I either need my book to help me relax (think a thriller or a comedy). Or I need my book to make me experience something new (let me travel, or get exposed to a new idea or feeling).

I get rapidly bored by preachy books, especially if I can already predict what they'll say. ^^' (special pet peeve for productivity book)

What books are they reading that have incorrect punctuation?

That it doesn’t bore me.

I like well written prose, immersive worlds, elaborate and interesting stories, ideally character progression to go with it. If it sounds vague, that's because it is. My favourite books range from Anna Karenina to The Expanse 😊

Not very specific but I do think "good" characters matter more than anything else. The other thing I really value is theme. If the characters are complex and the message is interesting than I can't see myself not liking the book. After that I think beautiful prose is what I look for the most.

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Three things I want in a novel:

• A good voice /prose (i.e. I want to enjoy the reading experience)
• Characters that are compelling (i.e. I want to care about them. Whether I love them, hate them, am creeped out or sad, I want to care, please)
• A plot that I get pulled into (i.e. Do interesting things happen? Am I surprised or engaged? Or do I feel like my time is being wasted?)

Apart from these three things, I’m open to different genres, styles, even works that feel a bit experimental. There are many ways to form a narrative, but the books I love have all three of these things.

I like it when the book makes me think or opens up new perspective. I thoroughly enjoyed Waiting for Godot, The Stranger and Frankenstein for this reason.

I also love when a book is a bit more poetic with its language. For example: The Song of Achilles and On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous.

The quality of writing. I will read about anything from a great writer, someone who knows how to sling words beautifully. I will read about nothing from a shit writer. Form over content, children!

-Good prose, especially when it's immersive and really creates clear imagery in my brain.

-Interesting, well-developed characters.

-Original in some way, doesn't fall back on clichés and predictable tropes.

-Has something compelling to say about the human experience.

Good characterization even if the plot is boring or messy I will read it to the end if I like the characters

A lot of Irish books don’t use speech marks.

Being bored by predictable stuff: oh gosh, I can so relate! :)

Older member of my family - I think they learned strict rules at school which were somewhat arbitrary. I personally don't think language is ever 'incorrect'. It just lives...

Relatable characters (or well-written), excellent writing, good spelling, & well researched. Repetitive writing is jarring, as is the obvious use of a thesaurus.

I was reading a book years ago, & one of the characters "escaped" to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Then took a 2-hour drive to Whitehorse, Yukon Territory! It was a minor plot-point, but still! I shut the book, & threw it into the "Salvation Army" box. I don't recall the name of book or author, but being THAT incorrect pulled me entirely out of the story! (A ✈️ flight from Toronto to Whitehorse would be minimum 6 hours, with at least 1 layover!)

Prose- I want the writing to be unique and beautiful, it has to stick in my head somehow

Character tension- I like for there to be an interesting dynamic at play somewhere that elevates whatever else is going on

And setting!- I always look for a compelling setting. Something not just described well but utilized well. It has to feel real and also be more than window dressing

I like the seeting

I love a book with a premise or story that I haven't seen done before. One that leaves me thinking about it months or years later.

I also love a book that's goofy fun, that doesn't break ground but brings you a smile.

I like really interesting characters, but also books where the characters barely matter at all.

I like compelling human characters, but also interesting alien species, but then again enjoyed books from the perspective of animals, and a book where most of the characters were simply inanimate objects that did nothing.

I can enjoy a descriptive book that lets me perfectly picture every building, landscape, and person. I also enjoy books that eschew all that to focus on actions.

I enjoy long series, stories that complete in a single book, books that are open-ended, and books that don't finish but wrap around to the beginning and keep going.

It would be pretty limiting if I only wanted to read a book with one of those attributes. I'd miss out on so many great stories that had a different style of telling them. I can't pick anything I need in a book without eliminating some of the best books I've read.

intriguing characters and relationships and exploration of things important to these people. a lot of my favorite books are romance novels, even though I barely read anything in that genre but it's pure character and relationship and if done well it's such a joy to read. Wuthering heights and call me by your name come to mind. I want to hear the characters thoughts, see them interact with each other and know what they feel towards each other. It's also great to see how characters deal with the elements of the story on a meta level. The song of Achilles is an exploration of what it means to be a hero in the mythological sense, what kind of person you need to be and why a pacifist would go to war, knowing he would die young. That's the coolest shit.

Another important factor is I need some kind of tension or mystery in the plot. when I can't even imagine what the next scene might be or what I would want to read, I can still enjoy a book but I will never have motivation to continue it. just characters rambling dorian grey style gets a bit exhausting.

