Order my zombie.

December 29, 2011 10:15 PM

I have three folders on my Kindle.. Fiction, Non-fiction and Reference. Where do I place 'The Zombie Survival Guide'?
posted by Frasermoo to Grab Bag (25 answers total)

I'm going to say reference as my vote.
posted by YukonQuirm at 10:18 PM on December 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

Reference.
posted by bryanthecook at 10:19 PM on December 29, 2011

Reference. Or create a new folder called Zombiez and pick up the wonderful World War Z to match.
posted by mochapickle at 10:23 PM on December 29, 2011

Reference but the real answer is "wherever you can find it fastest in an emergency". The last thing you want to do is search through folders looking for it during a zombie attack. Frankly I wouldn't count on the power holding out; you might want to make sure you have a hard copy.
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 10:26 PM on December 29, 2011 [13 favorites]

Umm, they're not folders, they're tags, you can place it in all of them.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 10:26 PM on December 29, 2011 [4 favorites]

Reference.

Or make a new folder called "humor". That's what's it's under in the Library of Congress.
posted by Ookseer at 10:27 PM on December 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, tag it with both. Also, Mrs.P, he should have it memorized. I'm in it to survive it!
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 10:28 PM on December 29, 2011

Response by poster: You must have a different Kindle than me because there aren't tags, unless you crudely use the notes feature.

Humour is a good answer. That's a category I'll use often. I'm not really into sullying my 'serious' reference folder with it. I was leaning towards non-fiction, except it's fiction.. I think.
posted by Frasermoo at 10:37 PM on December 29, 2011

Tag it as reference and as fiction.
posted by oceanjesse at 10:49 PM on December 29, 2011

Nthing "reference." But, if you really don't want to sully your folder (which is a poor choice of words, IMO), then make a new folder called "Emergency Procedures" or something. It'll be in the spirit of the book without calling it humour (because what is funny about being prepared for the inevitable?).
posted by asnider at 11:11 PM on December 29, 2011

In my experience, 'zombie' is code-word* for dealing with large numbers of people in a state-of-emergency/catastrophe/apocalyptic scenario, who will be largely unarmed and unwilling/unable to negotiate, and are set on one or potentially two objectives (food, water, medicine, crossing a border, etc.)

I would say it goes in 'reference,' at least, that is where it is in my own bookshelves.

*without dealing of the other ramifications of code-words, I personally would prefer it if people would come out and say what they mean in these kinds of situations.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 11:17 PM on December 29, 2011 [4 favorites]

You could follow the lead of the Library of Congress and list it under a fiction heading, but as everyone knows Congress is entirely populated with cretins, and only a great fool would accept the advice given by them, and you are not a great fool.

You could put it in the reference category, trusting on the strength of the reasoning that references for both fiction and non-fiction works would fit there. But you're an ebook enthusiast, which means you must have studied, and in studying you must have learned that man is mortal, so you clearly cannot choose to relegate a book about such a vital subject to the utilitarian status of a reference.

However, we're dealing with electrons here, not paper, ergo it would be a classic blunder to do anything other than place such an important work in all three categories, whether that's accomplished by tagging or by buying three copies, so that when the end of civilization comes there's no possibility you will look in the wrong place. And really as Mrs. Pterodactyl says you should have a hard copy too. Never go up against Amazon's DRM when death is on the line. (Or the undead.)
posted by XMLicious at 11:41 PM on December 29, 2011 [104 favorites]

Non-fiction. Because, remember, "They're us. We're them and they're us."
posted by Shane at 11:43 PM on December 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

Reference.

Those who actually consider this to need an "emergency" category fail to remember that the person who's sitting around and reading their Kindle during the Zombie Apocalypse is inevitably going to be Zombie Bait. Read it and know it before Z-Day.
posted by Mister Fabulous at 11:49 PM on December 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've read the Zombie Survival Guide cover-to-cover: it's good stuff. A large portion of it is spent talking about zombies as realistic things and the evidence for zombie attacks in recorded histories (including a many-months-long-siege of a French Legonnairre fort in remotest desert Africa in the early 20th century, if I recall?).

That book ought to be filed in fiction so fast it would make your head spin, unless you don't really care too much about the difference between reference and fiction. Technically, Lord of the Rings contains tidbits on camping in the wilderness, but it's probably not your go-to book when planning an outdoors excursion.

Fiction.
posted by barnacles at 12:24 AM on December 30, 2011 [2 favorites]

Think about where you would put other Ostensibly Very Serious books of debated factual merit, and/or books where there is reason from outside the work - but not from within it - to think the author does not genuinely believe what they write.

the Bible, the Koran, Guide to Astrology, Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Demonic: How the Liberal Mob Is Endangering America.

I would guess that reference is more about how content is presented, than a judgement about the merit of the content. As such I think reference is appropriate for Zombie Surivival. You can't sully Reference with this book - Reference as the category is commonly used and understood, is already filled with contradictory material, intentional deception, garbage, guesses, feelings, hopes, and sometimes even humour.
posted by -harlequin- at 1:19 AM on December 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

When in doubt, look at what bookstores deal with the issue.

Solution in this case: add a new "Humor" category.
posted by rokusan at 2:52 AM on December 30, 2011

Actually, they are not called tags, but are similar function-wise, in the sense that you can add books to more than one Collection. Unless of course you mean something completely different by "folder" in which case, ignore me.
posted by bardophile at 4:06 AM on December 30, 2011

-harlequin- has it. Librarians put UFO books, astrology books, cure-your-cancer-with-positive-thinking books, etc., in nonfiction not because they're true, but because it's presented as information. I know not what Library of Congress may do, but NYPL has the Zombie Survival Guide as a nonfiction book (albeit classified in 818.602, close to John Hodgman's "That Is All" and "Wearing of this Garment Does Not Enable You To Fly: 101 Real Dumb Label Warnings.")

This prevents librarians from having to argue with people about whether their religious books belong in "fiction" or "nonfiction." It's not a statement of truth value or usefulness.

That's not to say whether it would be most useful to you in one category or the other.
posted by Jeanne at 4:09 AM on December 30, 2011 [4 favorites]

File it under "Philosophy", along with this thread.
posted by krilli at 7:06 AM on December 30, 2011

(About that tags thing: Not tags, not folders, but collections, and you can indeed store one book in more than one collection. For instance, I have a bunch of subject collections and I have "unread" and "current reads" collections which contain books that are also in a subject collection.)
posted by mendel at 8:02 AM on December 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's nonfiction. For the reasons cited by Jeanne upthread. Also, LC certainly didn't call it fiction; just stuffed it in 741.5 with Dilbert and Garfield. Lazy way to treat a graphic novel, but that's a rant for another day.
It doesn't have to be true to be nonfiction; just not a (non-graphic) novel.
posted by willpie at 11:39 AM on December 30, 2011

Duh, followed link the companion graphic novel. Correct record here.
Still nonfiction.
posted by willpie at 11:45 AM on December 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

Er, but both the LOC number and the NYPL Dewey number have it squarely in Literature - humor. Which sounds about right to me.
posted by grapesaresour at 2:49 PM on December 30, 2011 [1 favorite]

For me it kind of ruins the joke to have it in 'humour'. The book works so well because it never once breaks out of its framing as non-fiction. But then, you can probably tell from my spelling of 'humour' that I am entranced by deadpan to an extent that's unusual round these parts.
posted by Acheman at 9:18 AM on January 3, 2012