Last night my husband and I went to a Borders bookstore to make good use of a gift card. I haven't been to a Borders in quite a while, mainly because I used to work at a local independent bookstore and tend to buy books there. Anyway, after checking the magazine section for copies of The Writer (yes, the December issue was available—good), I did a double take when browsing the fiction section because I saw David Sedaris' multiple memoirs there. As I continued walking along the fiction shelves, I found memoirs by other authors, as well.

This struck me as very odd. I realize that there's an ongoing discussion about creative license in memoir writing, and that the debate is complicated. But no matter how you feel about the liberties that some memoirists take, there's no denying the popularity of the genre. Does it really belong in fiction? Wouldn't it make more sense to give it its own little area, or to shelve it with autobiographies and biographies? If I had gone into the store looking for a specific memoir, I would have looked for an autobiography/biography section.

I think this shelving practice can only confuse customers. Recently, a family member confessed to not knowing what a memoir is, this from an avid reader and one who has read at least one memoir in the last few years. This confusion may be a problem for authors and publishers to address, not booksellers, but lumping memoirs with novels and story collections isn't helping.

What do you think? Would or does it bother you that Borders shelves memoirs in its fiction section?

Please post your comments here in the forum. Thank you! 

--Sarah C. Lange, associate editor