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Book
A book is a medium for recording information in
the form of writing or images. Modern books are
typically in codex format, composed of many pages
that are bound together and protected by a cover;
they were preceded by several earlier formats,
including the scroll and the tablet. The book
publishing process is the series of steps involved in
their creation and dissemination.

As a conceptual object, a book refers to a written

The Gutenberg Bible, one of the first books to be
work of substantial length, which may be
printed using the printing press
distributed either physically or digitally as an
electronic book (ebook). These works can be
broadly classified into fiction (containing invented content, often narratives) and non-fiction
(containing content intended as factual truth). A physical book may not contain such a work: for
example, it may contain only drawings, engravings, photographs, puzzles, or removable content
like paper dolls. It may also be left empty for personal use, as in the case of account books,
appointment books, autograph books, notebooks, diaries and sketchbooks.

Books are sold at both regular stores and specialized bookstores, as well as online for delivery, and
can be borrowed from libraries. The reception of books has led to a number of social consequences,
including censorship.

The modern book industry has seen several major changes due to new technologies, including
ebooks and audiobooks (recordings of books being read aloud). Awareness of the needs of print-
disabled people has led to a rise in formats designed for greater accessibility, such as braille
printing and large-print editions. Google Books estimated in 2010 that approximately 130 million
total unique books had been published.

Etymology
The word book comes from the Old English bōc, which in turn likely comes from the Germanic root
*bōk-, cognate to "beech".[1] In Slavic languages like Russian, Bulgarian, Macedonian буква bukva
—"letter" is cognate with "beech". In Russian, Serbian and Macedonian, the word букварь
(bukvar') or буквар (bukvar) refers to a primary school textbook that helps young children master
the techniques of reading and writing. It is thus conjectured that the earliest Indo-European
writings may have been carved on beech wood.[2] The Latin word codex, meaning a book in the
modern sense (bound and with separate leaves), originally meant "block of wood".[3]

An avid reader or collector of books is a bibliophile, or colloquially a "bookworm".

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Definitions
In its modern incarnation, a book is typically composed of many pages (commonly of paper,
parchment, or vellum) that are bound together along one edge and protected by a cover. By
extension, book refers to a physical book's written, printed, or graphic contents.[4] A single part or
division of a longer written work may also be called a book, especially for some works composed in
antiquity: each part of Aristotle's Physics, for example, is a book.[5]

It is difficult to create a precise definition of the book that clearly delineates it from other kinds of
written material across time and culture. The meaning of the term has changed substantially over
time with the evolution of communication media.[6] Historian of books James Raven has suggested
that when studying how books have been used to communicate, they should be defined in a
broadly inclusive way as "portable, durable, replicable and legible" means of recording and
disseminating information, rather than relying on physical or contextual features. This would
include, for example, ebooks, newspapers, and quipus (a form of knot-based recording historically
used by cultures in Andean South America), but not objects fixed in place such as inscribed
monuments.[7][8]

A stricter definition is given by UNESCO: for the purpose of recording national statistics on book
production, it recommended that a book be defined as "a non-periodical printed publication of at
least 49 pages, exclusive of the cover pages, published in the country and made available to the
public", distinguishing them from other written material such as pamphlets.[4][9] Kovač et al. have
critiqued this definition for failing to account for new digital formats. They propose four criteria (a
minimum length; textual content; a form with defined boundaries; and "information architecture"
like linear structure and certain textual elements) that form a "hierarchy of the book", in which
formats that fulfill more criteria are considered more similar to the traditional printed book.[10][11]

Although in academic language a monograph is a specialist work on a single subject, in library and
information science the term is used more broadly to mean any non-serial publication complete in
one volume (a physical book) or a definite number of volumes (such as a multi-volume novel), in
contrast to serial or periodical publications.[12][5]

History
The history of books became an acknowledged academic discipline in the 1980s. Contributions to
the field have come from textual scholarship, codicology, bibliography, philology, palaeography, art
history, social history and cultural history. It aims to demonstrate that the book as an object, not
just the text contained within it, is a conduit of interaction between readers and words. Analysis of
each component part of the book can reveal its purpose, where and how it was kept, who read it,
ideological and religious beliefs of the period, and whether readers interacted with the text within.
Even a lack of such evidence can leave valuable clues about the nature of a particular book.

