javascript split array depends on names

var splitted=$.grep(mybooks,function(o){return (o[0]=='novel');});

Well, I am not sure exactly what you want as end result, but you could do something like this:

var splitted = mybooks.reduce(function (result, book) {
    var cat = book[0];

    if (!result[cat]) {
        result[cat] = [book];
    } else {
        result[cat].push(book);
    }

    return result;
}, {});

console.log(splitted); //all books splitted by categories
console.log(splitted.novel); //array of novels
console.log(splitted.Biograph); //array of Biograph

If you simply want to gather one category at a time, you could also use the filter function.

var novels = mybooks.filter(function (book) {
    return book[0] === 'novel';
});

A fairly simple approach is:

var splitted = mybooks.filter(function(book) {return book[0] == 'novel';});

You could generalize it like this:

var byType = function(type) {return function(book) {return book[0] == type;};};
var bios = mybooks.filter(byType('Biograph'));

Are you trying to split the array by the book category? If so, it might be good to have a look at object literals instead

This should arrange your book array by its type:

var mybooks = [
    ['novel','BookName1','$20.00'],
    ['novel','BookName2','$24.00'],
    ['novel','BookName3','$34.00'],
    ['novel','BookName4','$31.00'],
    ['novel','BookName4','$38.00'],
    ['Biograph','BookName5','$28.00'],
    ['Biograph','BookName6','$48.00'],
    ['Biograph','BookName7','$50.00']
  ];

var library = {}

for(i=0; i<mybooks.length; i++){
    var bookType = mybooks[i][0];
    if (typeof library[bookType]=='undefined')  
       library[bookType] = [];
    library[bookType].push(mybooks[i]);
}

console.log(library);