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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 work of substantial length, which may be distributed either physically or digitally as an 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. (Full article...)

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Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies is a music reference book by American music journalist and essayist Robert Christgau. It was first published in October 1981 by Ticknor & Fields. The book compiles approximately 3,000 of Christgau's capsule album reviews, most of which were originally written for his "Consumer Guide" column in The Village Voice throughout the 1970s. The entries feature annotated details about each record's release and cover a variety of genres related to rock music.

Christgau's reviews are informed by an interest in the aesthetic and political dimensions of popular music, a belief that it could be consumed intelligently, and a desire to communicate his ideas to readers in an entertaining, provocative, and compact way. Many of the older reviews were rewritten for the guide to reflect his changed perspective and matured stylistic approach. He undertook an intense preparation process for the book during 1979 and 1980, which temporarily hindered both his awareness of current music and his marriage to fellow writer Carola Dibbell, whom he later credited as an influence on his work. (Full article...)
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First page of the only surviving manuscript, c. 14th century

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is a late 14th-century chivalric romance in Middle English alliterative verse. The author is unknown; the title was given centuries later. It is one of the best-known Arthurian stories, with its plot combining two types of folk motifs: the beheading game and the exchange of winnings. Written in stanzas of alliterative verse, each of which ends in a rhyming bob and wheel, it draws on Welsh, Irish, and English stories, as well as the French chivalric tradition. It is an important example of a chivalric romance, which typically involves a hero who goes on a quest that tests his prowess. It remains popular in modern English renderings from J. R. R. Tolkien, Simon Armitage, and others, as well as through film and stage adaptations.

The story describes how Sir Gawain, who was not yet a knight of King Arthur's Round Table, accepts a challenge from a mysterious "Green Knight" who dares any man to strike him with his axe if he will take a return blow in a year and a day. Gawain accepts and beheads him, after which the Green Knight stands, picks up his head, and reminds Gawain of the appointed time. In his struggles to keep his bargain, Gawain demonstrates chivalry and loyalty until his honour is called into question by a test involving the lord and the lady of the castle at which he is a guest. The poem survives in one manuscript, Cotton Nero A.x., which also includes three religious narrative poems: Pearl, Cleanness, and Patience. All four are written in a North West Midlands dialect of Middle English, and are thought to be by the same author, dubbed the "Pearl Poet" or "Gawain Poet". (Full article...)
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Cover of 1945 Princeton edition

The Smyth Report (officially Atomic Energy for Military Purposes) is the common name of an administrative history written by American physicist Henry DeWolf Smyth about the Manhattan Project, the Allied effort to develop atomic bombs during World War II. The subtitle of the report is A General Account of the Development of Methods of Using Atomic Energy for Military Purposes. It was released to the public on August 12, 1945, just days after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9.

Smyth was commissioned to write the report by Major General Leslie R. Groves, Jr., the director of the Manhattan Project. The Smyth Report was the first official account of the development of the atomic bombs and the basic physical processes behind them. It also served as an indication as to what information was declassified; anything in the Smyth Report could be discussed openly. For this reason, the Smyth Report focused heavily on information, such as basic nuclear physics, which was either already widely known in the scientific community or easily deducible by a competent scientist, and omitted details about chemistry, metallurgy, and ordnance. This would ultimately give a false impression that the Manhattan Project was all about physics. (Full article...)
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Title page of the 1859 edition

On the Origin of Species (or, more completely, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life) is a work of scientific literature by Charles Darwin that is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. It was published on 24 November 1859. Darwin's book introduced the scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection, although Lamarckism was also included as a mechanism of lesser importance. The book presented a body of evidence that the diversity of life arose by common descent through a branching pattern of evolution. Darwin included evidence that he had collected on the Beagle expedition in the 1830s and his subsequent findings from research, correspondence, and experimentation.