The earliest forms of writing were etched on tablets, transitioning to palm leaves and papyrus in
ancient times. Parchment and paper later emerged as important substrates for bookmaking,
introducing greater durability and accessibility.[13] Across regions like China, the Middle East,

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Europe, and South Asia, diverse methods of book

production evolved. The Middle Ages saw the rise of
illuminated manuscripts, intricately blending text and
imagery, particularly during the Mughal era in South Asia
under the patronage of rulers like Akbar and Shah
Jahan.[14][15]

Prior to the invention of the printing press in the 15th

century, made famous by the Gutenberg Bible, each text
was a unique handcrafted valuable article, personalized The intricate frontispiece of the Diamond
through the design features incorporated by the scribe, Sutra from Tang dynasty China, i.e. 868
owner, bookbinder, and illustrator.[16] Its creation marked CE, the oldest known dated printed book
in the world (British Library)
a pivotal moment for book production. Innovations like
movable type and steam-powered presses accelerated
manufacturing processes and contributed to increased literacy rates. Copyright protection also
emerged, securing authors' rights and shaping the publishing landscape.[17] The Late Modern
Period introduced chapbooks, catering to a wider range of readers, and mechanization of the
printing process further enhanced efficiency.

The 20th century witnessed the advent of typewriters, computers, and desktop publishing,
transforming document creation and printing. Digital advancements in the 21st century led to the
rise of ebooks, propelled by the popularity of ereaders and accessibility features. While discussions
about the potential decline of physical books have surfaced, print media has proven remarkably
resilient, continuing to thrive as a multi-billion dollar industry.[18] Additionally, efforts to make
literature more inclusive emerged, with the development of Braille for the visually impaired and
the creation of spoken books, providing alternative ways for individuals to access and enjoy
literature.[19]

Tablet
Some of the earliest written records were made on tablets. Clay tablets
(flattened pieces of clay impressed with a stylus) were used in the
Ancient Near East throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron
Age, especially for writing in cuneiform. Wax tablets (pieces of wood
covered in a layer of wax) were used in classical antiquity and
throughout the Middle Ages.

The custom of binding several wax tablets together (Roman

pugillares) is a possible precursor of modern bound books.[20] The
etymology of the word codex (block of wood) suggests that it may have Fragments of the
developed from wooden wax tablets.[21] Instructions of Shuruppak,
dated to the early 3rd
millennium BC
Scroll
Scrolls made from papyrus were first used for writing in Ancient
Egypt, perhaps as early as the First Dynasty, although the earliest evidence is from the account
books of King Neferirkare Kakai of the Fifth Dynasty (about 2400 BC). According to Herodotus
(History 5:58), the Phoenicians brought writing and papyrus to Greece around the 10th or 9th

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century BC. Whether made from papyrus, parchment, or

paper, scrolls were the dominant writing medium in the
Hellenistic, Roman, Chinese, Hebrew, and Macedonian
cultures. The codex dominated in the Roman world by
late antiquity, but scrolls persisted much longer in Asia.

Book of the Dead of Hunefer; c. 1275 BC;

ink and pigments on papyrus; 45 × Codex
90.5 cm; British Museum (London)
The codex is the ancestor of
the modern book, consisting
of sheets of uniform size bound along one edge and typically held
between two covers made of some more robust material. Isidore of
Seville (died 636) explained the then-current relation between a
codex, book, and scroll in his Etymologiae (VI.13): "A codex is
composed of many books; a book is of one scroll. It is called codex by
way of metaphor from the trunks (codex) of trees or vines, as if it were
a wooden stock, because it contains in itself a multitude of books, as it
were of branches".
A Chinese bamboo book
The first written mention of the codex as a form of book is from meets the modern definition
of codex.
Martial, in his Apophoreta CLXXXIV at the end of the first century,
where he praises its compactness. However, the codex never gained
much popularity in the pagan Hellenistic world, and only within the Christian community did it
gain widespread use.[22] This change happened gradually during the 3rd and 4th centuries, and the
reasons for adopting the codex form of the book were several: the format was more economical
than the scroll, as both sides of the writing material can be used; and it was portable, searchable,
and easier to conceal. The Christian authors may also have wanted to distinguish their writings
from the pagan and Judaic texts written on scrolls.

The codices of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica had the same form as the European codex, but were
instead made with long folded strips of either fig bark (amatl) or plant fibers, often with a layer of
whitewash applied before writing. New World codices were written as late as the 16th century (see
Maya codices and Aztec codices). Those written before the Spanish conquests seem all to have been
single long sheets folded concertina-style, sometimes written on both sides of the local amatl
paper.

Manuscript
Manuscripts, handwritten and hand-copied documents, were the only form of writing before the
invention and widespread adoption of print. Advances were made in the techniques used to create
them.

