Portal:Books
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The Books Portal
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images. Books are typically composed of many pages, bound together and protected by a cover. Modern bound books were preceded by many other written mediums, such as the codex and the scroll. The book publishing process is the series of steps involved in their creation and dissemination.
As a conceptual object, a book typically refers to a written work of substantial length, which may be distributed either physically or in digital forms like ebooks. These works are broadly classified into fiction (containing imaginary content) and non-fiction (containing content representing truths). Many smaller categories exist within these, such as children's literature meant to match the reading level and interests of children, or reference works that gather collections of non-fiction. Books are traded at both regular stores and specialized bookstores, and people can borrow them from libraries. The reception of books has led to a number of social consequences, including censorship.
A physical book does not need to contain written works: for example, it may contain only drawings, engravings, photographs, puzzles, or removable content like paper dolls. Physical books may be left empty to be used for writing or drawing, such as account books, appointment books, autograph books, notebooks, diaries and sketchbooks.
The contemporary book industry has seen several major changes due to new technologies. 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. The 21st century has also seen a rapid rise in the popularity of audiobooks, which are recordings of books being read aloud. Additionally, awareness of the needs of people who can't access print media due to limitations like visual impairment has led to a rise in formats designed for greater accessibility, such as braille printing or formats supporting text-to-voice. Google Books estimated that as of 2010, approximately 130,000,000 unique books had been published. (Full article...)
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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...) -
Image 2Ravenloft is an adventure module for the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. The American game publishing company TSR, Inc. released it as a standalone adventure booklet in 1983 for use with the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons game. It was written by Tracy and Laura Hickman, and includes art by Clyde Caldwell with maps by David Sutherland III. The plot of Ravenloft focuses on the villain Strahd von Zarovich, a vampire who pines for his lost love. Various story elements, including Strahd's motivation and the locations of magical weapons, are randomly determined by drawing cards. The player characters attempt to defeat Strahd and, if successful, the adventure ends.
The Hickmans began work on Ravenloft in the late 1970s, intent on creating a frightening portrait of a vampire in a setting that combined Gothic horror with the D&D game system. They play-tested the adventure with a group of players each Halloween for five years before it was published. Strahd has since appeared in a number of D&D accessories and novels. The module has inspired numerous revisions and adaptations, including a campaign setting of the same name and a sequel. In 1999, on the 25th anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, two commemorative versions of Ravenloft were released. (Full article...) -
Image 3Louis Riel is a historical biography in comics by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, published as a book in 2003 after serialization in 1999–2003. The story deals with Métis rebel leader Louis Riel's antagonistic relationship with the newly established Canadian government. It begins shortly before the 1869 Red River Rebellion, and ends with Riel's 1885 hanging for high treason. The book explores Riel's possible schizophrenia—he believed God had named him Prophet of the New World, destined to lead the Métis people to freedom.
The work is noted for its emotional disengagement, its intentionally flat dialogue, and a minimalist drawing style inspired by that of Harold Gray's comic strip Little Orphan Annie. Unusual for comics of the time, it includes a full scholarly apparatus: a foreword, index, bibliography, and end notes. The lengthy, hand-lettered appendix provides insight into Brown's creative process and biases and highlights where he changed historical facts to create a more engaging story, such as incorporating a conspiracy theory not widely accepted by historians. Brown became interested in the issue of property rights while researching the book, which led to a public change in his politics from anarchism to libertarianism. (Full article...) -
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Fuck: Word Taboo and Protecting Our First Amendment Liberties is a nonfiction book by law professor Christopher M. Fairman about freedom of speech, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, censorship, and use of the word fuck in society. The book was first published in 2009 by Sphinx as a follow-up on the author's article "Fuck", published in 2007 in the Cardozo Law Review. It cites studies from academics in social science, psychoanalysis, and linguistics. Fairman establishes that most current usages of the word have connotations distinct from its meaning of sexual intercourse. The book discusses the efforts of conservatives in the United States to censor the word from common parlance. The author says that legal precedent regarding its use is unclear because of contradictory court decisions. Fairman argues that once citizens allow the government to restrict the use of specific words, this will infringe upon freedom of thought.
