Not really discussing genders issues again. Uh uh.

[xenith]

I noticed something odd about the colour of books covers today.

While I was waiting for the bus, I went into the nearby secondhand bookshop. Not that I was expecting to find anything. It sells mostly cheap paperback novels. The small amount of NF is mostly those things that are mostly pictures with some shallow content that no one ever buys used because their only purpose is to be given as presents that looks Educational or Meaningful.

The fiction categories in this shop are a bit odd too. There's "Australian". So is that Australian writers? Settings? And next to that is "Classics" which made sense until I looked at the books in it. Aren't classic usually books you've at least heard of? And shouldn't those ones be in the 'Australian' category. "Science Fiction and Fantasy" is straight forward. Although I found a copy of Katharine Briggs' Dictionary of Fairies on the bottom shelf. Mine! Oh, and how much is it.

Then on the adjoining wall, four floor to ceiling bays. The two on the right had female authors and the two on the left were male authors. Seems an odd way to categorise books but I guess easier than trying to work out what they're about.

The right side looked lighter, as in colour, than the left side. I moved closer to the door in case this was a trick of the light, but nope, the women writers books were mostly white spines and pale blue, the men writers mostly black and other dark colours. Not all of them on either side but enough to create a shadow/light effect. Is this because women are more likely to write books that are marketed at other women and women prefer lighter covers? And similarly for men? I shall have to have a closer look at cover colours next time I'm in a bookshop.

Personally, I prefer dark covers. I guess that's why I read SF&F.

Comments

Books

[sue-bursztynski.livejournal.com]

Monissa, you're going to make a fine library technician! You're thinking like a cataloguer already. Wait till you study the finer points of Dewey! :-) Mind you, as a school librarian, I often have to think crabwise. For example, I will sometimes put non-fiction on the fiction shelves if I think the kids are more likely to find it there - such as the It's True! series in which I had a book, because it's the sort of thing kids are likely to read by the series rather than the subject. And I'm about to get all the Girlfriend Fiction books out from under the author names and put them together because the girls are always asking for Girlfriend Fiction books rather than the latest Lili Wilkinson or Rowena Mohr. Some library folk would disagree, but in my opinion it's better to put the books where the readers can find them. I remember when the new head honcho at my local library split up the genre collections and put the fiction all under author. I'm a librarian myself and even *I* couldn't be bothered looking in the catalogue for SF or crime fiction and having to hunt them up by author instead of browsing. I wrote her a letter about it and she rang me at work and ARGUED with me for 45 minutes! Thank ghu she's long gone. The SF books, at least, are back where they belong.