Courtesy: clker.com, by OCAL

As all of you who contribute reviews for the challenge know, one of the mandatory pieces of information our Link Your Review form asks you to enter is genre. This provides us with a broad level of categorisation for the books listed in our database, and is the main method by which our contributors determine which reviews they will count and check for inclusion in their round-ups.

The genres (and we use this term a little loosely) have been, to date:

  • General fiction (set after 1980)
  • Historical fiction (set before 1980)
  • Crime fiction (mystery, detective, thriller, suspense, true crime)
  • Romance, erotica or romantic suspense
  • Speculative fiction (fantasy, science fiction, horror, paranormal)
  • History, memoir or biography (non-fiction)
  • Non-fiction – Other
  • Classic
  • Mixed/don’t know/prefer not to say
  • Interview
  • Poetry

Courtesy: clker.com, by OCAL

However, in the last couple of years, reviews have started appearing for some works that don’t fit easily under any of the above: these are published plays and screenplays. Consequently, we have created a new genre option, which you will now see in the dropdown list when you link your next review:

  • Plays and screenplays

This won’t affect most of you, as published plays and screenplays aren’t exactly top of the pops here. However, they are part of our literature, and Aussie women do write them, so it is good to now be able to identify them. If you would like see what’s been reviewed to date:

  1. click/tap on the Books Reviewed link on our Menu Bar
  2. select Plays and Screenplays from the All Genres dropdown
  3. click/tap on Search

You might like to check one out!