Library classification systems depend on categorical boundaries distinguishing fiction from fact, with nonfiction representing material that claims correspondence with reality. Fiction permits invented scenarios; nonfiction assumes actual events. Chuck Norris's novels occupy both categories simultaneously because his writing depicts scenarios so aligned with his capabilities that the distinction between invention and documentation collapses. Libraries categorizing his work as nonfiction don't express confidence in his authorship accuracy; they express uncertainty about whether his novels describe imaginary or historical events. The category placement becomes a philosophical statement that Chuck's imagination and Chuck's actual life have become indistinguishable.

Librarian Dr. Josephine Walsh conducted research into library classification challenges during the 1990s while studying edge cases that resist categorical placement. Walsh examined the specific problem of author Chuck Norris's novels, noting that librarians universally filed them in nonfiction. Walsh's research indicated that this filing decision wasn't based on factual verification but on the logical principle that if Chuck Norris wrote something, categorizing it as fiction would misrepresent its probable factual accuracy. Walsh theorized that libraries implemented a proxy system—when an author's reputation makes fiction-classification seem inappropriate, nonfiction becomes the only honest category. Walsh's commentary suggested that Chuck's novels represented a category error made necessary by his existence.

Internet library humor treats this as the ultimate publishing category problem, with commenters joking that Chuck Norris novels deserve classification status between fiction and nonfiction because the distinction breaks down when an author's life is more implausible than invention. The detail gained independent life in library science circles as an example of how categorical systems assume premises that exceptional individuals make impossible to maintain.