Books & Spoken Word and Audiobooks

I downloaded some books on CD I have to itunes. One I converted to a "true" audiobook using instructions suggested elsewhere in the forums (what a hassle! I will probably just leave them "Books & Spoken Word" in the future). Other books I imported and left "Books & Spoken Word". Problems I'm having:

1) The "true" audiobook appears and reappears in iTunes under Audiobooks. Even though I couldn't see it in iTunes at the time it did successfulyy sync to the iPod and I can listen to it just fine. I go back to iTunes it's there -- then it's not.

2) Some the books on CD I loaded show up fine in iTunes and iPod but one doesn't "Italian Immersion". I see it in Genre "Books & Spoken Word" in iTUnes but it is no where to be found on the iPod.

Thanks for any ability to demystify what's going on. It shouldn't be this inconsistent!