From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Tue Sep 07 2004 - 23:28:39 BST
Hola Marsha,
I've seen Pirsign in the New Age "slash" Spirituality section before, so in my
very humble opinion, Buddhism is step "up". But I agree, Pirsig belongs in
philosophy.
I can tell you, having worked in the book industry (in the great city of
Chicago) for several years, this decision is often made (or strongly suggested)
by the publisher. Book stores only tend to "override" this when they feel their
categorizations reflect better placement. Of course, B&N is such a megalith at
this point, perhaps they don't listen at all.
What's funny about this is that "pick up" sales drives the categorizations (if
you are coming in for the book, it doesn't matter where it is, they will get it
for you, but for someone browsing a section who happens to pick it up, that is
where the back-catalog sales are), but in this case I think the categorization
may HURT sales. I could understand (cynically) the decision to put Pirsig in
New Age (those people buy ANYTHING ;-)), but I can't imagine most people
looking for books on Buddhist religion would "pick up" Pirsig along the way.
Arlo
On Tue, 07 Sep 2004 15:44:56 +0000, MarshaV wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> I was in Barnes&Noble today. I was looking in the section on Buddhism, and
> there were ZMM & Lila, The Guidebook to ZMM. They were not in their
> philosophy section. I asked why they were in the Buddhist section rather
> than the philosophy section. I was told the decision is not made in the
> store, but determined before they arrive, at the "Main Office".
>
> Is the Buddhism section a right choice? Shouldn't the books be in the
> philosophy section? They gave me a 800 number to call to challenge their
> decision.
>
> MarshaV
>
>
>
>
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