Strong plot and world building. I can get passed poor writing and characters. Saying that, Frank Herbert’s writing was too terrible after Dune messiah to finish anything

Historical accuracy.

Long books, usually. Plots I can't guess the ending to at page 35. An ending that feels earned. An antagonist that leaves me seething with rage at the mention of their name for years after (hem hem). So rare, but those books are worth their weight in platinum. If I could find a book or series with all 4, I'd buy a lottery ticket.

I will read almost any book, but whether I finish or enjoy it is the question. I finished a book the other day that introduced a character in the climax that was there under another name/in another form from the threshold-cross, and her actions ended the conflict, just by being there. It was not a good pay-off.

I like storng worldbuilding even if it's super dry, and then exciting action. Examples would be Jurassic Park which has super super dry technical sections that I really love, followed by fantastic action sequences that are well described. Also Brandon Sandersons Way of Kings is like this. Great action opening with good explanations of some of the magic systems, and then great (to me) dry world building.

For novels, I want a good story, well told, with engaging characters, and that ultimately makes me feel something.

Interesting and likeable characters.

Nice! So that's the fascinating thing: take the same book and ten people will have seen it through ten completely different lenses. I haven't re-read Wuthering Heights in a long while, but what I remember is simply the feeling of being on the moors with the characters. I have somehow forgotten much of the interactions. I guess that really makes me a settings person rather than a character person ;)
Haven't read the Song of Achilles, thanks for the tip!

I love authors who can paint a picture in my mind without needing to spend an entire page describing the color and shape of the leaves. To me Simon R. Green is top notch at this. His books are the most vivid in my mind.

In my fiction I want the characters to have a strong voice and sense of self. John Scalzi gets top marks in this category.

In my nonfiction frankly I struggle with things written in the last 30 years. The level of writing in casually available nonfiction has progressively been dumbed further and further down that I’m starting to think the target market is 8th graders. I find myself more and more frequently drawn to books that I subsequently discover are supplementary reading materials for college classes. The editorial standards have also fallen, far too many easily challenged errors in the, let’s call them, NYTs crap. They just don’t have any credibility or depth so I guess that’s what I’m looking for.

But really I just want interesting and well written. I’ll buy anything that appears to fit that standard and give it a go.

I want each character to be unique. I get really annoyed if all of their "voices" sound the same, or they use the same phrases as one another frequently.

Horror, dread, eerie atmosphere and grim surroundings. I basically want to be so uncomfortable reading that I want to stop. I don't need good writing, accuracy, or things to make sense. I just want to be entertained and have nightmares

Characters. The story can have a few holes, a few dull moments, and maybe moments where there are leaps in logic - all these I can forgive as long as the characters are interesting (and in a way, the setting can be a character too if done well)

Non-fiction: interesting. I is true that in the last years, I started a number of non-fiction books which I never finished. But I also had really good experiences. I remember that Michio Kaku's Hyperspace left me thinking for a long time. Also Carlo Rovelli's The Order of Time. But then I tend to be drawn to popular science, and in particular popular physics.
Fully agree with the interesting and well written!

Strong theme, conveyed through plot or characters. I like books that are metaphors or representation of something, and that give a new way to see the world, that make feel and think. I like a great variety of books, and I'm flexible, but I look for these things the most. For this reason maybe I also really like essays, because they teach me something.

Oh, good point! It's like the author doing the talking instead of letting their characters take on a life of their own and developing their own independent voices.

Strong friendships.

Even if the writing is terrible, if there is a solid friendship going on, then I'm hooked.

I've read books with non-standard punctuation for purely stylistic reasons and found that a bit annoying/pretentious. I read Hotel World by Ali Smith recently though and it abuses all sorts of punctuation and type-setting rules beautifully! It's done playfully, artfully and with purpose, so I loved it.

I want to care about the characters and be moved to feel things. I want the book to end well.

The plot and a clear cliffhanger at the end of every chapter.

and vise versa

I just want to be entertained. I can look past writing style, weak character, or lack of substance in a book as long as I'm hooked on something.

Anna Karenina is an example of something I don’t really need from a book but something I’m really impressed by when I see it. Fully developed characters that feel so real they feel almost like friends. I know how Levin or Oblonsky would act in almost any situation.

