You know your Aunt Minnie’s hot V.C. Andrews habit isn’t the same as your ex-roommate’s long-term partnership with big ol’ Russian date bait masterpieces, but most of the time, we only talk about “readers” vs. “nonreaders.” Book lovers come in different flavors, and every time I write about the writing/reading relationship I trip over a giant flavor-definition aside. Enough of that. Here are the five types of readers that I meet in real life. I’m coming back to these at length soon, so if you have a complaint you’d better register it now.

The Bestseller: Reads what’s in the airport bookstores, what’s on the talk shows, any book you can see two or more people reading in the same public space. Strangers feel a comforting sense of familiarity standing in front of their bookshelves. So zeitgeisty!

Subset: The Book Clubber: This person will have read a surprising swath of the recent bestsellers but will not like, understand, or have an opinion on at least half. Most comments will begin with the phrase, “Well, I didn’t finish it, but…” Will probably like red wine though.

The Genre Reader: This person may read a great deal, but mainly sticks to one of the genre categories: mystery, romance, thriller, sci-fi, fantasy, King, Grisham, Clancy. No qualms about the thickness of the spine up to around 600 pages, at which point second thoughts set in for all but the most devoted.

The Classicist: “Life’s too short to waste reading unimportant junk.” Reads things from “the canon” because contemporary authors are unproven and may be terrible, while Tolstoy, Hemingway, and Melville, et al. probably are not going to rot your brain/waste your potential/turn out not to be cool anymore. (To bait, utter the phrase “dead white men.”)

The Literate Hipster: “I’m reading this amazing novel right now—oh, you probably haven’t heard of him, but he’s very well known in [foreign country/elite professional subclass/literary journals].” Just ask if they have any good dish about MFA programs.

Subset: The Hot New Thing: “Oh yeah, I’m reading it an advance copy right now and it’s going to be amazing.” Do not display jealousy. Remember most people who come by galleys frequently are either too busy to read them or their excitement node has died. Remember that people who obtain galleys infrequently are really hoping they turn out well, or at least okay, so they can talk about how they got a galley. People who fall between these two have terrible, terrible jobs and you should let them gloat.

The Nonfictionist: Reads about things based in fact, with no literary license taken. Probably listens to NPR and/or knows an unusual amount about the Civil War. This person is very educational but probably from another species.

Boring caveats: None of this applies 100% to all people, lots of people (including me) are prone to skip between these types; yes, I’m making fun of you; no, I don’t think you should get all worked up about it; no, I think your mother’s very nice. Glad that’s done with!

Have I missed anyone?