In the early Western Roman Empire, monasteries continued Latin writing traditions related to
Christianity, and the clergy were the predominant readers and copyists. The bookmaking process
was long and laborious. They were usually written on parchment or vellum, writing surfaces made
from processed animal skin. The parchment had to be prepared, then the unbound pages were
planned and ruled with a blunt tool or lead, after which the text was written by a scribe, who
usually left blank areas for illustration and rubrication. Finally, it was bound by a bookbinder.[23]

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Because of the difficulties involved in making and copying

books, they were expensive and rare. Smaller monasteries
usually had only a few dozen books. By the 9th century, larger
collections held around 500 volumes and even at the end of the
Middle Ages, the papal library in Avignon and Paris library of
the Sorbonne held only around 2,000 volumes.[24]

The rise of universities in the 13th century led to an increased

demand for books, and a new system for copying appeared. The
books were divided into unbound leaves (pecia), which were
lent out to different copyists, so the speed of book production
Folio 14 recto of the 5th-century
Vergilius Romanus contains an
was considerably increased. The system was maintained by
author portrait of Virgil. Note the secular stationers guilds, which produced both religious and
bookcase (capsa), reading stand non-religious material.[25]
and the text written without word
spacing in rustic capitals. In India, bound manuscripts made of birch bark or palm leaf
had existed since antiquity.[26] The text in palm leaf
manuscripts was inscribed with a knife pen on rectangular cut
and cured palm leaf sheets; coloring was then applied to the
surface and wiped off, leaving the ink in the incised grooves.
Each sheet typically had a hole through which a string could
pass, and with these the sheets were tied together with a string
to bind like a book.

Woodblock printing
In woodblock printing, a relief
Burgundian author and scribe Jean image of an entire page is carved
Miélot, from his Miracles de Notre
into blocks of wood, inked, and
Dame, 15th century
used to print copies of that page. It
originated in the Han dynasty
before 220 AD, used to print textiles and later paper, and was widely
used throughout East Asia. The oldest dated book printed by this
method is The Diamond Sutra (868 AD). The method (called woodcut
when used in art) arrived in Europe in the early 14th century. Books
(known as block-books), as well as playing-cards and religious
pictures, began to be produced by this method. Creating an entire
book was a painstaking process, requiring a hand-carved block for
each page, and the wooden blocks could crack if stored for too long. Bagh print, a traditional
woodblock printing
technique that originated in
Movable type and incunabula Bagh, Madhya Pradesh,
The Chinese inventor Bi Sheng made movable type of earthenware India
c. 1045, but there are no known surviving examples of his printing.
Around 1450, Johannes Gutenberg independently invented movable
type in Europe, along with innovations in casting the type based on a matrix and hand mould. This
invention gradually made books less expensive to produce and more widely available. Early printed
books, single sheets and images which were created before 1501 in Europe are known as incunables
or incunabula.[27]

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19th century to present

Steam-powered printing presses
became popular in the early 19th
century. These machines could
print 1,100 sheets per hour,[28] but
workers could only set 2,000
letters per hour. Monotype and
linotype typesetting machines
Selected Teachings of Buddhist
were introduced in the late 19th
Sages and Son Masters, the earliest century. They could set more than
known book printed with movable 6,000 letters per hour and an
metal type, printed in Korea, in entire line of type at once. There A 15th-century Incunable
1377, Bibliothèque nationale de have been numerous
France improvements in the printing
press. In mid-20th century, European book production had
risen to over 200,000 titles per year.

During the 20th century, libraries faced an ever-increasing rate of publishing, sometimes called an
information explosion. The advent of electronic publishing and the internet means that new
information is often published online rather than in printed books, for example through a digital
library. "Print on demand" technologies, which make it possible to print as few as one book at a
time, have made self-publishing (and vanity publishing) much easier and more affordable, and has
allowed publishers to keep low-selling books in print rather than declaring them out of print.

Contemporary publishing
Presently, books are typically produced by a publishing company in order to be put on the market
by distributors and bookstores. The publisher negotiates a formal legal agreement with authors in
order to obtain the copyright to works, then arranges for them to be produced and sold. The major
steps of the publishing process are: editing and proofreading the work to be published; designing
the printed book; manufacturing the books; and selling the books, including marketing and
promotion. Each of these steps is usually taken on by third-party companies paid by the
publisher.[29] This is in contrast to self-publishing, where an author pays for the production and
distribution of their own work and manages some or all steps of the publishing process.[30]

English-language publishing is currently dominated by the so-called "Big Five" publishers:

Penguin Random House, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan
Publishers. They were estimated to make up almost 60 percent of the market for general-
readership books in 2021.[31]

Design
Book design is the art of incorporating the content, style, format, design, and sequence of the
various elements of a book into a coherent unit.[32]

