MobileRead E-Book Genre Lists

[TadW]

We should try to keep it simple. Remember how it will appear later. Example:

[SF&F] Pozzuoli, H G: The War of the Wenuses, v.1, 10 April 2008.

rather than

[Science Fiction & Fantasy] Pozzuoli, H G: The War of the Wenuses, v.1, 10 April 2008.

[DaleDe]

And where does the Bible go?

[Madam Broshkina]

Originally Posted by DaleDe

And where does the Bible go?

I know what category I would put the Bible in and I also know that my choice would be considered wrong by others. I remember a while back some a poster mentioned his new ebook website that had placed Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species" under "science fiction".

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21838


Some people were very upset by this and stated that they would never purchase a book from the site based on the classification of the book. The poster apologized for his classification and was still harassed. Any attempt to classify the Bible will only bring up more confrontation on this site.

[vivaldirules]

It could go in a section called Religion (or Spiritual). No need to start an unnecessary argument over something that easy.

[Alexander Turcic]

Let's summarize what we got so far.

* Mystery
* Romance
* SF&F
* Literature
* Short Fiction
* Biography
* History
* Non-Fiction
* Reference

The Bible could be considered a reference, right? Let's try to keep the thread prefixes general to allow for a broader spectrum of books. Further sub-categorization can be done via Tags.

[Madam Broshkina]

I was a bit intrigued by the choice of "Literature" as a "Genre". So I asked my search engine "What is Literature"? The following is what I found.

http://home.mesastate.edu/~blaga/the...teraturex.html

What is Literature?

A Refusal to Define or Limit Or, There Is No Essential, Inherent Category of the "Literary."

(A paraphrase, summary, and adaptation of the opening chapter of Terry Eagleton's Introduction to Literary Theory)

Have you ever felt ashamed or secretive about books you like because they are not on approved reading lists? Have you ever had a teacher, friend, or parent tell you that what you are reading isn't "literature," that it may have words printed on a page, but it is somehow inferior in quality to other books? That is, it might be "literature" in the broad sense of the term (words on a page) but it's not "literary"?

Well, the problem with such judgments is that if you press someone about her definition of "literature" or "literariness," she will have a hard time finding a criteria that works for everything we have ever called literature. Although many have tried to define what "literature" is or what makes something "literary," no one has successfully defined literature in such a way that it accounts for the complexities of language and the wide variety of written texts. For example....

• Some define literature as writing which is "imaginative" or fictive, as
opposed to factual, true, or historical. This seems reasonable until we realize that ...

(1) what counts as "fact" varies with cultures and time periods. Is the book of Genesis (and the entire Bible for that matter) fact or fiction? Are the legends and myths of Greek, Scandinavia, and Native Americans fact or fiction? Is Darwin's Origin of Species fact or fiction? Are news reports fact or fiction?

(2) What is clearly imaginative writing is often not considered literature. For example, comic books, computer game stories, and Harlequin Romances are usually excluded from the category of "literature" even though they are certainly imaginative.

(3) A lot of what we do consider literature is more like history (i.e. Boswell's Biography of Samuel Johnson, Claredon's History of the Rebellion) or philosophy (i.e. the works of Mill, Ruskin, Newman). In sum, fact vs. fiction is not a helpful way to distinguish between what is literary and what is not. There are also a lot of "facts" in novels, and many novels are based on real historical events.

• Perhaps it is the way we use language. As some argue, literature transforms and intensifies ordinary language. If I say, "Thou still unravished bride of quietness," then you know it's literature or you know that I'm using "literary"
language. The language is different from everyday speech in texture, rhythm and resonance. The sentence, "This is awfully squiggly handwriting!" doesn't sound literary, does it? However, there are also some problems.

(1) "Unordinary" speech depends upon a norm from which to deviate. But the specialized vocabulary used in sports, dance, music, small town diners, Glaswegian dockworkers, etc. or even everyday slang varies widely from the norm, but we don't classify that language as "literary." For example, most if not all of our swear words employ metaphorical/poetic language.

(2) There isn't a universal norm. One person's norm may be another's deviation. "Shitkicker" for "cowboy boot" may be poetical to someone from New York, but it's everyday speech in Laramie. Many of us think British
words for everyday items seems poetical.

(3) Finally, the sentence above "This is awfully squiggly handwriting!" doesn't sound literary, but it comes from Knut Hamsun's novel Hunger. Therefore, what is literary depends upon the context. Anything read in an English class could count as literature simply because it is read for English.

• Perhaps literature is "non-useful" writing, writing that doesn't help us do something pragmatic. There are still several problems.

(1) One could read anything as "non-useful." That is, I could easily read a shopping listand point out the interesting metaphors, beautiful sounds, imagery, etc. or

(2) I could read Moby Dick to find out how to kill whales. In fact, I have
used a novel about sled dogs to train my own dogs. Is that book no longer "literature" once I turn it into a "how-to" book?

• Perhaps something is literature because it is the kind of writing we like to read; it's a highly valued kind of writing. In this case, anything can be literature, and anything can stop being literature. The important implication is that we don't get to decide what is literature because our parents, teachers, exams, etc. define that for us. We are trained to value the kind of writing that they value.

"Literature" and the "literary" then are highly subjective categories. We can't decide whether or not something is "literature" or "literary" simply by looking at its form or language.Shakespeare's works have not always been valued as literature, and his works may not be valued in the future.