The book received a mostly favorable reception from news sources and library trade publications. Library Journal described the book as a sincere analysis of the word and its history of censorship, Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries called it stimulating, and the San Diego Law Review said it was thought-provoking. One reviewer said that the book, like the article, was a format for the author to repeatedly use "fuck" rather than analyze it from a rigorous perspective. After the book's release, Fairman was consulted by media sources including CNN and The New York Times, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union, on issues surrounding word taboo in society. (Full article...) -
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Illustrations of the Family of Psittacidae, or Parrots is an 1832 book containing 42 hand-coloured lithographs by Edward Lear. He produced 175 copies for sale to subscribers as a part-publication, which were later bound as a book. Lear started painting parrots in 1830 when he was 18 years old, and to get material for his book he studied live birds at the London Zoo and in private collections. The latter included those of Edward Smith Stanley, later 13th Earl of Derby, who had a large menagerie at Knowsley Hall, and Benjamin Leadbeater, a taxidermist and trader in specimens. Lear drew onto lithographic plates for printing by Charles Joseph Hullmandel, who was known for the quality of his reproductions of fine art.
Although the book was a financial failure, Lear's paintings of parrots established his reputation as one of the best natural history artists of his time. It found him work with John Gould, Stanley and other leading contemporary naturalists, and the young Queen Victoria engaged him to help her with her painting technique. Parrots was a forerunner to the major volumes of bird paintings by Gould, and Lear's work has influenced children's illustrators such as Beatrix Potter and Maurice Sendak as well as bird specialists like William T. Cooper, Elizabeth Butterworth and Walton Ford. (Full article...) -
Image 6Race Against Time: Searching for Hope in AIDS-Ravaged Africa is a non-fiction book written by Stephen Lewis for the Massey Lectures. Lewis wrote it in early to mid-2005 and House of Anansi Press released it as a corresponding lecture series began in October 2005. Each of the book's chapters were delivered as a different lecture in a different Canadian city, beginning in Vancouver on October 18 and ending in Toronto on October 28. The speeches were aired on CBC Radio One between November 7 and 11. The author and orator, Stephen Lewis, was at that time the United Nations Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations. Although he wrote the book and lectures in his role as a concerned Canadian citizen, his criticism of the United Nations (UN), international organizations, and other diplomats, including naming specific people, was called undiplomatic and led several reviewers to speculate whether he would be removed from his UN position.
In the book and the lectures, Lewis argues that significant changes are required to meet the Millennium Development Goals in Africa by their 2015 deadline. Lewis explains the historical context of Africa since the 1980s, citing a succession of disastrous economic policies by international financial institutions that contributed to, rather than reduced, poverty. He connects the structural adjustment loans, with conditions of limited public spending on health and education infrastructure, to the uncontrolled spread of AIDS and subsequent food shortages as the disease infected much of the working-age population. Lewis also addresses such issues as discrimination against women and primary education for children. To help alleviate problems, he ends with potential solutions which mainly require increased funding by G8 countries to levels beyond what they promise. (Full article...) -
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The Bread-Winners: A Social Study is an 1883 novel by John Hay, former secretary to Abraham Lincoln who in 1898 became U.S. Secretary of State. The book takes an anti-organized labor stance, and when published anonymously sold well and provoked considerable public interest in determining who the author was.
The plot of the book revolves around former army captain Arthur Farnham, a wealthy resident of Buffland (an analog of Cleveland). He organizes Civil War veterans to keep the peace when the Bread-winners, a group of lazy and malcontented workers, call a violent general strike. He is sought in marriage by the ambitious Maud Matchin, daughter of a carpenter, but instead weds a woman of his own class. (Full article...) -
Image 8An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory is a 2010 textbook by the British political theorist Alasdair Cochrane. It is the first book in the publisher Palgrave Macmillan's Animal Ethics Series, edited by Andrew Linzey and Priscilla Cohn. Cochrane's book examines five schools of political theory—utilitarianism, liberalism, communitarianism, Marxism and feminism—and their respective relationships with questions concerning animal rights and the political status of (non-human) animals. Cochrane concludes that each tradition has something to offer to these issues, but ultimately presents his own account of interest-based animal rights as preferable to any. His account, though drawing from all examined traditions, builds primarily upon liberalism and utilitarianism.
An Introduction was reviewed positively in several academic publications. The political philosopher Steve Cooke said that Cochrane's own approach showed promise, and that the book would have benefited from devoting more space to it. Robert Garner, a political theorist, praised Cochrane's synthesis of such a broad range of literature, but argued that the work was too uncritical of the concept of justice as it might apply to animals. Cochrane's account of interest-based rights for animals was subsequently considered at greater length in his 2012 book Animal Rights Without Liberation, published by Columbia University Press. An Introduction to Animals and Political Theory was one of the first books to explore animals from the perspective of political theory, and became an established part of a literature critical of the topic's traditional neglect. (Full article...) -
Image 9The Halo Graphic Novel is a graphic novel anthology of the military science fiction video game series Halo, published by Marvel Comics in partnership with Bungie. The Halo Graphic Novel was the series' first entry into the sequential art medium, and features aspects of the Halo universe which until then had not been discussed or seen in any medium.