Layout

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Modern books are organized according to a

particular format called the book's layout.
Although there is great variation in layout,
modern books tend to adhere to a set of rules
with regard to what the parts of the layout
are and what their content usually includes.
A basic layout will include a front cover, a
back cover and the book's content which is
called its body copy or content pages. The
front cover often bears the book's title (and
subtitle, if any) and the name of its author or
editor(s). The inside front cover page is
usually left blank in both hardcover and
paperback books. The next section, if
present, is the book's front matter, which
includes all textual material after the front
cover but not part of the book's content such Diagram of a book
as a foreword, a dedication, a table of 1. Belly band
contents and publisher data such as the 2. Flap
book's edition or printing number and place 3. Endpaper
of publication. Between the body copy and 4. Cover
the back cover goes the end matter which 5. Head
would include any indices, sets of tables,
6. Fore edge
diagrams, glossaries or lists of cited works
7. Tail
(though an edited book with several authors
8. Right page (recto if printing is left to right,
usually places cited works at the end of each
verso if right to left)
authored chapter). The inside back cover
9. Left page (verso if printing is left to right, recto
page, like that inside the front cover, is if right to left)
usually blank. The back cover is the usual
10. Gutter
place for the book's ISBN and maybe a
photograph of the author(s)/ editor(s),
perhaps with a short introduction to them. Also here often appear plot summaries, barcodes and
excerpted reviews of the book.[33]

The body of the books is usually divided into parts, chapters, sections and sometimes subsections
that are composed of at least a paragraph or more.

Size
The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the
height and width of its cover.[34] A series of terms commonly used by contemporary libraries and
publishers for the general sizes of modern books ranges from folio (the largest), to quarto (smaller)
and octavo (still smaller). Historically, these terms referred to the format of the book, a technical
term used by printers and bibliographers to indicate the size of a leaf in terms of the size of the
original sheet. For example, a quarto was a book printed on sheets of paper folded in half twice,
with the first fold at right angles to the second, to produce 4 leaves (or 8 pages), each leaf one
fourth the size of the original sheet printed – note that a leaf refers to the single piece of paper,

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whereas a page is one side of a leaf. Because the actual format of many modern books cannot be
determined from examination of the books, bibliographers may not use these terms in scholarly
descriptions.

Illustration
While some form of book illustration has existed since the
invention of writing, the modern Western tradition of
illustration began with 15th-century block books, in which the
book's text and images were cut into the same block.[35]
Techniques such as engraving, etching, and lithography have
also been influential.

Manufacturing

Illustration from "The House that

Jack Built" in The Complete
Collection of Pictures & Songs;
engraving and printing by Edmund
Evans, illustration by Randolph
Caldecott (1887)
Several book spines displayed on a shelf

The methods used for the printing and binding of books

continued fundamentally unchanged from the 15th century into the early 20th century. While there
was more mechanization, a book printer in 1900 still used movable metal type assembled into
words, lines, and pages to create copies. Modern paper books are printed on paper designed
specifically for printing. Traditionally, book papers are off-white or low-white papers (easier to
read), are opaque to minimize the show-through of text from one side of the page to the other and
are (usually) made to tighter caliper or thickness specifications, particularly for case-bound books.
Different paper qualities are used depending on the type of book: Machine finished coated papers,
woodfree uncoated papers, coated fine papers and special fine papers are common paper grades.

Today, the majority of books are printed by offset lithography.[36] When a book is printed, the
pages are laid out on the plate so that after the printed sheet is folded the pages will be in the
correct sequence. Books tend to be manufactured nowadays in a few standard sizes. The sizes of
books are usually specified as "trim size": the size of the page after the sheet has been folded and
trimmed. The standard sizes result from sheet sizes (therefore machine sizes) which became
popular 200 or 300 years ago, and have come to dominate the industry. British conventions in this
regard prevail throughout the English-speaking world, except for the US. The European book
manufacturing industry works to a completely different set of standards.

Hardcover books have a stiff binding, while paperback books have cheaper, flexible covers which
tend to be less durable. Publishers may produce low-cost pre-publication copies known as galleys
or "bound proofs" for promotional purposes, such as generating reviews in advance of publication.
Galleys are usually made as cheaply as possible, since they are not intended for sale.

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Printing
Some books, particularly those with shorter runs (i.e. with fewer copies) will be printed on sheet-
fed offset presses, but most books are now printed on web presses, which are fed by a continuous
roll of paper, and can consequently print more copies in a shorter time. As the production line
circulates, a complete "book" is collected together in one stack of pages, and another machine
carries out the folding, pleating, and stitching of the pages into bundles of signatures (sections of
pages) ready to go into the gathering line. The pages of a book are printed two at a time, not as one
complete book. Excess numbers are printed to make up for any spoilage due to make-readies or
test pages to assure final print quality.

A make-ready is the preparatory work carried out by the pressmen to get the printing press up to
the required quality of impression. Included in make-ready is the time taken to mount the plate
onto the machine, clean up any mess from the previous job, and get the press up to speed. As soon
as the pressman decides that the printing is correct, all the make-ready sheets will be discarded,
and the press will start making books. Similar make readies take place in the folding and binding
areas, each involving spoilage of paper.