You may feel dissatisfied because we will never come up with a concrete definition, but that is the point. As Terry Eagleton points out, "we can drop once and for all the illusion that the category "literature" is objective in the sense of being eternally given and immutable" (10). He goes on to say that our opinions and value-judgments are not neutral either, that "the ways in
which what we say and believe connects with the power-structure and power-relations of the society we live in" (14). In other words, your opinions about literature and literariness are not just your opinions. They are related to how and where you were raised and educated. Importantly, our environment encourages us to accept some values but not others, support the activities of some groups but not others, or exclude some choices as unacceptable.
Therefore, how we define literature reveals what we have been taught to value and what we have been taught to reject. This is important for you because you are forced, for the most part, to learn what other people value and at the very minimum, what other people have made available for you to read. It's also important if you plan on teaching, for you will help shape the perceptions of your students. Again, have you ever had a teacher tell you that the novel you are reading is "not literature," "escapist," or just "fun reading"?
Can you see the potential problem here, especially when it comes to passing tests, getting into college, and pleasing others, including yourself? Do you recognize that the source of your values may not even be you?

Another way to frame this insight is to say that I tried to encourage you to ask different questions, questions that I have found far more useful. Asking "Is it literature?" or "Is it good literature?" is not as important or interesting as asking...

- What does one's definition of "literature" reveal about one's attitudes, beliefs, values, training, or socialization (in short, one's ideological affiliation)?

- How do definitions and categories of "literature" and especially "good literature" coincide with specific political issues like "Who should govern?"
"Who should have what role or function in society?" "What kinds of
behaviors and belief should be excluded or included?"

Put yet another way, I would encourage you to look at definitions, reading lists, evaluations, etc. as a way to learn about your own set of values (that inevitably connect with larger systems of value), your own particular school system and our culture at large. As you will discover, a quick glance at the race, gender, class, and time period of authors you have had to read in school will reveal something about whose ideology (system of values, beliefs, and history) is valorized, privileged, and passed on to other generations. Therefore, what and how you read is a political issue because it has to do with relations and structures of power. Texts are enjoyable to read, but we need to take them seriously, for they tell us in their own way a lot about ourselves and our society.

[Alexander Turcic]

Hahaha! Thanks for the reference Maybe we're a bit too focus on how Amazon categorizes books.

How about adding Fiction as a catch-all genre instead of Literature?

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Alexander Turcic

Hahaha! Thanks for the reference Maybe we're a bit too focus on how Amazon categorizes books.

How about adding Fiction as a catch-all genre instead of Literature?

I think that in bookshops (either in UK or US or in both) the non genre section is called literature.

[vivaldirules]

I'd recommend calling it Fiction & Literature or else just Fiction. I'd also recommend adding a section called Religion or perhaps Spiritual or Spiritual & Philosophy. That is and will be a popular category here. The things that would go in there (the Bible, Bhagavadgita, Spinoza, Zen stuff) don't quite feel like Reference or Non-fiction works to me. I would argue for a Science section (there are tons of notable old works) but I don't think it will ever be big enough here as long as these will almost all need to be PDFs.

[Patricia]

And where would we place RWood's Harvard Classics series? Some of the items are fiction; others not. Perhaps it should have a category of its own?

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by Patricia

And where would we place RWood's Harvard Classics series? Some of the items are fiction; others not. Perhaps it should have a category of its own?

maybe there could be a category called Classics ? of course, then we get into the diatribe of what constitutes a "classic" which could easily get as heated as the question of where to put the bible... I would put things like the Harvard Classics series there (that one is easy ! it even says it in the name ) and Jane Austen and such, but what about, say, Boris Vian ? fiction or classics ? I think unconsciously a Classic to me is something which is not only worthwhile but also quite old. disclaimer : this is purely subjective and i make no claim as to its scientific value.

[Oh, Why Not?]

[QUOTE]And where would we place RWood's Harvard Classics series? Some of the items are fiction; others not. Perhaps it should have a category of its own?QUOTE]

It is all Great Literature, whether of Science, History, Biography or etc.

[Alexander Turcic]

Classics sounds good to me.

[zelda_pinwheel]

i beleive someone mentioned having a category for foreign language books, i definitely would like to encourage more non-english works (more french ebooks please !) but i think a better idea would be to create tags for the languages but keep all languages together in the appropriate categories. for 2 reasons :

1. if we make a category called "french" and all the french books are in there, that means fiction will be mixed with horror will be mixed with romance and it will be chaos (much like the current single french thread which is for talking about everything, as long as it is in french). unless we create a whole new series of categories, identical to the original ones, but for each language. this seems excessive to me.

2. if the books are categorized all together but *tagged* with languages, i can search for all books in french for example, or i can browse all the mysteries and discover that not only do we have Arsène Lupin in english, but we also have those books in the original french ! yay ! (we don't yet actually, as far as i know, but i plan to remedy that...).

other than that, several suggestions have been made since i last posted and they all seem good to me. looking at wallcraft's list, it seems to me we could use the mobi subjects (the second line for each category) as tags. the only thing i disagree with is putting graphic novels with juvenile fiction. i don't know whether we could have enough of them to merit their own category, but i do think they're not automatically for children, and it's not a good idea to put them there.

[Alexander Turcic]

OK, it still includes a few more than I'd hoped for, but this is what we got so far:

Biography
Classic
Fiction
Graphic
History
Mystery
Nonfiction
Philosophy
Poetry
Reference
Romance
SF&F
Short Fiction
Spiritual
Young Adult

So, in total, 14 categories. Anything missing or redundant? Last suggestions?