I’ve spent the past few days moving large masses of books around the shop, reshelving sections that have shrunk or expanded, making certain like sits with like. This has included creating new overhead hanging signs, showing what’s on the shelves below.
As happens about hour three of scrutinizing books title by title, carrying armloads back and forth across the shop floor, Jack and I got the wee bit silly. We began to create “totally honest shelf guides.” Here are a few you will never see in a bookstore. Not if it wants to stay in business, anyway.
Celebrity biographies
Biographies of people who have actually done something
Memoirs
Interesting Memoirs
Classics because the school system says so
Real Classics
Science Fiction
Science Fiction involving Science
Bikini Bimbo Science Fiction
Science Fiction with an Apocalyptic Christian Twist
Science Fiction with an Apocalyptic Amish Christian Twist
Cozy Mysteries: candles, soap, needlecraft
Cozy Mysteries: medieval
Cozy Mysteries: cookery
Cozy Mysteries: cats, dogs and other animals with big brown eyes
Cozy Mysteries: someone actually cares when murder occurs
Non-Cozy Mysteries: Native American
Non-Cozy Mysteries: Everything Else
Historic Fiction
Historic Fiction with at least 30% accuracy
Poetry
Poetry that Rhymes
Christian Values
Christian Values that are in the Bible
Modern Values packaged as Christian to sell Better
Paranormal Romances: Fleas and Fangs
Paranormal Romances: three or more pages occurring before coupling (Literary)
Cookbooks by celebrities and diet fad gurus
Cookbooks by people who know what they’re doing
Guys with Big Guns, Fiction and Non
Estrogen Express (Self-help, Career and Relationships)
Hippies, Retro
Hippies, New Age
Hippies, Green
Stephen King (Horror, but we’ve stopped bothering)
Bestsellers (please stack latest Cornwall, Evanovich, Grisham or Patterson here)
War (aka American History; please note Middle East and WWII are located here)
Wendy Welch: Books, Yarn, Cats, Opioids 
This would make things so much easier…
I don’t know, try putting up a sign that you have the largest selection of “Bikini Bimbo Science Fiction” in the state, and watch what happens to sales. 😉
Hmmm…..
BTW, what shelf guide would you use for D&D books?
Geekism, Nerdom, and other Intellectual Misfit Paraphernalia.
The Star Trek and Star Wars novels would be underneath, and the Lego books on the bottom.
Pegged it, didn’t I? :]
Hmmm….
If memory serves, both you and your sister fell into that category a few years (or was it decades?) ago.
What a great honest way to shelf books. It’s also a good lesson in genre bending.
Haha! Love all of these. Really would make the shopping so much easier.
Estrogen Help…..really there is help for this condition in a real live book…..I want to read this one as my level has bottomed out.
What people always ask me for more of are Westerns. It’s got to the point where I’ve actually had to write one…but no shootouts in saloons.