Dad had all the Analog, Science Fiction and Science Fact magazines going back to the 50s. So I read a whole lot of SF. I got a bunch of fantasy from the library--the Dark is Rising series, some Xanth books (I went and bought the former a few years ago). I also picked up the occasional early Anne Rice. I don't remember reading YA romance--I just jumped head long into my folks Harlequin collection when I was 12. And then jumped right out again at around 18 when I realized that a heroine had been raped by a man, and yet it was ok because they were in love and engaged to marry by the end of the book. Ugh. It's taken 20 years and a careful reintroduction to Regency romances and Jennifer Cruisie to get me back into the romance genre.

Mary Stewart--along with Jane Aiken Hodge--rock.

One type of novel I used to really like (maybe due to the early exposure to Michener and Roots) was the centuries-long following of a family. My favorite in the subgenre was The Books of Rachel, by Joel Gross.

t raises hand

Have read damn near everything by VC Andrews. I own the entire Heaven series, and I am proud of it. I wrote my senior thesis on "her". My teacher said it was the best thesis on a non-existant author she had ever read.

ION, I have been completely transformed into Geekdom.

I am reading Ender's Game.

One type of novel I used to really like (maybe due to the early exposure to Michener and Roots) was the centuries-long following of a family. My favorite in the subgenre was The Books of Rachel, by Joel Gross.

Same here.

I miss those. I kinda want to write them.

They really are a great way to cover multiple places and times in history in one book. ...Rachel was fascinating for the Midwestern Catholic girl I am because it was all about the wealthy European Jewish experience (the family business was diamonds) from late medieval era to post-WWII.

I'm not sure I'd want to do all of mine in one book--I can just see myself writing 20 books about the same family.

Unless I decide to write 20 books about the same characters.

I read one of those... I think it might have been Sarum, and it covered about... now that I think about it, I'm not sure. A few thousand years, I guess, of an area around Stonehenge (I think). I had trouble with it, though, because I kept wanting characters to reappear, which, obviously... not.

I've read that too, Emily. Rutherfurd does the same thing in London, and there's a connection between the books (the Barnikel family).