Thread: What is Genre?
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Old 06-19-2011, 07:33 PM   #18
vxf
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Quote:
Originally Posted by VydorScope View Post
So I go to some sites and see massive lists of book categories that I never heard of and some times see books that are clearly in my mind one genre yet found in another. For example why people insist on putting Lord of the Rings in the religious section, when its clearly Fantasy I have no clue.

Today when skimming a review site linked in another thread I came across this:



I have never heard of "Speculative Fiction" but had I seen it in a store I would have assumed it was a "what might have been" type book, i.e. a story about if Rome did not fall, what it would look like today. Instead, turns out by that description, my two books are "speculative fiction." So much for telling everyone that asks me about it that they are scifi books. Of course everyone I know would call Star Wars scifi.

Then on other sites I have seen the genre "trans gender" which I have no clue what that could be???

So I was wondering... is there a definitive list of genres and what they mean, or is it just what ever the store/site decides at the time its sorting books? Is there at least rule of thumb list some place?

LOTR religious ?

But really... I don't get it. I noticed it, but I thought it was just sitting on the wrong shelf... not intentionally put there. If LOTR is religious, then Asimov should be in the engineering textbooks section...

Regardless... yet, it's arbitrary and yes, it's marketing-driven.
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