarrassed in public if there’s models embracing on the cover.
This is where e readers can be awesome! 😆
Good idea!
I don’t have anything different to add, but this old grandma like YA fiction and historical fiction mostly, with a autobiography thrown in for good measure. No really, I like so many books it hard to say which ones are my guilty pleasure. Fun discussion topic, Sheila!.
I love Ya and I love to hear that others do too… growing up this was a very small genre – it is exciting to see how big it is now!
Books about crosswords are my guilt pleasure books. I’m reading one right now.
There you go Earl… get that burden off your chest 🙂
I have a morbid fascination with books about parents dealing with kids gone bad. Like really bad. Like school shooting bad. Books like Nineteen Minutes; The Hour I First Believed; Defending Jacob; Columbine… I am always drawn to them.
LOL…. love it Carrie! I did really like Nineteen Minutes. Have you read We Need To Talk About Kevin? Holy smokes….
I don’t really feel guilty about anything I read. Having said that, I don’t always tell my mother.
LOL….
My guilty pleasure would be chick lit. I haven’t picked true crime in ages, maybe I should!!
I used to read an Ann Rule book as my first book of the year each year…. super morbid I know….
My guilty pleasures are pulpy sword-and-planet sci-fi novels where a half-naked superhumanly muscular hero saves the damsel in distress. That, and the occasional BDSM erotica.
pulpy sword? New to me…. 🙂
I think my guilty pleasure reads are books that use the opposites attract cliche, I love a good rivals fall in love story. Also, recently I realized I have a love for BDSM m/m erotica but I’m so selective that I don’t feel guilty about it. xD
I like the occasional cliche myself….
I love romance novels, especially ones set in small towns, like Robyn Carr’s Virgin River, Emily March’s Eternity Springs etc. Diana Gabaldon’s Jamie and Clare series.
I never got into romance… I have no idea why.
I like books about chefs/cooking/restaurants. Not cookbooks per say, but memoirs/non-fiction about the nitty-gritty of cooking or opening a restaurant. Funny, since I don’t consider myself a great cook, but I love to read about it!
I love those – I enjoyed Chef, and Garlic and Sapphires, even Anthony Bourdain’s books 😉
The moment I read the title of your post I went “ah-ha!” Without a doubt my guilty pleasure reading is Japanese manga. 😀
I tried once – I wanted to say I read that but I didn’t get into! Cool that you do!
I’d tried them a long time ago, but couldn’t get into them either. However, about a year ago, in order to catch up with the story line of an incomplete anime based on a manga, I located the manga online and found I was able to follow it quite easily. Then began the craze…. 😀
So…. I should try again? 😛
lol! Nah…not unless you have an ulterior motive like I did!!! 😛
😆
I like the regency romance – swashbuckling hero, shy heroine, overbearing mother and all!
Ahhh…. I think that is awesome!
Reading in the early morning in bed! Doesn’t matter what, just reading and then pretending I’d only just woken up!
That is fantastic!
For me its crime novels from somebody like Karin Slaughter, Tess Gerritson or Lee Child. Although you feel you nearly could write them yourself they are soooo relaxing.
I have never read any of these authors – I tried Slaughter once on audio …. can not recall what is was but I didn’t like the narration. Perhaps I try again? 🙂
The Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris! Doesn’t really fit with my taste in more literary fiction!
LOL – I made it through book one … then I wrote a really fun post called Good bye to Sookie Stackhouse….lol https://bookjourney.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/good-bye-to-sookie-stackhouse-dead-until-dark-by-charlaine-harris/
I don’t really feel guilty about what I read anymore – but I think my guiltiest reading would be all of the smutty books I love. Fifty Shades, Bared to You, etc. I love them!
There are a lot of those trilogies out there isn’t there? I have never read them but I recognize the books that are trying to repeat what Fifty Shades did. 🙂
My guilty pleasures are cozy mysteries and romance novels of any kind. 🙂
I have always wanted to be a “cozy mystery” type of reader and I own a few – just have not read them. Need to do that!
