Debating the Nonfiction-ness of Fables

I went to Borders Books last night to pick up a book for a client. While there, I decided to look around and found myself wandering over to their Bestsellers rack. There were two sets of shelves - one for the current bestsellers in fiction and one for current bestsellers in nonfiction.

Made sense ... until I saw one of my all-time favorite books - The Alchemist, by Paulo Coehlo, a story about an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns about life, and himself, by learning how to listen to his heart. It was weird. Weird for multiple reasons, actually:

Weird Reason Number 1 - That a book first published (in English) back in 1993 was on any current bestsellers list - although it had been re-released as a trade paperback back in April of 2006.

Weird Reason Number 2 - That it was currently ranked Number 2 in the NON-fiction category - especially given the book's subtitle, "A Fable about Following Your Dream."

Now I wanted to be sure, so I walked over to the bookstore's Reference section and pulled out a copy of the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Lo and behold, the word fable is defined as "a fictitious narrative."

Salesperson: May I help you?

Me: Why yes, you can. Did you know that your Number 2 best-selling nonfiction book is actually fiction?

Salesperson: No it's not.

Me: But it's a fable and fables are, by definition, works of fiction.

Salesperson: Well the book is normally shelved in the Metaphyiscal section, which makes it NON-fiction. So calling it a work of fiction is debatable.

Me: Apparently so.

Apparently so.