Like everyone else I’m not sure bookstores could stay sane without categorizing the stock. Thank heaven the genre mixing does take place in YA stock, because that’s the age when your reading should be as varied as possible as you develop your tastes.

My background’s in newspapers, where there’s an eternal debate about where to jump page one stories. Some say you should always jump to the back page of the front section for the reader’s convenience. Others say you should jump every story to a different page inside, thus luring readers in to be caught by neighboring unrelated stories.

Maybe bookstores could have the best of both worlds by dividing books into genres but placing the genres at random…history next to romance, mysteries next to social commentary, sci fi beside cookbooks, whatever. This would drive everyone just a little big crazy rather than all-out nuts.

I’m not sure that’s a viable solution in a brick-and-mortar store (as much as I’d like to discover some book I’d never otherwise see, I don’t want to wade through piles of romance novels to get to my Dean Koontz competence-porn), but it’s something that virtual stores should be aware of – there’s just no reason for that Amazon screenshot that included in my post to be the norm.

On YA trend — it’s a strange one. When I was of the YA-age, I read Stephen King and other “adult” books.

It’s further odd that there’s really no parallel between something like, say, the PG-13 film rating and the YA tag.

– c.
.-= Chuck´s last blog ..Please To Meet Death, The Thief Of Conflict =-.