I picked up one of my daughter's independent reader novel and thumbed through the pages (Dark Hills Divide, Scholastic Press). After trudging by way through a couple of dense books, my eyes rejoiced! It was so airy and easy to read (not sure what the typeface is).
To my question, I am wondering which typefaces in novels you find the most readable.
There are scores of text faces that, properly set, make a novel or any other book easy to read. I would not be surprised that if in the books you found "dense", the problem was not the choice of typeface, but typesetting and layout problems: text too small, not enough leading, lines too long, margins too narrow, etc. Maybe the quality of printing was bad as well.
Baskerville, Cochin, Palatino, Times New Roman and Verdana – in that order.
Gary, you are probably right. I really don't know much about typography--though I do find it fascinating. Calluna, Amalia, Delicato, Calisto and Hoefler really look good to me. I also like Gentium. I know it is a relative newcomer and free, but really I think its a easy to read typeface.
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