Various evolutionary ideas had already been proposed to explain new findings in biology. There was growing support for such ideas among dissident anatomists and the general public, but during the first half of the 19th century the English scientific establishment was closely tied to the Church of England, while science was part of natural theology. Ideas about the transmutation of species were controversial as they conflicted with the beliefs that species were unchanging parts of a designed hierarchy and that humans were unique, unrelated to other animals. The political and theological implications were intensely debated, but transmutation was not accepted by the scientific mainstream. (Full article...)
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First page of the first edition of Thoughts (1787)

Thoughts on the education of daughters: with reflections on female conduct, in the more important duties of life is the first published work of the British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Published in 1787 by her friend Joseph Johnson, Thoughts is a conduct book that offers advice on female education to the emerging British middle class. Although dominated by considerations of morality and etiquette, the text also contains basic child-rearing instructions, such as how to care for an infant.

An early version of the modern self-help book, the 18th-century British conduct book drew on many literary traditions, such as advice manuals and religious narratives. There was an explosion in the number of conduct books published during the second half of the 18th century, and Wollstonecraft took advantage of this burgeoning market when she published Thoughts. However, the book was only moderately successful: it was favourably reviewed, but only by one journal and it was reprinted only once. Although it was excerpted in popular contemporary magazines, it was not republished until the rise of feminist literary criticism in the 1970s. (Full article...)
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Title page from the first edition of Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Some Thoughts Concerning Education is a 1693 treatise on the education of gentlemen written by the English philosopher John Locke. For over a century, it was the most important philosophical work on education in England. It was translated into almost all of the major written European languages during the eighteenth century, and nearly every European writer on education after Locke, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, acknowledged its influence.

In his Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), Locke outlined a new theory of mind, contending that the mind is originally a tabula rasa or "blank slate"; that is, it did not contain any innate ideas at birth. Some Thoughts Concerning Education explains how to educate that mind using three distinct methods: the development of a healthy body; the formation of a virtuous character; and the choice of an appropriate academic curriculum. (Full article...)
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First edition

The Autobiography of Malcolm X is an autobiography written by American minister Malcolm X, who collaborated with American journalist Alex Haley. It was released posthumously on October 29, 1965, nine months after his assassination. Haley coauthored the autobiography based on a series of in-depth interviews he conducted between 1963 and 1965. The Autobiography is a spiritual conversion narrative that outlines Malcolm X's philosophy of black pride, black nationalism, and pan-Africanism. After the leader was killed, Haley wrote the book's epilogue. He described their collaborative process and the events at the end of Malcolm X's life.

While Malcolm X and scholars contemporary to the book's publication regarded Haley as the book's ghostwriter, modern scholars tend to regard him as an essential collaborator who intentionally muted his authorial voice to create the effect of Malcolm X speaking directly to readers. Haley influenced some of Malcolm X's literary choices. For example, Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam during the period when he was working on the book with Haley. Rather than rewriting earlier chapters as a polemic against the Nation which Malcolm X had rejected, Haley persuaded him to favor a style of "suspense and drama". According to Manning Marable, "Haley was particularly worried about what he viewed as Malcolm X's anti-Semitism" and he rewrote material to eliminate it. (Full article...)
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Mary Shelley wrote of the Simplon Pass: "There was a majestic simplicity that inspired awe; the naked bones of a gigantic world were here."

Rambles in Germany and Italy, in 1840, 1842, and 1843 is a travel narrative by the British Romantic author Mary Shelley. Issued in 1844, it is her last published work. Published in two volumes, the text describes two European trips that Mary Shelley took with her son, Percy Florence Shelley, and several of his university friends. Mary Shelley had lived in Italy with her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, between 1818 and 1823. For her, Italy was associated with both joy and grief: she had written much while there but she had also lost her husband and two of her children. Thus, although she was anxious to return, the trip was tinged with sorrow. Shelley describes her journey as a pilgrimage, which will help cure her depression.

At the end of the second trip, Mary Shelley spent time in Paris and associated herself with the "Young Italy" movement, Italian exiles who were in favour of Italian independence and unification. One revolutionary in particular attracted her: Ferdinando Gatteschi. To assist him financially, Shelley decided to publish Rambles. However, Gatteschi became discontented with Shelley's assistance and tried to blackmail her. She was forced to obtain her personal letters from Gatteschi through the intervention of the French police. (Full article...)
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A Journey is a memoir by Tony Blair of his tenure as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Published in the UK on 1 September 2010, it covers events from when he became leader of the Labour Party in 1994 and transformed it into "New Labour", holding power for a party record three successive terms, to his resignation and replacement as prime minister by his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown. Blair donated his £4.6-million advance, and all subsequent royalties, to the British Armed Forces charity the Royal British Legion. It became the fastest-selling autobiography of all time at the bookstore chain Waterstones. Promotional events were marked by anti-war protests.

