BISACS I have wanted

Anyone who’s ever had to assign a BISAC subject heading to a book and wondered if the book in question actually fits under “FICTION/Psychological” has probably been tempted to come up with some categories of their own. Here are some suggestions I think the old Book Industry Standards and Communications folks should consider:

BIOGRAPHY/Begins With A Genealogy

BIOGRAPHY/Doesn’t Begin With A Genealogy

CRIME/Hilarious

EUROPEAN MEMOIR

FICTION/About A Writer

FICTION/About Two Writers, One of Them May Be A Poet

FICTION/About A Painter

FICTION/No Paragraph Breaks

FICTION/Women Identifying With Houses

HISTORY/Rogues

LITERARY CRITICISM/Bracingly Aggressive

LITERARY CRITICISM/Frighteningly Aggressive

NATURE/Brave Dogs

TRAVEL/ “I’m Such An Idiot And I Still Got Home Alive”

SCIENCE/With Anecdotes

SHORT STORIES/Unresolved Domestic Drama Indicated Through Small Motions

Feel free to add your own. We can make up a petition.

Sal Robinson is an editor at Melville House, and co-founder of the Bridge Series, a reading series focused on translation.

Melville House Books

October 4, 2012