The Meaning of Book

You can support Wikipedia by making a tax-deductible donation.

Book
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Book (disambiguation).

Open book with black and white drawings

A reader reading a book (Taslima Nasrin reading her book)

Before the invention and adoption of the printing press, almost all books were copied by hand, making books expensive and comparatively rare.

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf, and each side of a leaf is called a page. A book produced in electronic format is known as an e-book.

Books may also refer to a literature work, or a main division of such a work. In library and information science, a book is called a monograph, to distinguish it from serial periodicals such as magazines, journals or newspapers. The body of all written works including books is literature.

In novels, a book may be divided into several large sections, also called books (Book 1, Book 2, Book 3, etc).

A lover of books is usually referred to as a bibliophile, a bibliophilist, or a philobiblist, or, more informally, a bookworm.

A store where books are bought and sold is a bookstore or bookshop. Books can also be borrowed from libraries or obtained for reading through the practice of BookCrossing.Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 Book structure
3 Sizes
4 Types of books
4.1 Types of books according to their contents
4.1.1 Fiction
4.1.2 Non-fiction
4.1.3 Other
4.2 Types of books according to their binding or cover
5 Bookbinding
6 History of books
6.1 Antiquity
6.1.1 Scroll
6.1.2 Codex
6.2 Middle Ages
6.2.1 Manuscripts
6.2.2 Wood block printing
6.2.3 Movable type and incunabula
6.3 Modern world
6.4 Book manufacturing in the modern world
6.4.1 Transition to digital format
7 Collections of books
8 Identification and... [continues]

Read full essay