Two of the book's major topics are the strains in Blair's relationship with Brown after Blair allegedly reneged on the pair's 1994 agreement to step down as prime minister much earlier, and his controversial decision to participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Blair discusses Labour's future following the 2010 general election, his relations with the Royal Family, and how he came to respect President of the United States George W. Bush. Reviews were mixed; some criticised Blair's writing style, but others called it candid. (Full article...)
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True at First Light is a book by American writer Ernest Hemingway about his 1953–54 safari in Kenya with his fourth wife Mary. It was released posthumously in his centennial year in 1999. In the book, which blends memoir and fiction, Hemingway explores conflict within a marriage, the conflict between the European and native cultures in Africa, and the fear a writer feels when his work becomes impossible. True at First Light includes descriptions of his earlier friendships with other writers and digressive ruminations on the nature of writing.

Hemingway began writing the book after he and his wife were involved in two plane crashes in the African bush in a two-day period in January 1954. He spent much of the next two years in Havana, recuperating and writing the manuscript of what he called "the Africa book", which remained unfinished at the time of his suicide in July 1961. Hemingway's son Patrick edited the work to half its original length to strengthen the underlying storyline and emphasize the fictional aspects. (Full article...)
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Title page from the first edition of Letters (1796)

Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796) is a personal travel narrative by the eighteenth-century British feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft. The twenty-five letters cover a wide range of topics, from sociological reflections on Scandinavia and its peoples to philosophical questions regarding identity. Published by Wollstonecraft's career-long publisher, Joseph Johnson, it was the last work issued during her lifetime.

Wollstonecraft undertook her tour of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark in order to retrieve a stolen treasure ship for her lover, Gilbert Imlay. Believing that the journey would restore their strained relationship, she eagerly set off. However, over the course of the three months she spent in Scandinavia, she realized that Imlay had no intention of renewing the relationship. The letters, which constitute the text, drawn from her journal and from missives she sent to Imlay, reflect her anger and melancholy over his repeated betrayals. Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark is therefore both a travel narrative and an autobiographical memoir. (Full article...)
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The World Without Us is a 2007 non-fiction book about what would happen to the natural and built environment if humans suddenly disappeared, written by American journalist Alan Weisman and published by St. Martin's Thomas Dunne Books. It is a book-length expansion of Weisman's own February 2005 Discover article "Earth Without People". Written largely as a thought experiment, it outlines, for example, how cities and houses would deteriorate, how long man-made artifacts would last, and how remaining lifeforms would evolve. Weisman concludes that residential neighborhoods would become forests within 500 years, and that radioactive waste, bronze statues, plastics and Mount Rushmore would be among the longest-lasting evidence of human presence on Earth.

The author of four previous books and numerous articles for magazines, Weisman had traveled to interview academics, scientists and other authorities. He used quotations from these interviews to explain the effects of the natural environment and to substantiate predictions. The book has been translated and published in many countries. It was successful in the U.S., reaching #6 on the New York Times Best Seller list and #1 on the San Francisco Chronicle Best-Sellers list in September 2007. It ranked #1 on Time and Entertainment Weekly's top 10 non-fiction books of 2007. (Full article...)
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Stone commemorative marker at Literary Hall in Romney, West Virginia

The Romney Literary Society (also known as the Literary Society of Romney) existed from January 30, 1819, to February 15, 1886, in Romney, West Virginia. Established as the Polemic Society of Romney, it became the first organization of its kind in the present-day state of West Virginia, and one of the first in the United States. The society was founded by nine prominent men of Romney with the objectives of advancing literature and science, purchasing and maintaining a library, and improving educational opportunities.

