Complex search help

[Broadback]

I have 2 very large files, of almost 6GB. I would like to organise these into sub files alphabetically. Sadly the files names are not consistent. Think books, with the possibility of say:
The taming of the shrew titled as:
The taming of the shrew by William Shakespeare
Shakespeare, William - The taming of the shrew.
W Shakespeare - The taming of the shrew
or any other way that can be thought of.
What I would like to do is file it alphabetically under
Shakespeare, William - The Taming of the shrew
Has anyone any suggestions please? Either reasonably price software or other efficient method? Doing it manually would take longer than I have left on this mortal coil!

[Simon]

What type of files are they?

[Broadback]

epub, mobi and various variants of those.

[Glenn]

In the folder, can you select sort by 'author'?

[Broadback]

How? I can only sort alphabetically as far as I know. If the files were all name with the author first that wold be ok, but half of them a named by the title.

[Ray]

Have you looked at the Calibre E book management program? it's free and can be downloaded from here: -

http://calibre-ebook.com/

You can convert book formats with it and add and remove books from your E book reader, also you can search on Book titles, Authors etc from within the application.

[Broadback]

Thanks for that Ray, but what I really want is to file them in folders under the authors names, surname first then Christian name.

[Glenn]

How? I can only sort alphabetically as far as I know. If the files were all name with the author first that wold be ok, but half of them a named by the title.

http://windows.microsoft.com/is-IS/windows7/Arrange-sort-or-group-your-files

[Broadback]

This sounds good but it is incapable of sorting files by data inside the file name.
For example three files:
Animal farm_ a fairy story - George Orwell.mobi
B Is for Burglar - Sue Grafton.mobi
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - The Idiot.mobi
I wish to sort these first into files with the authors name, then alphabetically by title. doing the first is hard the second easy. What would be useful if I could rename the files automatically with the authors surname first then given name first as the first example. I have neither the time left in my life not the patience to do that by hand.

[Simon]

I don't know of anything that could do what I think you want it to do automatically, BB, as how would any software 'know' which is the Author's name in a line of text? 

[D-Dan]

Depending on how much variation there is the naming*, it could possibly be done using bash in Linux (a live CD would do, mount your drive and run the necessary script).

Assuming that you aren't a bash scripter, if you want to try it and can give more info I'd have a go at writing the script for you.

*For example, is the Author's name always preceded by "By" if it doesn't come first. Is the name comma separated when it's written "Last name, first name" but not when "First name, Last name" etc.

[Broadback]

Thanks Dan, that has given me food for thought, I may take you up on that.