Brand New Genre Guide From NoveList

NoveList has just released their new Genre Guide and it is free to everyone and anyone! From their genre guide page:

A Guide to Genres and Book Discovery

This handy pocket guide describes the genres and subgenres in NoveList, and provides tips for using them to help readers.

From the introduction:

When a romance reader picks up a romance, she expects her heart to flutter as a couple finds their happily-ever-after. Horror readers expect their spines to tingle with terror. Mystery readers want to close a book knowing who the killer is. Whether a library puts stickers on the spines of books or has genre ed the collection, as professionals, librarians use genre to guide readers to their perfect book. 

The librarians at NoveList are no different. We understand that readers and librarians use genre as a shortcut to pick books and expect a particular reading experience. We understand that genre lines aren’t always clear. And we understand that readers are not likely to use the Library of Congress genre “Robinsonades” when looking for a survival story. 

With both the importance and the complication of genre in mind, we spend a lot of time making sure we get it right. In the past couple years, we've had several teams making sure headings are relevant and up to date. This means creating language to define new subgenres (rural noir), including new trends (new adult), using reader language instead of cataloger language (coming-of-age stories instead of bildungsroman), and grappling with books that cross boundaries (science fantasy). 

NoveList Genres: A Guide to Genres and Book Discovery is your guide to our hard work. We put careful thought into genre because we share your goal—matching the right reader to the right book. Genre isn’t the end-all to finding the right book and, when we’re making recommendations, we use this guide in conjunction with NoveList’s signature appeal language to make sure our suggestions are spot on. 

Genres in NoveList are a work in progress--and this is not a complete list just the most popular. Authors continue to expand and experiment and we continue to review and expand our genre headings. We always welcome feedback. Please feel free to share your thoughts and questions with us at novelist@ebsco.com. 

I have downloaded it and looked through it and I can tell you that this is a great tool. The genres are defined. Below subgenres are listed and also defined with a note as to which age level they apply to.

Here is a screen shot to serve as an example:

Besides the obvious genres like Science Fiction, Romance, etc... they also have multiple pages of genres that “don’t fit” into major categories, a section for comics and graphic novels, and “Library Search Helpers,” which include things that aren’t genres but we always search for like, adult books for young adults, books to movies, franchise books, translations, etc...

Click through to download it. It’s free and very helpful whether or not you have a subscription to the database.

This is a must read for everyone who works with leisure readers at all levels. Even experts like myself can always use a refresher. I am going to read up in preparation for a training I am running next week.

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