Friday, September 23, 2011

Finding Christian Fiction


I am often asked for the location of the Christian fiction section in the library. Fiction, in the library, is shelved by author. So, how does one find sub-genres within the fiction section?

Christian fiction may be mystery, romance, suspense, science fiction or horror. My first suggestion is to use the "find popular authors by genre" link in the Books and Reading section on library's website. Another suggestion is to try using subject headings. A search for Christian fiction as a subject heading will yield 1509 results. If you have read your way through all the Beverly Lewis Amish books and want to find more Christian fiction Amish books, use the sort/limit function in the catalog by adding Amish as a subject. The results will be other Christian fiction books with Amish themes. You will discover the author Cindy Woodsmall by using this method.
You can also go directly to Advanced Search to search, limit and sort your results. If you need a demonstration on how to use the sort/limit function or Advanced Search, please stop and ask at the service desk the next time you visit your library. A few of the other subject headings that will lead you to Christian fiction are, Christian Life Fiction, Women in the Bible -- Fiction, Christian saints-- fiction, and the very long Bible. N.T. -- History of Bible events -- fiction. (OK, so you might want to skip this one). The recent bestseller, The Shack by William P Young, is listed in the catalog under the subject heading religious fiction.

Alas, sometimes the subject headings fail us, especially when searching for Christian fiction. The subject heading of clergy fiction will result in some of my favorite books by Jan Karon but not all of them. The book Monster by Frank Peretti is listed as horror fiction. The Narnia series by C.S. Lewis is listed under the subject heading Good and Evil – Juvenile fiction. Totally confused yet? When you are having trouble finding what you want, please do not hesitate to ask. Use the link on the catalog to Get Personalized Good Reads, ask at the service desk or call us. We love to help you find the books you want to read!

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