The society debated an extensive range of scientific and social topics, often violating its own rules which banned religious and political subjects. Even though its membership was relatively small, its debates and activities were frequently discussed throughout the Potomac Highlands region, and the organization greatly influenced trends of thought in the Romney community and surrounding areas. (Full article...)
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Title page from the second edition of A Vindication of the Rights of Men, the first to carry Wollstonecraft's name

A Vindication of the Rights of Men, in a Letter to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke; Occasioned by His Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) is a political pamphlet, written by the 18th-century British writer and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft, which attacks aristocracy and advocates republicanism. Wollstonecraft's was the first response in a pamphlet war sparked by the publication of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), a defense of constitutional monarchy, aristocracy, and the Church of England.

Wollstonecraft attacked not only hereditary privilege, but also the rhetoric that Burke used to defend it. Most of Burke's detractors deplored what they viewed as his theatrical pity for Marie Antoinette, but Wollstonecraft was unique in her love of Burke's gendered language. By saying the sublime and the beautiful, terms first established by Burke himself in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756), she kept his rhetoric as well as his argument. In her first unabashedly feminist critique, which Wollstonecraft scholar Claudia Johnson describes as unsurpassed in its argumentative force, Wollstonecraft indicts Burke's justification of an equal society founded on the passivity of women. (Full article...)
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Page from Hemming's Cartulary, folio 121 of the manuscript

Hemming's Cartulary is a manuscript cartulary, or collection of charters and other land records, collected by a monk named Hemming around the time of the Norman Conquest of England. The manuscript comprises two separate cartularies that were made at different times and later bound together; it is in the British Library as MS Cotton Tiberius A xiii. The first was composed at the end of the 10th or beginning of the 11th century. The second section was compiled by Hemming and was written around the end of the 11th or the beginning of the 12th century. The first section, traditionally titled the Liber Wigorniensis, is a collection of Anglo-Saxon charters and other land records, most of which are organized geographically. The second section, Hemming's Cartulary proper, combines charters and other land records with a narrative of deprivation of property owned by the church of Worcester.

The two works are bound together in one surviving manuscript, the earliest surviving cartulary from medieval England. A major theme is the losses suffered by Worcester at the hands of royal officials and local landowners. Included amongst the despoilers are kings such as Cnut and William the Conqueror, and nobles such as Eadric Streona and Urse d'Abetot. Also included are accounts of lawsuits waged by the Worcester monks in an effort to regain their lost lands. The two sections of the cartulary were first printed in 1723. The original manuscript was slightly damaged by fire in 1733, and required rebinding. (Full article...)

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The Last Hurrah: Sterling Price's Missouri Expedition of 1864 is a 2015 book written by Kyle Sinisi and published by Rowman & Littlefield about Price's Missouri Expedition, an 1864 campaign of the American Civil War that failed to wrest control of the state of Missouri from the Union. Sinisi focused on the military expedition itself, but also covered political machinations that occurred during the expedition as well as topography and logistics. The Last Hurrah posits that the campaign should not be viewed as a raid due to its magnitude, that the Battle of Mine Creek had elements of a massacre, and that Missouri did not want to give up Union control. Reviewers praised the work, especially its ability to cover the campaign comprehensively while also discussing factors such as politics and the effects of guerrilla warfare. (Full article...)
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The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy and the History of Christian Science (1909) is a highly critical account of the life of Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, and the early history of the Christian Science church in 19th-century New England. It was published as a book in November 1909 in New York by Doubleday, Page & Company. The original byline was that of a journalist, Georgine Milmine, but a 1993 printing of the book declared that novelist Willa Cather was the principal author; however, this assessment has been questioned by more recent scholarship which again identifies Milmine as the primary author, although Cather and others did significant editing. Cather herself usually wrote that she did nothing more than standard copy-editing, but sometimes that she was the primary author.

