Genres are so limiting

We recently vacationed on the beach in South Carolina. Generally, it takes me several millennia to read a book -- not for lack of interest but for lack of time. When one's at the beach, however, one's got nothing but time. I got through two books and started a third: Theatre of Fish: Travels Through Newfoundland and Labrador, by John Gimlette; Star Wars on Trial: Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Debate the Most Popular Science Fiction Films of All Time, by David Brin and Matthew Woodring Stover, editors; and Everything Is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer.

On the 13-hour drive home, as I began reading Everything Is Illuminated, I made some sort of snide comment to my husband about how great I am because I read fiction from time to time. (Husband only reads nonfiction and Snoopy comics.) He made a very obvious yet thought-provoking point: Everything Is Illuminated -- which is a novel about, among other things, the Holocaust -- is categorized as fiction, while Star Wars on Trial -- which is an essay collection by real science fiction authors debating Jedi, parsecs and whether after-market parts installed on your R2 unit are just excuses for chronological errors in the films -- is classified as non-fiction.

Now, obviously horrifying Holocaust denial implications aside, that's a world I'd like to live in. Murderous extermination of a people? Fake. Moisture farming? Real!