Recent developments in book manufacturing include the development of digital printing. Book
pages are printed, in much the same way as an office copier works, using toner rather than ink.
Each book is printed in one pass, not as separate signatures. Digital printing has permitted the
manufacture of much smaller quantities than offset, in part because of the absence of make readies
and of spoilage. Digital printing has opened up the possibility of print-on-demand, where no books
are printed until after an order is received from a customer.

Binding
After the signatures are folded and gathered, they move into
the bindery. In the middle of last century there were still many
trade binders—stand-alone binding companies which did no
printing, specializing in binding alone. At that time, because of
the dominance of letterpress printing, typesetting and printing
took place in one location, and binding in a different factory.
When type was all metal, a typical book's worth of type would
be bulky, fragile and heavy. The less it was moved in this
condition the better: so printing would be carried out in the
same location as the typesetting. Printed sheets on the other
hand could easily be moved. Now, because of increasing
computerization of preparing a book for the printer, the
typesetting part of the job has flowed upstream, where it is
12-metre-high (40 ft) sculpture of a
done either by separately contracting companies working for stack of books at the Berlin Walk of
the publisher, by the publishers themselves, or even by the Ideas, commemorating the invention
authors. Mergers in the book manufacturing industry mean of modern book printing
that it is now unusual to find a bindery which is not also
involved in book printing (and vice versa).

If the book is a hardback its path through the bindery will involve more points of activity than if it
is a paperback. Unsewn binding is now increasingly common. The signatures of a book can also be
held together by "Smyth sewing" using needles, "McCain sewing", using drilled holes often used in

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schoolbook binding, or "notch binding", where gashes about an inch long are made at intervals
through the fold in the spine of each signature. The rest of the binding process is similar in all
instances. Sewn and notch bound books can be bound as either hardbacks or paperbacks.

Finishing
"Making cases" happens off-line and prior to the book's arrival at the binding line. In the most
basic case-making, two pieces of cardboard are placed onto a glued piece of cloth with a space
between them into which is glued a thinner board cut to the width of the spine of the book. The
overlapping edges of the cloth (about 5/8" all round) are folded over the boards, and pressed down
to adhere. After case-making the stack of cases will go to the foil stamping area for adding
decorations and type.

Retail and distribution

Bookselling is the commercial trading of books that forms the retail and distribution end of the
publishing process.

Accessible publishing
Accessible publishing is an approach to publishing and book
design whereby books and other texts are made available in
alternative formats designed to aid or replace the reading
process. It is particularly relevant for people who are blind,
visually impaired or otherwise print-disabled.

An example of someone using a

Alternative formats that have been developed to aid different
screen reader showing documents people to read include varieties of larger fonts, specialized fonts
that are inaccessible, readable and for certain kinds of reading disabilities, braille, ebooks, and
accessible automated audiobooks and DAISY digital talking books.

Accessible publishing has been made easier through

developments in technology such as print on demand, ebook readers, the XML structured data
format, the EPUB3 format and the Internet.

Audiobooks
An audiobook or talking book is a recording of a book or other work being read out loud. A reading
of the complete text is described as "unabridged", while readings of shorter versions are
abridgements.

Spoken audio has been available in schools and public libraries and to a lesser extent in music
shops since the 1930s. Many spoken word albums were made prior to the age of cassettes, compact
discs, and downloadable audio, often of poetry and plays rather than books. It was not until the
1980s that the medium began to attract book retailers, and then book retailers started displaying
audiobooks on bookshelves rather than in separate displays.

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Ebooks
An ebook (short for electronic book), also spelled e-book or eBook, is a
book publication made available in electronic form, consisting of text,
images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or
other electronic devices.[37] Although sometimes defined as "an
electronic version of a printed book",[38] some ebooks exist without a
printed equivalent. Ebooks can be read on dedicated e-reader devices
and on any computer device that features a controllable viewing
screen, including desktop computers, laptops, tablets and
smartphones.

In some markets, the sale of printed books has decreased due to the
increased use of ebooks. However, printed books still largely outsell
ebooks, and many people have a preference for print.[39][40][41][42] A Kindle e-reader

Dummy books
Dummy books (or faux books) are books that are designed to
imitate a real book by appearance to deceive people, some
books may be whole with empty pages, others may be hollow or
in other cases, there may be a whole panel carved with spines
which are then painted to look like books, titles of some books
may also be fictitious.

There are many reasons to have dummy books on display such

Cigarette smuggling with a book
as; to allude visitors of the vast wealth of information in their
possession and to inflate the owner's appearance of wealth, to
conceal something, [43] for shop displays or for decorative purposes.