One of the first major examinations of Eddy's life and work, along with Sibyl Wilbur's articles in Human Life magazine, the material initially appeared in McClure's magazine in 14 installments between January 1907 and June 1908, when Eddy was 85 years old, preceded in December 1906 by a six-page editorial in which McClure's announced the series as "probably as near absolute accuracy as history ever gets". In the early 20th century, Christian Science became the fastest growing religion in America, and in the view of McClure's, Eddy was the most powerful woman in the country. The McClure's eyewitness accounts and affidavits became key primary sources for many accounts of Eddy and the church's early history. (Full article...)
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The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution is a 1988 speculative evolution book written by Scottish geologist and palaeontologist Dougal Dixon and illustrated by several illustrators including Amanda Barlow, Peter Barrett, John Butler, Jeane Colville, Anthony Duke, Andy Farmer, Lee Gibbons, Steve Holden, Philip Hood, Martin Knowelden, Sean Milne, Denys Ovenden and Joyce Tuhill. The book also features a foreword by Desmond Morris. The New Dinosaurs explores a hypothetical alternate Earth, complete with animals and ecosystems, where the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event never occurred, leaving non-avian dinosaurs and other Mesozoic animals an additional 65 million years to evolve and adapt over the course of the Cenozoic to the present day.

The New Dinosaurs is Dixon's second work on speculative evolution, following After Man (1981). Like After Man, The New Dinosaurs uses its own fictional setting and hypothetical wildlife to explain natural processes with fictitious examples, in this case the concept of zoogeography and biogeographic realms. It was followed by another speculative evolution work by Dixon in 1990, Man After Man. (Full article...)
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Title page of 1813 edition

A New System of Domestic Cookery, first published in 1806 by Maria Rundell, was the most popular English cookery book of the first half of the nineteenth century; it is often referred to simply as Mrs Rundell, but its full title is A New System of Domestic Cookery: Formed Upon Principles of Economy; and Adapted to the Use of Private Families.

Mrs Rundell has been called "the original domestic goddess" and her book "a publishing sensation" and "the most famous cookery book of its time". It ran to over 67 editions; the 1865 edition had grown to 644 pages, and earned two thousand guineas. (Full article...)
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Other Minds is a 2016 bestseller by Peter Godfrey-Smith on the evolution and nature of consciousness. It compares the situation in cephalopods, especially octopuses and cuttlefish, with that in mammals and birds. Complex active bodies that enable and perhaps require a measure of intelligence have evolved three times, in arthropods, cephalopods, and vertebrates. The book reflects on the nature of cephalopod intelligence in particular, constrained by their short lifespan, and embodied in large part in their partly autonomous arms which contain more nerve cells than their brains.

The book has been admired by reviewers, who have found it delightfully written, undogmatic but incisive in its analysis, and its account of intelligence as a subjective embodied experience elegantly told. His octopus subjects come across as "uncannily personable without being at all human." (Full article...)
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Dust jacket, first edition

Theory of Literature is a book on literary scholarship by René Wellek, of the structuralist Prague school, and Austin Warren, a self-described "old New Critic". The two met at the University of Iowa in the late 1930s, and by 1940 had begun writing the book; they wrote collaboratively, in a single voice over a period of three years. Its contents were based on their shared understandings of literature.

Originally consisting of twenty chapters – one was cut in later editions – Theory of Literature describes various aspects of literary theory, criticism, and history. After defining various aspects and relationships of literature in general, Wellek and Warren divide analysis of literature based on two approaches: extrinsic, relating to factors outside a work such as the author and society, and intrinsic, relating to factors within such as rhythm and meter. They stress the need to focus on the intrinsic elements of a work as the best way to truly understand it. In doing so they adapt the phenomenology used by Roman Ingarden. (Full article...)
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The Dictator Pope: The Inside Story of the Francis Papacy (Italian: Il papa dittatore) is an unauthorized biography of Pope Francis authored by the Anglo–French historian H. J. A. Sire under the pseudonym "Marcantonio Colonna" (the name of a Catholic admiral who fought at the Battle of Lepanto). Published initially in Italian, and later in English, the book takes a highly critical view of Pope Francis and his papacy over the Catholic Church. The book contends to be "the inside story of the most tyrannical and unprincipled papacy of modern times," arguing that Pope Francis, while presenting himself as humble, rules over the Church through fear and has allied to some of the most corrupt elements in the Vatican. On its 2017 release, the book reached 4th place on Amazon Kindle's Religion and Spirituality bestseller list.

