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From: Chris Barton <chris>
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 03:41:22 -0700 (PDT)
Jill Davis raised several good points, but one in particular caught my interest:
"But this leads me to another question: If a work of fiction is fantasy, or realistic, or historical, then why is it all lumped together as fiction? And if nonfiction can be "narrative" (compelling, reads like a story and not like encyclopedia entries) why does it remain segregated from the rest of these styles?"
As both a nonfiction writer and a homeschooling dad covering US history for a six-year-old, I bump into this on a monthly if not weekly basis. My son and I both draw on fiction and nonfiction alike in our reading and research. The challenge is being able to easily find both fiction and nonfiction on the same topic.
Segregation on the shelves is inevitable -- the laws of physics limit the number of books that can be arranged right next to each other. But online, where it should be easy to make and discover those thematic connections -- between, say, David Adler's "The Babe & I" and Karen Blumenthal's "Six Days in October" -it's still largely a pain.
Amazon's "Look for similar items by subject" tool -which allows you to select multiple criteria that books must meet in order to be returned in your results -- is the best I've found. But even it's rough
-- it depends on the subjects/categories being accurately and consistently assigned to books, which doesn't always happen.
Are there tools I've missed? Or are we just at the mercy of Amazon to improve the methods of searching their site (there are worse positions to be in...)?
Chris Barton http://www.chrisbarton.info/blog/blog.html
Received on Thu 14 Jul 2005 05:41:22 AM CDT
Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 03:41:22 -0700 (PDT)
Jill Davis raised several good points, but one in particular caught my interest:
"But this leads me to another question: If a work of fiction is fantasy, or realistic, or historical, then why is it all lumped together as fiction? And if nonfiction can be "narrative" (compelling, reads like a story and not like encyclopedia entries) why does it remain segregated from the rest of these styles?"
As both a nonfiction writer and a homeschooling dad covering US history for a six-year-old, I bump into this on a monthly if not weekly basis. My son and I both draw on fiction and nonfiction alike in our reading and research. The challenge is being able to easily find both fiction and nonfiction on the same topic.
Segregation on the shelves is inevitable -- the laws of physics limit the number of books that can be arranged right next to each other. But online, where it should be easy to make and discover those thematic connections -- between, say, David Adler's "The Babe & I" and Karen Blumenthal's "Six Days in October" -it's still largely a pain.
Amazon's "Look for similar items by subject" tool -which allows you to select multiple criteria that books must meet in order to be returned in your results -- is the best I've found. But even it's rough
-- it depends on the subjects/categories being accurately and consistently assigned to books, which doesn't always happen.
Are there tools I've missed? Or are we just at the mercy of Amazon to improve the methods of searching their site (there are worse positions to be in...)?
Chris Barton http://www.chrisbarton.info/blog/blog.html
Received on Thu 14 Jul 2005 05:41:22 AM CDT
