Mainstream literature. Every niche from car salesman -- John Updike's Rabbit Angstrom -- to high-powered financier -- Christina Stead's The House of All Nations. (And it's not wish-fulfillment. Oh no.) One of my favorite French novels is about the founding of one of the world's first department stores, written at the time.

[bile deleted about people who only read in-genre, or even only read "the exceptions" outside of the genre; after all, I have my own blog]

Carlos of "Halfway Down the Danube", a nice place to be