>  JM> Now what do we do with the books by McCrumb which are
 >  JM> neither mystery or SF?
 >
 > I don't have a good answer for you, but a similar situation
 > is why all my paperbacks are filed alphabetically by author,
 > regardless of genre.
 
I expect the "best" answer to be different for everyone, thus my question. 
 
 > It was Madeleine L'Engle who was the
 > final straw for me.
 >
 > I had the children's books in one place, the mainstream
 > in another, and the SF (by far the largest category) in
 > a third.  When I realized that I had one series by her that
 > started out as with children's books, but continued into
 > adult, and SF-flavored adult at that, I gave up.
 
Yes, I too can remember that moment when I realized almost *everything*
 by L'Engle is part of one big THING, in the same way that Michael 
Moorcock's work is largely bound together (though Moorcock is not as bad -- 
silly as that sounds....).  Actually, it was several moments, the first being 
when I first figured out the Murray books linked into the Austin books, but 
you know what I mean.  Then there was the Sandy- and-Denys book (I've 
forgotten the title) which printed all the geneologies on the endpapers and 
confirmed what I had mostly figured out by then.
 
 > It leads to some interesting juxtapositions, but mostly
 > it works.  I can't really recommend it for a bookstore,
 > though.
 
We used to do that in the used section -- have everything together, even 
kids' books, with only anthologies and TV books broken out, because there 
isn't enough mass in the kids' and non-fic and so on to have a separate 
section.  People who are looking for only kids' books don't like it, though.
 
 > Maybe just put all the McCrumb together in mystery,
 > since she mostly appeals to mystery readers, the same way
 > Borders files books about or related to an author's
 > fiction writing with the author's titles?
 
That's pretty much the solution we've come to now, with BIMBOS and ZOMBIES 
cross-filed in SF as well.  And we cross-file books-about- authors under the 
authors and in the writers-and-writing section too.
 
Thanks for your comments.
 
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