In early 19th century at Gwrych Castle, North Wales, Lloyd Hesketh Bamford-Hesketh was known
for his vast collection of books at his library, however, at the later part of that same century, the
public became aware that parts of his library was a fabrication, dummy books were built and then
locked behind glass doors to stop people from trying to access them, from this a proverb was born,
"Like Hesky's library, all outside".[44][45]

Content
Libraries, bookstores, and collections commonly divide books into fiction and non-fiction, though
other types exist beyond this. Other books, which remain unpublished or are primarily published
as part of different business functions (such as phone directories) may not be sold by bookstores or
collected by libraries. Manuscripts, logbooks and other records may be classified and stored
differently by special collections or archives.

Fiction
Fiction books contain invented material, typically narratives. Other literary forms such as poetry
are included in the broad category. Most fiction is additionally categorized by literary form and
genre.

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The novel is the most common form of fiction book. Novels are
extended works of narrative fiction, typically featuring a plot, setting,
themes and characters. The novel has had a tremendous impact on
entertainment and publishing markets.[46] A novella is a term
sometimes used for fiction prose typically between 17,500 and 40,000
words, and a novelette between 7,500 and 17,500. A short story may
be any length up to 10,000 words, but these word lengths vary.

Comic books or graphic novels are books in which the story is

illustrated. The characters and narrators use speech or thought
bubbles to express verbal language.
Novels in a bookstore
Non-fiction
Non-fiction books are in principle based on fact, encompassing
subjects such as history, politics, social and cultural issues, as well as
autobiographies and memoirs. Nearly all academic literature is non-
fiction.

Reference
Reference books are non-fiction books intended to be quickly referred
to for information, rather than read beginning to end. The writing
style used in these works is informative; the authors avoid opinions
A page from a dictionary and the use of the first person, and emphasize facts.

An almanac is a very general reference book, usually one-volume, with

lists of data and information on many topics. An encyclopedia is a book or set of books designed to
have more in-depth articles on many topics. A book listing words, their etymology, meanings, and
other information is called a dictionary. An atlas is a book containing a collection of maps. A
specialized reference work giving information about a particular field or technique, often intended
for professional use, is often called a handbook. Books which try to list references and abstracts in
a certain broad area may be called an index, such as Engineering Index, or abstracts such as
chemical abstracts and biological abstracts.

Technical
Books with technical information on how to do something or
how to use some equipment are called instruction manuals.
Other popular how-to books include cookbooks and home
improvement books.

Educational
Students often carry textbooks and schoolbooks for study
purposes. Lap books are a learning tool created by students.
An atlas
Elementary school pupils often use workbooks, which are
published with spaces or blanks to be filled by them for study
or homework. In US higher education, it is common for a student to take an exam using a blue
book.

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Religious
Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central
importance to their religious tradition. They often feature a compilation or discussion of beliefs,
ritual practices, moral commandments and laws, ethical conduct, spiritual aspirations, and
admonitions for fostering a religious community.

Hymnals are books with collections of musical hymns that can typically be found in churches.
Prayerbooks or missals are books that contain written prayers and are commonly carried by
monks, nuns, and other devoted followers or clergy.

Children's books
Children's literature or juvenile literature includes stories,
books, magazines, and poems that are created for children.
Modern children's literature is classified in two different ways:
genre or the intended age of the reader, from picture books for
the very young to young adult fiction.

Children's literature can be traced to traditional stories like

fairy tales, which have only been identified as children's
literature since the eighteenth century, and songs, part of a
wider oral tradition, which adults shared with children before
publishing existed. The development of early children's
literature, before printing was invented, is difficult to trace.
Even after printing became widespread, many classic
"children's" tales were originally created for adults and later
adapted for a younger audience. Since the fifteenth century
much literature has been aimed specifically at children, often
with a moral or religious message. Children's literature has
been shaped by religious sources, like Puritan traditions, or by A mother reads to her children in a
more philosophical and scientific standpoints with the
mid- to late 19th century lithograph
influences of Charles Darwin and John Locke.[47] The late by Jessie Willcox Smith.
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are known as the
"Golden Age of Children's Literature" because many classic
children's books were published then.

Unpublished
Many books are only used to record personal ideas, notes, and
accounts, such as notebooks, logbooks, commonplace books, and
diaries. These books are rarely published and are typically destroyed
or remain private.

Address books, phone books, and calendar/appointment books are

commonly used for recording appointments, meetings and personal
A page from a notebook
used as handwritten diary
contact information. Businesses historically used accounting books
such as journals and ledgers to record financial data in a practice
called bookkeeping (now usually held on computers rather than in
hand-written form).

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Collection and classification

Personal and public libraries, archives and other forms of book collection have led to the creation
of many different organization and classification strategies. In the 19th and 20th century, libraries
and library professionals systematized book collecting and classification systems to respond to the
growing industry. The most widely used system is ISBN, which has provided unique identifiers for
books since 1970.