The majority of the book is divided into four short stories by different writers and artists from the computer game and comic industries. Each story focuses on different aspects of the Halo universe, revealing stories that are tangential to the main plot of the game. Apart from the stories, the book also contains an extensive art gallery compiled of contributions from Bungie, Marvel and independent sources. (Full article...) -
Image 10The General in His Labyrinth (original Spanish title: El general en su laberinto) is a 1989 dictator novel by Colombian writer and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez. It is a fictionalized account of the last seven months of Simón Bolívar, liberator and leader of Gran Colombia. The book traces Bolívar's final journey from Bogotá to the Caribbean coastline of Colombia in his attempt to leave South America for exile in Europe. Breaking with the traditional heroic portrayal of Bolívar El Libertador, García Márquez depicts a pathetic protagonist, a prematurely aged man who is physically ill and mentally exhausted. The story explores the labyrinth of Bolívar's life through the narrative of his memories, in which "despair, sickness, and death inevitably win out over love, health, and life".
Following the success of One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Love in the Time of Cholera (1985), García Márquez decided to write about the "Great Liberator" after reading an unfinished novel by his friend Álvaro Mutis. He borrowed the setting—Bolívar's voyage down the Magdalena River in 1830—from Mutis. García Márquez spent two years researching the subject, encompassing the extensive memoirs of Bolívar's Irish aide-de-camp, Daniel Florencio O'Leary, as well as numerous other historical documents and consultations with academics. (Full article...) -
Image 11Night is a 1960 memoir by Elie Wiesel based on his Holocaust experiences with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald in 1944–1945, toward the end of the Second World War in Europe. In just over 100 pages of sparse and fragmented narrative, Wiesel writes about his loss of faith and increasing disgust with humanity, recounting his experiences from the Nazi-established ghettos in his hometown of Sighet, Romania, to his migration through multiple concentration camps. The typical parent–child relationship is inverted as his father dwindled in the camps to a helpless state while Wiesel himself became his teenaged caregiver. His father died in January 1945, taken to the crematory after deteriorating from dysentery and a beating while Wiesel lay silently on the bunk above him for fear of being beaten too. The memoir ends shortly after the United States Army liberated Buchenwald in April 1945.
After the war, Wiesel moved to Paris and in 1954 completed an 862-page manuscript in Yiddish about his experiences, published in Argentina as the 245-page Un di velt hot geshvign ("And the World Remained Silent"). The novelist François Mauriac helped him find a French publisher. Les Éditions de Minuit published 178 pages as La Nuit in 1958, and in 1960 Hill & Wang in New York published a 116-page translation as Night. (Full article...) -
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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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A Voyage Round the World (complete title A Voyage Round the World in His Britannic Majesty's Sloop, Resolution, Commanded by Capt. James Cook, During the Years 1772, 3, 4, and 5) is Georg Forster's report on the second voyage of the British explorer James Cook. During the preparations for Cook's voyage, the expedition's naturalist Joseph Banks had withdrawn his participation, and Georg's father, Johann Reinhold Forster, had taken his place at very short notice, with his seventeen-year-old son as his assistant. They sailed on HMS Resolution with Cook, accompanied by HMS Adventure under Tobias Furneaux. On the voyage, they circumnavigated the world, crossed the Antarctic Circle and sailed as far south as 71° 10′, discovered several Pacific islands, encountered diverse cultures and described many species of plants and animals.
