(Warning: I have deleted two somewhat crud categories below. Some remaining language may offend readers.)
Several years ago, a neighbor in the building where I lived at the time, a budding comedian in her early thirties, was visiting with me in my apartment. We were both readers and began joking about bookstores and genres of literature. I mentioned a book I categorized as “chick-lit,” and my friend, who disliked this particular book, replied it should be labeled “s**t-lit.”
Several years ago, a neighbor in the building where I lived at the time, a budding comedian in her early thirties, was visiting with me in my apartment. We were both readers and began joking about bookstores and genres of literature. I mentioned a book I categorized as “chick-lit,” and my friend, who disliked this particular book, replied it should be labeled “s**t-lit.”
By then, a couple of gin-and-tonics were flowing through our veins, and we commenced, in deliberate but playful fashion, to liven up the nomenclature for literary classification.
Back and forth we batted terms and definitions, sipping our drinks and bursting into laughter when one of our creations seemed particularly apropos.
Below you’ll find the categories we invented that evening, with a few more added later by me. Perhaps the tonic and gin made our contrivances appear more amusing than they actually were, an assessment I shall leave to you, dear readers. But whether you are a bookseller seeking to pull a sinking store from the storm, a librarian looking for some creative ways to organize your collection, or a bibliophile trying to put your shelves in order, please feel free to use any or all of the labels below:
Chick-Lit: Female authors and/or female audiences. Jane Austen is the ruling monarch of this realm.
Git-Lit: Books on bartending, wines, beers, spirits, and frat parties. Everyday Drinking by Kingsley Amis would provide a classy cornerstone of this collection.
Lit-Lit: Books to read while drinking wine, beer, and spirits. Also, books by and about alcoholic writers and recovering addicts. Especially recommended: The Thirsty Muse by Tom Dardis.
Hit-Lit: A mélange of works on boxing, martial arts, and the Mafia. Look here for biographies of Muhammad Ali or Jimmy Hoffa.
Fit-Lit: Bodybuilding, sports, and exercise.
Mitt-Lit: Books on baseball, which as every used bookseller knows, is that sport that most appeals to buyers. This section would also include any biographies of the 2012 Republican presidential candidate.
Pit-Lit: NASCAR, of course. Also, barbeque recipes and accounts of life in hell. Featured selection: The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.
Quit-Lit: More confessionals on addiction and recovery.
Wit-Lit: Home of Oscar Wilde, H.L. Mencken, and other iconoclasts. For special consideration: The Letters of Evelyn Waugh and any title by Judith Martin aka “Miss Manners.”
Tit-Lit: From novels to coffee table tomes, here is the domain of girls gone wild. Featured selection: Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds.
Submit-lit: Erotica of a certain nature. Featured selection: Fifty Shades of Grey.
Prick-Lit: Books about martinets and jerks. Featured selection: Pat Conroy’s The Great Santini.
Zit-Lit: The “young adult” section. Featured book: The Hunger Games.
Flick-Lit: Books on film.
Sick-Lit: Medical dictionaries, off-the wall cures for cancer and death, and tomes on natural medicine
Brit-Lit: Chaucer to Hitchens, and everyone in-between. Featured author: Antony Burgess. Though famous for A Clockwork Orange, Burgess also gave us Earthly Powers, one of the great novels of the twentieth century.
Glit-Lit: Astronomy, astrology, and life among the glitterati. Books having anything to do with the Kardashians would be banned.
Grit-Lit: Books about those who chew tobacco, own guns, drive pickups, and eat biscuits with gravy. Featured biography: Blood and Grits by Harry Crews.
Pig-Lit: Books about Winnie the Pooh’s companion. Also the repository for bacon cookbooks.
Twit-Lit: The metrosexual collection.
Nit-Lit: Insect books. Sub-section: Tick-Lit. Featured selection: Metamorphosis by Kafka.
Writ-Lit: Law and order books. All books on the Constitution, a document by which the United States was once governed. Featured author: John Grisham.
Crit-Lit: Books by celebrated critics, including pundits of the Left and Right. Featured literary critics: Michael Dirda and Gregory Wolfe. Featured pundits: Al Franken and Ann Coulter.
S**t-Lit: Books not worth reading, but which nevertheless appear on the NYT’s Best-Seller list. Included as well would be those gaseous volumes written by presidential candidates and other politicians.
Sit-Lit: Fat books requiring a comfortable chair and several days reading. Featured authors: James Michener, Susan Howatch, and Michael O’Brien, whose work I love but who is too often incapable of writing a book less than five hundred pages long.
Kit-Lit: Books for cat lovers, including all 29 books of Lilian Jackson Braun’s mystery series “The Cat Who….”
It-Lit: Books on aliens.
Knit-Lit: What else but knitting?
Stick-Lit: Lacrosse.
Kick-Lit: Soccer.
Mick-Lit: The Irish collection. Featured author: James Joyce.
Dick-Lit: Detectives and who-done-its. Featured author: Raymond Chandler.
Shtick-Lit: Books by comedians. Special feature: Jim Gaffigan’s Dad Is Fat.
Outwit-Lit: Spy novels.
Split-Lit: Books on divorce and abandonment. Books on multiple personality disorders.
Hypocrite-Lit: Certain political commentators from both left and right along with books by Al Gore and deserving pastors.
Intuit-Lit: Life among the Eskimos.
Spit-Lit: Authors who make you mad enough to want to spit. For conservatives, see Al Gore under
Hypocrite-Lit. For liberals, see Ann Coulter under Crit-Lit.
Smit-Lit: Books on love. Special feature: Cheryl Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things.
Admit-Lit: All confessionals, ranging from Rousseau to today’s “tell-alls.”
Requisite-Lit: Classics and other must-read books.
