books on books

At the library, I checked out books on books.
I told myself a long time ago to stop this.
But I feel I've earned it.
I have been looking over David Madden's (who I respect very much)
Primer of the Novel for Readers and Writers.
He lists, in chronological development, each type of novel.
Also reading Forster's Aspects of the Novel which,
although composed 40 years prior to Madden's work,
pokes fun at such cataloging.
But I have always enjoyed a catalog.

the picaresque novel
the comic novel
the satirical novel
the epistolary novel
the novel in diary form
the novel in journal form
the memoir novel
the autobiographical novel
the personal history novel
the confessional novel
the lyrical novel
the biographical novel
the roman a clef
bildungsroman
the novel of character
the novel of manners
the sentimental novel
the didactic novel
the religious novel
the romantic novel
the gothic novel
the southern gothic and grotesque novels
the fantasy novel
the occult novel
the historical novel
the chronical novel
the popular novel
the pop novel
the western novel
the detective novel
the spy novel
the tough guy novel
science fiction
the love novel
the antiquarian novel
the naturalistic novel
the novel of realism
the novel of domestic realism
the novel of formal realism
the pornographic novel
novels of the soil
the regional novel
the novel of small town life
the local color novel
the ethnic novel
the philosophical novel
the thesis novel
the social chronical novel
the problem novel
the propaganda novel
the novel of social criticism
the utopian novel
the anti-utopian novel
the radical novel
the socialist novel
the proletarian or protest novel
the political novel
the topical novel
the nonfiction novel
the psychological novel
the psychological romance
the novel of psychological realism
the novel of consciousness
the novel of psychological fantasy
the symbolic, allegorical novel
the anti-hero novel
kunstlerroman
the pure novel: a not-yet-realized-type

there is also a maddening and informative chronology of novels

David Thomas Broughton - A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.