A revised and updated English edition of The Dictator Pope was released both in hardcover and e-book formats by Regnery Publishing on April 23, 2018. An audiobook edition produced by Blackstone Audio was also released the same day. (Full article...)
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A 1901 edition of the Epodes by C. L. Smith

The Epodes (Latin: Epodi or Epodon liber; also called Iambi) are a collection of iambic poems written by the Roman poet Horace. They were published in 30 BC and form part of his early work alongside the Satires. Following the model of the Greek poets Archilochus and Hipponax, the Epodes largely fall into the genre of blame poetry, which seeks to discredit and humiliate its targets.

The 17 poems of the Epodes cover a variety of topics, including politics, magic, eroticism and food. A product of the turbulent final years of the Roman Republic, the collection is known for its striking depiction of Rome's socio-political ills in a time of great upheaval. Due to their recurring coarseness and explicit treatment of sexuality, the Epodes have traditionally been Horace's least regarded work. However, the last quarter of the 20th century saw a resurgence in scholarly interest in the collection. (Full article...)
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Ali's Smile: Naked Scientology is a collection of essays and a short story by American Beat writer William S. Burroughs (1914–1997). First published in 1971 as the short story "Ali's Smile", the book eventually contained a group of previously published newspaper articles as well, all of which address Scientology. Burroughs had been interested in Scientology throughout the 1960s, believing that its methods might help combat a controlling society. He joined the Church of Scientology later in the decade. However, he became disenchanted with the authoritarian nature of the organization. In 1970 Burroughs had published a "considered statement" on Scientology's methods because he felt they were significant enough to warrant commentary. These pieces were later gathered together into Ali's Smile: Naked Scientology, which religious studies scholar Hugh B. Urban describes as a "nonscholarly popular exposé of Scientology". Burroughs's texts argue that while some of Scientology's therapies are worthwhile, the dogmatic nature of the group and its secrecy are harmful. (Full article...)
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Folio 137r of the Beowulf manuscript, lines 205–228: Tolkien used lines 210–228 in "On Translating Beowulf". Line 210, Fyrst forð gewát flota wæs on ýðum, is on the fifth line of the folio (not counting the broken line at the top).

"On Translating Beowulf" is an essay by J. R. R. Tolkien which discusses the difficulties faced by anyone attempting to translate the Old English heroic-elegiac poem Beowulf into modern English. It was first published in 1940 as a preface contributed by Tolkien to a translation of Old English poetry; it was first published as an essay under its current name in the 1983 collection The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays.

In the essay, Tolkien explains the difficulty of translating individual words from Old English, noting that a word like eacen ('large', 'strong', 'supernaturally powerful') cannot readily be translated by the same word in each case. He notes the problem of translating poetic kennings such as sundwudu ('flood-timber', i.e. 'ship') and that the language chosen by the poet was already archaic at that moment. He explains that such terms had echoes and connotations of another world, an "unrecapturable magic". (Full article...)
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Page of Etymologiae, Carolingian manuscript (8th century) – Royal Library of Belgium, Brussels

