Quote:
Originally Posted by barryem
I suspect your grandmother misremembers. I'm 77. I grew up in Texas. From about 14 on I lived in Houston. I was an avid reader since before first grade (I learned to read at home) and an avid bookstore browser since about age 12.
During my younger years I shopped in bookstores in various places in Texas, Louisiana, California, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts. The first time I ever saw genres in fiction books in a book store was in a Crown Book Store in Houston, probably about 1980. Could have been as early as 1975. I'm really not sure.
It was a few years after that before genre became popular in other bookstores.
Barry
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I can't disagree with your experience, because it is your experience. The photo of my grandmother is from 1932 or 33 (her dad is in it and he died in 1933) showing the genres at Dayton's Department store. One of the Dayton's grandsons started B Dalton Booksellers in 1966 and photos from the original store opening showed that books were separated by genres. Within the genre, they would be in alphabetical order. Pretty much what they do today. I've been shopping in bookstores since 1972 and they've ALWAYS been separated by genres. Small book departments and certainly student bookstores WERE (and often still are) as you described - books just shelved in order of author name.
As an additional comment, Uncle Hugo's, which has always carried only science fiction and fantasy, opened in Minneapolis in 1974. Uncle Edgar's, specializing in mystery and suspense, opened in 1980. To this day though, science fiction and fantasy are genres that are not as popular as we like to think. Most people read general fiction.