Libraries
A library is a collection of books, and possibly other materials
and media, that is accessible for use by its members and
members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard
copies) or digital (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical
location, a virtual space, or both. A library's collection normally
includes printed materials which may be borrowed, and usually
also includes a reference section of publications which may
only be utilized inside the premises. Resources such as
commercial releases of films, television programs, other video The Library of Celsus in Ephesus,
recordings, radio, music and audio recordings may be available Turkey, was built in 135 AD, and
in many formats. These include DVDs, Blu-rays, CDs, cassettes, could house around 12,000 scrolls.
or other applicable formats such as microform. They may also
provide access to information, music or other content held on
bibliographic databases.

Libraries can vary widely in size and may be organized and maintained by a public body such as a
government, an institution (such as a school or museum), a corporation, or a private individual. In
addition to providing materials, libraries also provide the services of librarians who are trained
experts in finding, selecting, circulating and organising information while interpreting information
needs and navigating and analyzing large amounts of information with a variety of resources.

Library buildings often provide quiet areas for studying, as well as common areas for group study
and collaboration, and may provide public facilities for access to their electronic resources, such as
computers and access to the Internet.

The library's clientele and general services offered vary depending on its type: users of a public
library have different needs from those of a special library or academic library, for example.
Libraries may also be community hubs, where programs are made available and people engage in
lifelong learning. Modern libraries extend their services beyond the physical walls of the building
by providing material accessible by electronic means, including from home via the Internet.

Identification and classification

In 2011, the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) created the
International Standard Bibliographic Description (ISBD) in order to standardize descriptions in
bibliographies and library catalogs. Each book is specified by an International Standard Book
Number, or ISBN, which is meant to be unique to every edition of every book produced by
participating publishers, worldwide. It is managed by the ISBN Society. An ISBN has four parts:

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the first part is the country code, the second the publisher code,
and the third the title code. The last part is a check digit, and
can take values from 0–9 and X (10). The EAN Barcodes
numbers for books are derived from the ISBN by prefixing 978,
for Bookland, and calculating a new check digit.

Commercial publishers in industrialized countries generally ISBN with barcode

assign ISBNs to their books, so buyers may presume that the
ISBN is part of a total international system, with no exceptions.
However, many government publishers, in industrial as well as developing countries, do not
participate fully in the ISBN system, and publish books which do not have ISBNs. A large or public
collection requires a catalogue. Codes called "call numbers" relate the books to the catalogue, and
determine their locations on the shelves. Call numbers are based on a Library classification system.
The call number is placed on the spine of the book, normally a short distance before the bottom,
and inside. Institutional or national standards, such as ANSI/NISO Z39.41 – 1997, establish the
correct way to place information (such as the title, or the name of the author) on book spines, and
on "shelvable" book-like objects, such as containers for DVDs, video tapes and software.

One of the earliest and most widely known systems of

cataloguing books is the Dewey Decimal System. Another
widely known system is the Library of Congress Classification
system. Both systems are biased towards subjects which were
well represented in US libraries when they were developed, and
hence have problems handling new subjects, such as
computing, or subjects relating to other cultures.[48]
Information about books and authors can be stored in
Books on library shelves and call
databases like online general-interest book databases. numbers visible on the spines
Metadata, which means "data about data" is information about
a book. Metadata about a book may include its title, ISBN or
other classification number (see above), the names of contributors (author, editor, illustrator) and
publisher, its date and size, the language of the text, its subject matter, etc.

Classification systems
Bliss bibliographic classification (BC)
Chinese Library Classification (CLC)
Colon Classification
Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC)
Harvard-Yenching Classification
Library of Congress Classification (LCC)
New Classification Scheme for Chinese Libraries
Universal Decimal Classification (UDC)

Conservation
The conservation and restoration of books, manuscripts, documents, and ephemera is an activity
dedicated to extending the life of items of historical and personal value made primarily from paper,
parchment, and leather. When applied to cultural heritage, conservation activities are generally
undertaken by a conservator. The primary goal of conservation is to extend the lifespan of the

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object as well as maintaining its integrity by keeping all

additions reversible. Conservation of books and paper involves
techniques of bookbinding, restoration, paper chemistry, and
other material technologies including preservation and archival
techniques.[49]

Book and paper conservation seeks to prevent and, in some

cases, reverse damage due to handling, inherent vice, and the
environment. Conservators determine proper methods of
storage for books and documents, including boxes and shelving
to prevent further damage and promote long term storage.
Carefully chosen methods and techniques of active
conservation can both reverse damage and prevent further
damage in batches or single-item treatments based on the
value of the book or document.