Etymologiae (Latin for 'Etymologies'), also known as the Origines ('Origins'), usually abbreviated Orig., is an etymological encyclopedia compiled by the influential Christian bishop Isidore of Seville (c. 560–636) towards the end of his life. Isidore was encouraged to write the book by his friend Braulio, Bishop of Saragossa. Etymologiae summarized and organized a wealth of knowledge from hundreds of classical sources; three of its books are derived largely from Pliny the Elder's Natural History. Isidore acknowledges Pliny, but not his other principal sources, namely Cassiodorus, Servius, and Gaius Julius Solinus.
Etymologiae covers an encyclopedic range of topics. Etymology, the origins of words, is prominent, but the work also covers, among other things, grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, geometry, music, astronomy, medicine, law, the church and heretical sects, pagan philosophers, languages, cities, humans, animals, the physical world, geography, public buildings, roads, metals, rocks, agriculture, war, ships, clothes, food, and tools. (Full article...)
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Price's Lost Campaign: The 1864 Invasion of Missouri is a 2011 book written by Mark A. Lause and published by the University of Missouri Press. The book discusses the early stage of Price's Raid, especially how what was originally designed as a full-fledged invasion became known to posterity as a less-important raid. Other themes include the failings of Confederate leader Sterling Price and Union leader William S. Rosecrans and a debunking of Lost Cause myths suggesting that the Confederate soldiers refrained from total war and behaved with chivalry during the campaign. The book's coverage cuts off midway through the campaign, when Price decided not to attempt to capture Jefferson City, Missouri, which Lause views as when the campaign shifted from an invasion to a raid. Several reviewers have criticized the decision to break off coverage at that point. Other points of concern mentioned by reviewers include the lack of a bibliography, insufficient quantity and quality of maps, and copy editing errors. The book was praised for its objective treatment of the campaign and the quality of Lause's research. A sequel, The Collapse of Price's Raid, was published in 2016. (Full article...)
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Shaker, Why Don't You Sing? is author and poet Maya Angelou's fourth volume of poetry, published by Random House in 1983. It was published during one of the most productive periods in Angelou's career; she had written four autobiographies and published three other volumes of poetry up to that point. Angelou considered herself a poet and a playwright, but was best known for her seven autobiographies, especially her first, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, although her poetry has also been successful. She began, early in her writing career, alternating the publication of an autobiography and a volume of poetry. Many of the poems in Shaker focus on survival despite threatened freedom, lost love, and defeated dreams. Over half of them are love poems, and emphasize the inevitable loss of love. "Caged Bird", which refers to Angelou's first autobiography, is contained in this volume. (Full article...)
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The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the Second World War is a 2021 book by Malcolm Gladwell that examines the US Bomber Mafia of World War II, which advocated precision aerial bombing as a means to win a war. Gladwell stated the audiobook for The Bomber Mafia came about as an expansion of material from his podcast Revisionist History, and that the print book originated from the audiobook. The book follows the Bomber Mafia, especially Major General Haywood S. Hansell, and the development of a high-altitude precision aerial bombardment strategy in World War II as a means to limit casualties. After difficulties in applying the Bomber Mafia's theoretical strategy, Major General Hansell was replaced by Major General Curtis LeMay, who utilized tactical changes such as attacking Japanese population centers with napalm to ensure a Japanese surrender. Upon release, The Bomber Mafia was met with mixed reviews, with reviewers praising its audiobook version but criticizing the book for a lack of detail and factual accuracy. (Full article...)
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Title page of first edition

The Ornithological Dictionary; or Alphabetical Synopsis of British Birds was written by the English naturalist and army officer George Montagu, and first published by J. White of Fleet Street, London in 1802.

It was one of the texts, along with Thomas Bewick's contemporaneous A History of British Birds (2 volumes, 1797 and 1804) that made ornithology popular in Britain, and, with the 1676 Ornithologia libri tres of Francis Willughby and John Ray, helped to make it the object of serious study. The book includes a description of the cirl bunting, discovered by Montagu in 1800 near his home in Kingsbridge, Devon. (Full article...)

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Selected quote

“

Knowing I lov'd my books, he furnish'd me From mine own library with volumes that I prize above my dukedom.

”

— William Shakespeare

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Did you know

...that the world's largest book has 730 leaves and 1460 pages; each page is three and a half feet wide, five feet tall and five inches thick?(Pictured)
...that before the invention and adoption of the printing press, almost all books were copied by hand, making books expensive and comparatively rare?
...that biggest book in the world is Bhutan: A Visual Odyssey Across the Last Himalayan Kingdom by Michael Hawley, which measures 1.5 m x 2.1 m (5 feet x 7 feet?

