Q. How do I know if a book is nonfiction?

Nonfiction books contain "prose writing that is based on facts, real events, and real people, such as biography or history" (from The New Oxford American Dictionary). 

Nonfiction books will usually have tables of contents. Many will have indexes and lists of references, notes, or bibliographic citations of other works cited by the books' authors. Nonfiction books often have charts, tables, and graphs to visually communicate information. 

Most books in the CofC collection are nonfiction. CofC uses the Library of Congress (LC) classification system to shelve books. Each book is assigned a call number beginning with a letter. LC classification does not have a separate section for fiction, but call numbers for fiction books (literature) generally begin with a P. Not all items beginning with a P are fiction, however--the literature section also includes literary criticism and literary biographies.