Historically, book restoration techniques were less formalized

and carried out by various roles and training backgrounds. A conservation technician examining
Nowadays, the conservation of paper documents and books is an artwork under a microscope at
the Indianapolis Museum of Art
often performed by a professional conservator.[50][51] Many
paper or book conservators are members of a professional
body, such as the American Institute for Conservation (AIC) or
the Guild of Bookworkers (both in the United States), the Archives and Records Association (in the
United Kingdom and Ireland), or the Institute of Conservation (ICON) (in the United
Kingdom).[52]

Social and cultural issues

Reception
The impact of books can be various, and record of that reception comes in several formats: starting
with initial public reception in contemporary newspapers, pop culture and correspondence, and
then developing with different forms of literary criticism by professional and academic critics. For
the publishing industry the "book review" is an important part of increasing awareness and
reception of a book: able to make or break the public opinion about a new book.

Book reviews
A book review is a form of literary criticism in which a book is merely described (summary review)
or analyzed based on content, style, and merit.[53]

A book review may be a primary source, an opinion piece, a summary review, or a scholarly
view.[54] Books can be reviewed for printed periodicals, magazines, and newspapers, as school
work, or for book websites on the Internet. A book review's length may vary from a single
paragraph to a substantial essay. Such a review may evaluate the book based on personal taste.
Reviewers may use the occasion of a book review for an extended essay that can be closely or
loosely related to the subject of the book, or to promulgate their ideas on the topic of a fiction or
non-fiction work.

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Some journals are devoted to book reviews, and reviews are indexed in databases such as the Book
Review Index and Kirkus Reviews; but many more book reviews can be found in newspaper and
scholarly databases such as Arts and Humanities Citation Index, Social Sciences Citation Index,
and discipline-specific databases.

Book censorship and bans

Book censorship is the act of some authority taking measures to suppress ideas and information
within a book.[55] Censorship is "the regulation of free speech and other forms of entrenched
authority".[56] Censors typically identify as either a concerned parent, community members who
react to a text without reading, or local or national organizations.[57] Books have been censored by
authoritarian dictatorships to silence dissent, such as the People's Republic of China, Nazi
Germany and the Soviet Union. Books are most often censored for age appropriateness, offensive
language, sexual content, amongst other reasons.[58] Similarly, religions may issue lists of banned
books, such as the historical example of the Catholic Church's Index Librorum Prohibitorum and
bans of such books as Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses by Ayatollah Khomeini,[59] which do
not always carry legal force. Censorship can be enacted at the national or subnational level as well,
and can carry legal penalties. In many cases, the authors of these books could face harsh sentences,
exile from the country, or even execution.[60][61]

Book burning
Book burning is the deliberate destruction by fire of books or
other written materials, usually carried out in a public context.
The burning of books represents an element of censorship and
usually proceeds from a cultural, religious, or political
opposition to the materials in question.[62] Book burning can
be an act of contempt for the book's contents or author,
intended to draw wider public attention to this opposition, or
conceal the information contained in the text from being made
public, such as diaries or ledgers. Burning and other methods Close-up of a book being burned
of destruction are together known as biblioclasm or libricide.

In some cases, the destroyed works are irreplaceable and their burning constitutes a severe loss to
cultural heritage. Examples include the burning of books and burying of scholars under China's
Qin dynasty (213–210 BCE), the destruction of the House of Wisdom during the Mongol siege of
Baghdad (1258), the destruction of Aztec codices by Itzcoatl (1430s), the burning of Maya codices
on the order of bishop Diego de Landa (1562),[63] and the burning of Jaffna Public Library in Sri
Lanka (1981).[64]

In other cases, such as the Nazi book burnings, copies of the destroyed books survive, but the
instance of book burning becomes emblematic of a harsh and oppressive regime which is seeking
to censor or silence some aspect of prevailing culture.

See also

Books portal

Education portal

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Writing portal

Accessible Books Consortium

Book desert
Book Lovers Day
Books for the Blind
Books to Prisoners
Independent bookstore
Lists of books
Open access book
Outline of books
World Book Capital
World Book Day

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Bibliography
Feather, John; Sturges, Paul (2003). International Encyclopedia of Information and Library Science
(https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/50480180) (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-25901-0.
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November 25, 2009. Retrieved March 21, 2023.
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27/02/2025, 15:46 Book - Wikipedia

Further reading
Raven, James, ed. (March 23, 2023). The Oxford History of the Book. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. doi:10.1093/oso/9780192886897.001.0001 (https://doi.org/10.1093%2Foso%
2F9780192886897.001.0001). ISBN 978-0-19-288689-7.
Eliot, Simon; Rose, Jonathan, eds. (August 16, 2019). A Companion to the History of the Book.
Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 9781119018179.
Borsuk, Amaranth (May 4, 2018). The Book. MIT Press Essential Knowledge series. MIT
Press. ISBN 9780262535410.
Phillips, Angus; Bhaskar, Michael, eds. (April 18, 2019). The Oxford Handbook of Publishing.
Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198794202.001.0001 (https://doi.org/10.10
93%2Foxfordhb%2F9780198794202.001.0001). ISBN 9780198794202.

External links
Media related to Book at Wikimedia Commons

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