Philip Roth is not going to walk into a bookstore and see his work in the 'Jewish Male' section.

I think the above quote from the Performance Poet and bestselling author: Sapphire is so true.

The amount of times I walk into a bookshop and roll my eyes at all the "categories" that exist; which actually don't help me as a book reader. Why should I have to look for a book by Alex Wheatle or Courttia Newland in the "black fiction" area. What the hell is "black fiction?"

These "labels" are not helpful and as my friend Helen Ayinde says: extremely divisive. I think it's acceptable to have areas determined by subject but to determine bookstore shelves along sexual orientation or ethnic categories is just pointless. I don't read books because I am a British Asian of Indo-Bangladeshi heritage, nor do I read books because my faith is Islamic. I read because I fucking love books! I don't want to be "steered" to an area of books in a book shop where the authors may have the same skin colour or tone or religious beliefs as me. I want to read about the European Enlightenment, about Henrietta Lacks (awesome book by the way by Rebecca Skloot "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks), and about Caitlin Moran telling me "How to be a Woman." I don't want to necessarily read Roy's "The God of Small Things" or Jhumpha Lahiri's "The Namesake," (both absolute amazing books); I just want to have all my choices available to me when I walk into a book shop.

That is what I find most offensive about book shop categorisations: if you are telling me that all the black authors or all the LGBT or vertically-challenged or diet-phobic fiction is only available to me in the dark nether regions of the shop, what you are actually doing is judging me for my choice of reading. I am being judged because I want to read about a young illiterate black girl who is horrifically abused (Push by Sapphire) or a young American-Bengali boy trying to fit into american culture (The Namesake by Jhumpha Lahiri). I won't be judged if I want to read Stephen King or Lee Childs or James Patterson.

I have to say that as an Amazon downloader (independent bookshops - please don't hate me), they too are guilty of categorising fiction by ethnic or sexual orientation. I am not sure who these categorisations actually help or benefit. I don't have any white friends who announce "I am going to buy some black fiction today," and promptly march to the nearest Waterstones and demand to be shown to the black fiction section.

Books are all about removing those labels and categories. Books are open sources of information and entertainment. Ghettoising certain books is restrictive and just adds to the PC brigade's armoury of ever-more foolishness.

Sapphire