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General images

The following are images from various book-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The spine of the book is an important aspect in book design, especially in the cover design. When the books are stacked up or stored in a shelf, the details on the spine is the only visible surface that contains the information about the book. In a book store, it is often the details on the spine that attract the attention first. (from Book design)
Image 2Page spread with J. A. van de Graaf's construction of classical text area (print space) and margin proportions (from Book design)
Image 39th-century Qur'an in Reza Abbasi Museum (from Bookbinding)
Image 4European output of manuscripts 500–1500 (from History of books)
Image 5A traditional bookbinder at work (from Bookbinding)
Image 6Initial on the opening page of a book printed by the Kelmscott Press (from Book design)
Image 7A Chinese bamboo book (from History of books)
Image 812-metre-high (40 ft) sculpture of a stack of books at the Berlin Walk of Ideas, commemorating the invention of modern book printing (from History of books)
Image 9Book conservators at the State Library of New South Wales, 1943 (from Bookbinding)
Image 10Bookbinder's type holder (from Bookbinding)
Image 11A 15th-century Incunable. Notice the blind-tooled cover, corner bosses, and clasps. (from History of books)
Image 12European output of printed books c. 1450–1800 (from History of books)
Image 13Modern book spine designs (from Bookbinding)
Image 14Example of blind tooling a book binding with exquisite detail (from Bookbinding)
Image 15The scene in Botticelli's Madonna of the Book (1480) reflects the presence of books in the houses of richer people in his time. (from History of books)
Image 16Decorative binding with figurehead of the 12th century manuscript Liber Landavensis (from Bookbinding)
Image 17Three books with different titling orientations:
(left) ascending
(middle) descending
(right) upright (from Bookbinding)
Image 18Hardbound book with half leather binding (spine and corners) and marbled boards (from Bookbinding)
Image 19Dresden Codex (page 49) (from History of books)
Image 20Jikji, Selected Teachings of Buddhist Sages and Seon Masters, the earliest known book printed with movable metal type, 1377. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris. (from History of books)
Image 21Rebacking saving original spine, showing one volume finished and one untouched (from Bookbinding)
Image 22Folio from the Shah Jahan Album, c. 1620, depicting the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (from History of books)
Image 23Hardbound book spine stitching (from Bookbinding)
Image 24European output of books 500–1800 (from History of books)
Image 25Marbled book board from a book published in London in 1872 (from Bookbinding)
Image 26Photograph of a printing press in Egypt, c. 1922 (from History of books)
Image 27Scheme of common book design
1. Belly band
2. Flap
3. Endpaper
4. Book cover
5. Head
6. Fore edge
7. Tail
8. Right page, recto
9. Left page, verso
10. Gutter
(from Bookbinding)
Image 28Sammelband of three alchemical treatises, bound in Strasbourg by Samuel Emmel c. 1568, showing metal clasps and leather covering of boards (from Bookbinding)
Image 29Modern paperback spines (from Bookbinding)
Image 30A twentieth-century copyright imprint from McLoughlin Bros that features three rams and the copyright year, 1903 (from History of books)
Image 31Traditionally sewn book opened flat (from Bookbinding)
Image 32The Book of the Dead of Hunefer, c. 1275 BCE, ink and pigments on papyrus, in the British Museum (London) (from History of books)
Image 33Cloth book cover with attached paper panel, mimicking half leather binding (from Bookbinding)
Image 34Chinese Bookseller, illustration, c. 1824 (from History of books)
Image 35Folio from a manuscript of the Shanamah (Book of Kings) (from History of books)
Image 36The Codex Manesse, a German book from the Middle Ages (from History of books)
Image 37A Sumerian clay tablet, currently housed in the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, inscribed with the text of the poem Inanna and Ebih by the priestess Enheduanna, the first author whose name is known
Image 38Design by Hans Holbein the Younger for a metalwork book cover (or treasure binding) (from Book design)
Image 39An author portrait of Jean Miélot writing his compilation of the Miracles of Our Lady, one of his many popular works. (from History of books)
Image 40Early medieval bookcase containing about ten codices depicted in the Codex Amiatinus (c. 700) (from Bookbinding)
Image 41Woman holding wax tablets in the form of the codex. Wall painting from Pompeii, before 79 CE. (from History of books)
Image 42Page from a Jain manuscript depicting the birth of Mahavira, c. 1400 (from History of books)
Image 43Page from the Blue Quran manuscript, ca. 9th or 10th century CE (from History of books)

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