I really enjoyed reading these comments (Martha, Mary Preston, Lizanne and a few others actually made me giggle lol). Honestly, there’s nothing I read that I feel guilty about ’cause I like what I like and don’t care if people “get it” 🙂 Typically, I might get a “look” or whatever about the children’s books ’cause a lot of people aren’t interested and wonder why I enjoy them so much, but it’s what I do. Totally not into chic lit or anything graphically sexual—I’d rather be living it than reading about it lol I do enjoy YA in which romance is a large part of the driving force behind the plot, like in the “Legend” series. You can feel the sexual/love tension which is far as I want to go when I’m reading YA. I want the rest of the story to drive my emotions and imagination. I read whatever nonfiction pertains to my life or someone in my life, like health, etc., and I LOVE to read about writing and writers. That’s more of a weakness, I think, ’cause it’s hard for me to resist and I should be writing my own stuff lol
I am enjoying the comments too 🙂 I am glad so many engaged in this discussion – it makes for great feed for my talk at the Book Expo next week… 😀 I really enjoy YA too!
OK, how cool is that? Talking at a Book Expo! You big shot, you 😉 Enjoy!
Hmmmm…. we will see 😀
Oh, and I, too, loved the movie “Social Media” ’cause I thought the whole thing was compelling, seeing as it’s based on a true story about something so influential in today’s world. I think they did a great job on it, too, with casting, directing, music…the whole shebang!
I did too! I think I have watched that movie about 15 times! Fascinating what they started with and what it is today!
LOVE Larry Brown and Harry Crewes although I have not met anyone I can recommend these great authors to for fear the books would be considered too dark. Both Brown and Crewes’ characters are so real!! Sadly, these great writers have passed away and their books are not easy to come by.
Hmmm… new to me. I may need to nose around just to check them out.
I’m with you – relax! I don’t think anyone needs to feel guilty about anything they read – books R awesome! lol
However, if I had to name something I read a guilty pleasure, I would say it’s Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series – pure cotton candy fun! Fast-paced mysteries with a great sense of humor. I read one every summer when the new one comes out.
Great discussion!
Sue
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I read Evanovich up to Twelve and then stopped – she was particularity crude in that one and I was tired of the story line going nowhere…. of course… I still hope she chooses Ranger 😉
I feel guilty about reading modern books. Weird I know but I was brought up reading mostly classics so I feel like I’m betraying my roots if I do. Not that my parents normally mind or anything… it’s all in my head.
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LOL! That’s a good one!
Wow…this takes some thought. Vampire books or cookbooks with decadent desserts. What I need to find is a book where a vampire falls for Ace of Cakes; THAT would be heaven! *LOL*
Sounds perfect 😀
My guilty pleasure in reading: horror. Stephen King, especially. Weird, since I HATE horror movies. HATE being scared. :o)
That is funny! So the movies scare you but the books you love? That is kind of awesome!
Definitely chick lit. Don’t have much time for reading anything other than children’s lit. When you are a K-8 librarian, it’s hard to stay current. I don’t know how the public librarians keep up.
I dont know if they always do 🙂 I was at the library today and I asked the head librarian that she certainly had read The Fault In Our Stars.. she had not… *sigh*
Since I can’t call my addiction to Golden Age mysteries a guilty pleasure, I will have to go with my newer addiction to gay romance books. I’ve read over 400 since December.
400 Ryan????? Holy smokes! 😀 Wow! I cant read 400 books in two years! Probably not even three!
They are all ebooks, which tend to be shorter than print books, but it is a lot.
Ghost stories
Yup 🙂
Books involving wizards, elves, etc… Dystopian intrigue, or satire. Mostly with fantasy and dystopian subjects there seems to be the disdain of: “You’re reading that? Isn’t that for kids?” Maybe…
I think my guilty pleasure books are the quick purely fun romances…the anthology ones with several stories in one…that way i can read one in an hour or two and move on..a real mood lifter:)
A guilty pleasure read for me are stories about women who kick butt!