Sprit-Lit: Books for sailors. Featured: Master and Commander.
Snit-Lit: Books for those who pout, go off in a huff, or are easily enraged. Featured: Anger Management For Dummies.
Schmidt-Lit: Books about Germans.
Quick-Lit: Graphic novels and comic books.
Stiff-Lit: Books about the dead. Featured selection: Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One.
Enough.
Back and forth we batted terms and definitions, sipping our drinks and bursting into laughter when one of our creations seemed particularly apropos.
Below you’ll find the categories we invented that evening, with a few more added later by me. Perhaps the tonic and gin made our contrivances appear more amusing than they actually were, an assessment I shall leave to you, dear readers. But whether you are a bookseller seeking to pull a sinking store from the storm, a librarian looking for some creative ways to organize your collection, or a bibliophile trying to put your shelves in order, please feel free to use any or all of the labels below:
Chick-Lit: Female authors and/or female audiences. Jane Austen is the ruling monarch of this realm.
Git-Lit: Books on bartending, wines, beers, spirits, and frat parties. Everyday Drinking by Kingsley Amis would provide a classy cornerstone of this collection.
Lit-Lit: Books to read while drinking wine, beer, and spirits. Also, books by and about alcoholic writers and recovering addicts. Especially recommended: The Thirsty Muse by Tom Dardis.
Hit-Lit: A mélange of works on boxing, martial arts, and the Mafia. Look here for biographies of Muhammad Ali or Jimmy Hoffa.
Fit-Lit: Bodybuilding, sports, and exercise.
Mitt-Lit: Books on baseball, which as every used bookseller knows, is that sport that most appeals to buyers. This section would also include any biographies of the 2012 Republican presidential candidate.
Pit-Lit: NASCAR, of course. Also, barbeque recipes and accounts of life in hell. Featured selection: The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.
Quit-Lit: More confessionals on addiction and recovery.
Wit-Lit: Home of Oscar Wilde, H.L. Mencken, and other iconoclasts. For special consideration: The Letters of Evelyn Waugh and any title by Judith Martin aka “Miss Manners.”
Tit-Lit: From novels to coffee table tomes, here is the domain of girls gone wild. Featured selection: Playboy: The Complete Centerfolds.
Submit-lit: Erotica of a certain nature. Featured selection: Fifty Shades of Grey.
Prick-Lit: Books about martinets and jerks. Featured selection: Pat Conroy’s The Great Santini.
Zit-Lit: The “young adult” section. Featured book: The Hunger Games.
Flick-Lit: Books on film.
Sick-Lit: Medical dictionaries, off-the wall cures for cancer and death, and tomes on natural medicine
Brit-Lit: Chaucer to Hitchens, and everyone in-between. Featured author: Antony Burgess. Though famous for A Clockwork Orange, Burgess also gave us Earthly Powers, one of the great novels of the twentieth century.
Glit-Lit: Astronomy, astrology, and life among the glitterati. Books having anything to do with the Kardashians would be banned.
Grit-Lit: Books about those who chew tobacco, own guns, drive pickups, and eat biscuits with gravy. Featured biography: Blood and Grits by Harry Crews.
Pig-Lit: Books about Winnie the Pooh’s companion. Also the repository for bacon cookbooks.
Twit-Lit: The metrosexual collection.
Nit-Lit: Insect books. Sub-section: Tick-Lit. Featured selection: Metamorphosis by Kafka.
Writ-Lit: Law and order books. All books on the Constitution, a document by which the United States was once governed. Featured author: John Grisham.
Crit-Lit: Books by celebrated critics, including pundits of the Left and Right. Featured literary critics: Michael Dirda and Gregory Wolfe. Featured pundits: Al Franken and Ann Coulter.
S**t-Lit: Books not worth reading, but which nevertheless appear on the NYT’s Best-Seller list. Included as well would be those gaseous volumes written by presidential candidates and other politicians.
Sit-Lit: Fat books requiring a comfortable chair and several days reading. Featured authors: James Michener, Susan Howatch, and Michael O’Brien, whose work I love but who is too often incapable of writing a book less than five hundred pages long.
Kit-Lit: Books for cat lovers, including all 29 books of Lilian Jackson Braun’s mystery series “The Cat Who….”
It-Lit: Books on aliens.
Knit-Lit: What else but knitting?
Stick-Lit: Lacrosse.
Kick-Lit: Soccer.
Mick-Lit: The Irish collection. Featured author: James Joyce.
Dick-Lit: Detectives and who-done-its. Featured author: Raymond Chandler.
Shtick-Lit: Books by comedians. Special feature: Jim Gaffigan’s Dad Is Fat.
Outwit-Lit: Spy novels.
Split-Lit: Books on divorce and abandonment. Books on multiple personality disorders.
Hypocrite-Lit: Certain political commentators from both left and right along with books by Al Gore and deserving pastors.
Intuit-Lit: Life among the Eskimos.
Spit-Lit: Authors who make you mad enough to want to spit. For conservatives, see Al Gore under
Hypocrite-Lit. For liberals, see Ann Coulter under Crit-Lit.
Smit-Lit: Books on love. Special feature: Cheryl Strayed’s Tiny Beautiful Things.
Admit-Lit: All confessionals, ranging from Rousseau to today’s “tell-alls.”
Requisite-Lit: Classics and other must-read books.
Sprit-Lit: Books for sailors. Featured: Master and Commander.
Snit-Lit: Books for those who pout, go off in a huff, or are easily enraged. Featured: Anger Management For Dummies.
Schmidt-Lit: Books about Germans.
Quick-Lit: Graphic novels and comic books.
Stiff-Lit: Books about the dead. Featured selection: Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One.
Enough.
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