Comfort Zone Reading

Okay, so I was actually quite poorly over the last few days, during which time I have done, well, not very much.  Today I have been back at work, and I'll admit now it was probably a day or two too soon, but hey, you know, it was a choice of at work and ill or at home stressing the hell out myself and ill... I took the work option.

Whilst I wasn't up to doing much I reverted to a pattern of behaviour that I was most comfortable with... which mostly involves curling up with a book and reading.... and actually yes, it did involve a real book, not sure why but whilst I was feeling pants the Kindle just wasn't doing it for me, I needed paper and pages to turn.

Now, I will admit that I comfort read anyway.. that is to say I re-read old favourites all the time and I will read, for want of a better word "trash" ... the not necessarily well written, but easy to read, formulaic plot lines, nothing that's going to tax my brain kind of books ... which made me realise this weekend as I was reading what for some would probably be quite uncomfortable topics (including some plot lines including dub-con, bdsm, murder etc) that perhaps these topic should really tax my brain, but in fact the actual content doesn't really seem to touch me, mentally speaking.  So I got to thinking... is my comfort zone so far as reading material is concerned a little out of kilter?

I did some rationalising about this looking back on the various genres I enjoy reading... now okay, leaving the children's stories aside the main genres I read are

 

- crime.... which includes a fair bit of not for the squeamish murders/kidnaps/rapes/assaults (and as a complete aside, when the e-bay/e-book banning of allegedly dodgy content books was all up in the air... why did The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo get left out... because the rape scene and her revenge is extremely brutally portrayed and graphically written... )

- historical novels which contain lots of wars, bloodshed, forced marriage...

- M/M - which whilst mainly come under the title "romance" I have a tendency towards either those involving law enforcement, violence or some form of kink - I am not so much about the sweet and fluffy though I will read it and yes, I do like the happily ever after.

- fantasy - which lets face it can contain pretty much anything but normally a healthy dose of bloodshed (except in my case dragons... for a pretty die hard fantasy story fan I really have an unnatural aversion to dragons in my stories).... 

What I don't read is everyday tales of "normal" life... the upshot of which is - I really do read to escape reality.. well my reality anyway... all the genres I read tend to involve stories where I could not see myself in them so ultimately any reading material remains complete escapism..... and I am quite happy to keep it that way.