Less friends - because they’re all awful - but I felt the same about the characters in Revolutionary Road. They way they keep playing situations over in their mind until they emerged as the hero felt like something a genuine person would do- and perhaps something we’ve all been guilty at at some point in our lives.

Hemmingway and Cormac McCarthy

Good writing, a focus on characterization, no typographical errors unless they're intentional/for stylistic reasons, and some kind of interesting vibe. I don't care about learning something if I'm reading for pleasure, and I don't need there to be much of a plot.

Layers.

"I want to enjoy the reading experience" is an underrated comment.

I like an interestingly constructed world, (in my genre fiction that is) like I would sit down and read a d&d setting manual cover to cover and be happy.

Somewhat paradoxically I also love a good potboiler, a rapid pace that I can't put down. I don't know that I can put my finger on any particular features that make a book like that for me, but I love a good immersion book.

I think what I care about in a book is its ability to make me imagine what doesn't exist. I lean strongly to speculative fiction (sci-fi, fantasy, horror) and I almost see what I'm reading in my mind so I don't get into much reality based fiction.

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The book must be able to create a writing style that is comprehensively & understandably clean, well driven characters and has a unique embodiment, unanticipated plot twists, and the statements of the characters shouldn't be bland enough to read.

Style, it’s kind of like when I’m watching a movie or tv show. I can just tell right away when the book is corny and I want to throw it across the room. For example Hemingway - my favorite style clean concise and dialogue is written to the point.

Character development and good prose are really the only things I absolutely demand. Everything else I’m flexible on. I would also prefer it be very immersive, an interesting world/setting, and have pathos and depth to it, but I don’t necessarily NEED it to enjoy a book. I do need good characters with good development and good prose to enjoy it though

Books with realistic character development. And books with lots of characters that I feel I’ve built a whole family of friends in my mind.

The narrator’s voice is everything to me if it’s a first person pov. Can’t be overly quirky in a way that seems forced. Realism/accuracy matters to me as well if it takes place in a specific time & location

Exactly this. Bread and Wine by Ignazio Silone made my standards for historical accuracy tremendously high

Long as it keeps my interest.

I guess I simply like good characters and well written plots that make me think.

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Clever, twists, authentic character growth, clear chronology even if theres alot of scene hopping(scene and time hop all u want as long as it comes together to make chronological sense), a story with a flow that sucks me in. I find that even if the events of the story itself is boring if someone has a good rhythm reading a boring story is much like enjoying a song uve never heard before, u just follow it to see where it goes. A good story leads u down a path that u are curious to walk down, even if the path seems bare and dull from my current viewpoint. An example is the ebb and flow of Zen and the art. If the story had less to it, I'd still enjoy reading it because the flow is soothing and reminiscent, like i am remembering something that never happened to me. Anything written in a way i feel like i am being brought into a perspective so directly that i can directly empathize is pretty good. I like to feel as tho i can experience emotionally what the characters are going through while also being able to make clear pictures of the events and plot. I like vivid sensory descriptions and understand how that input affects the characters. Nuance is delicious.

Character is number one for me. Atmosphere/setting after that.

Mostly I need characters to attach too who are in an interesting world/situation/etc. though if the idea alone is interesting/original/deep enough (invisible cities) that can be great in and of itself. If it's cliche/mainline/tropey I'll probably skip.

I care about immersive writing and believable characters and I dislike it when you can hear the author. It's not possible for every character to think the same way and share the same values - that's the author's opinions talking! That includes main characters across different books/series by the same author. A new name does not a new character make.

I'm also not a fan of books that don't use quotation marks for dialogue. I know it's a style choice but I like them. I don't like getting halfway down a page and realising that several people have been in a conversation I didn't 'hear' and I don't know who said what. At least indicate speech a different way!

As a young kid, I feel like I was most intrigued by interesting characters and mysterious plots.

As I've grown older, however, I describe my literary preferences in simple terms: whatever is going to make me think more deeply about the world! This usually places me in the non-fiction camp...

I have an annoying answer: That it’s good.

Coming out of the Maze Runner series, not so much speed, but scenes that feel relevant to the plot. Dasher had tons of slow times (the overall pace was slow compared to most) that didn't really feel like they were vital for character growth/change pr advancing the main plot.

I'm tepid when reading, so that's probably the only thing I need. I can sit with not great characters, or world building and such, but I feel like a book drags on if scenes don't feel significant to character growth or plot movement.

I like books about the human condition. I also like books that give me the chance to live in the life of a setting I’ve never lived before, such as, what it would be like to be a culinary student in Paris.

Rereadable

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