We stopped off at B&N when found ourselves with some time to kill after wrapping up a couple errands.
I went to my favorite section, Science Fiction and Fantasy, and was surprised to see that one of my favorite authors, and a guy that moves a goodly number of books, didn't have any books on the shelf. Shortly thereafter, it dawned on me that his name, Hamilton, would have appeared *much* deeper in to the section than alphabetical order would have you think. That's when I noticed names beginning with "A" and "B" in the middle of the section... what the hell?
I went to the start of the section - "A" names, obviously, then progressing quickly through the alphabet (oh, there's Hamilton!) to Z and then restarting in the middle. To repeat - what the hell?
Looking at the authors and the titles, I realized that someone had the bright idea of separating the Sci-Fi subcategory from Fantasy, hence two trips through the alphabet. But what about books that straddle the divide? What about authors that write both? As if in answer to this question, I came across LeGuin's Left Hand of Darkness in the Fantasy area and decided that it was just all too much to take, so I left.