When they returned to England after more than three years, disagreement about the publication rights for a narrative of the journey arose. After plans agreed with John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, the First Lord of the Admiralty, to publish a joint work with contributions by both Cook and Reinhold Forster had fallen through, Georg, who was not bound by any agreement with the Admiralty, began writing Voyage in July 1776. He published on 17 March 1777, six weeks before Cook's A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World appeared. While 63 copper engravings, paid for by the Admiralty, illustrated Cook's account, only a chart of the Southern Hemisphere showing the expedition ships' courses illustrated Forster's Voyage, which was sold for the same price. (Full article...) -
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Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry like Christmas is the third book of Maya Angelou's seven-volume autobiography series. Set between 1949 and 1955, the book spans Angelou's early twenties. In this volume, Angelou describes her struggles to support her young son, form meaningful relationships, and forge a successful career in the entertainment world. The work's 1976 publication was the first time an African-American woman had expanded her life story into a third volume. Scholar Dolly McPherson calls the book "a graphic portrait of the adult self in bloom" and critic Lyman B. Hagen calls it "a journey of discovery and rebirth".[1]
In Singin' and Swingin, Angelou examines many of the same subjects and themes in her previous autobiographies including travel, music, race, conflict, and motherhood. Angelou depicts the conflict she felt as a single mother, despite her success as a performer as she travels Europe with the musical Porgy and Bess. Her depictions of her travels, which take up 40 percent of the book, have roots in the African-American slave narrative. Angelou uses music and musical concepts throughout Singin' and Swingin'; McPherson calls it Angelou's "praisesong" to Porgy and Bess. Angelou's stereotypes about race and race relations are challenged as she interacts more with people of different races. During the course of this narrative, she changes her name from Marguerite Johnson to Maya Angelou for professional reasons. Her young son changes his name as well, from Clyde to Guy, and their relationship is strengthened as the book ends. (Full article...) -
Image 15Boenga Roos dari Tjikembang ([buˈŋa ˈrus daˈri tʃiˈkəmbaŋ]; translated to English as The Rose of Cikembang) is a 1927 vernacular Malay-language novel written by Kwee Tek Hoay. The seventeen-chapter book follows a plantation manager, Aij Tjeng, who must leave his beloved njai (concubine) Marsiti so that he can be married. Eighteen years later, after Aij Tjeng's daughter Lily dies, her fiancé Bian Koen discovers that Marsiti had a daughter with Aij Tjeng, Roosminah, who greatly resembles Lily. In the end Bian Koen and Roosminah are married.
Inspired by the lyrics to the song "If Those Lips Could Only Speak" and William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Boenga Roos dari Tjikembang was initially written as an outline for the stage drama troupe Union Dalia. Kwee intermixed several languages other than Malay, particularly Dutch, Sundanese, and English; he included two quotes from English poems and another from an English song. The novel has been interpreted variously as a promotion of theosophy, a treatise on the Buddhist concept of reincarnation, a call for education, an ode to njais, and a condemnation of how such women are treated. (Full article...)
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Credit: Anne de Felbrigge
More Did you know (auto generated)
- ... that according to Lois N. Magner, Hildegard of Bingen's Physica is "probably the first book by a female author to discuss the elements and the therapeutic virtues of plants, animals, and metals"?
- ... that the first time The Witcher universe was portrayed outside the novels was in the 1993–1995 Polish comic book series of the same name?
- ... that the writer of Elden Ring compared the game's mythology to using a dungeon master's handbook in a tabletop RPG?
- ... that History of the Mission of the Evangelical Brothers in the Caribbean by C. G. A. Oldendorp was the first book to publish Igbo-language terms in 1777?
- ... that comedian Pamela Stephenson was pleased that her 1987 book How to Be a Complete Bitch was described as "sexist, violent and crude"?
- ... that Michael Lewis, author of Going Infinite, compared a rival author to the subject of both their books, convicted fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried?
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The May Pamphlet is a collection of six anarchist essays written and published by Paul Goodman in 1945. Goodman discusses the problems of living in a society that represses individual instinct through coercion. He suggests that individuals resist such conditions by reclaiming their natural instincts and initiative, and by "drawing the line", an ideological delineation beyond which an individual should refuse to conform or cooperate with social convention. While themes from The May Pamphlet—decentralization, peace, social psychology, youth liberation—would recur throughout his works, Goodman's later social criticism focused on practical applications rather than theoretical concerns.
The pamphlet was originally published piecemeal in small, New York anarchist journals and was first compiled as a set among literary essays in Art and Social Nature (1946). The essays were not well known before Goodman's 1960 book Growing Up Absurd led to a resurgence of interest in his oeuvre, including the pamphlet's republication in Drawing the Line (1962). The May Pamphlet was Goodman's principal contribution to anarchist theory and a primary influence on Colin Ward, who later dedicated Anarchy in Action to Goodman's memory. (Full article...) -
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The Cookery Book of Lady Clark of Tillypronie is a book of recipes collected over a lifetime by Charlotte, Lady Clark of Tillypronie (née Coltman, 1851–1897), and published posthumously in 1909. The earliest recipe was collected in 1841; the last in 1897. The book was edited by the artist Catherine Frances Frere, who had seen two other cookery books through to publication, at the request of Clark's husband.
The book is considered a valuable compilation of Victorian era recipes. Lady Clark obtained the recipes by asking hostesses or cooks, and then testing each one at Tillypronie. She documented each recipe's source with the name of her source, and often also the date. There is comprehensive coverage of plain British cooking, especially of meat and game, but the book has sections on all aspects of contemporary cooking including bread, cakes, eggs, cooking for invalids, jams, pies, sauces, sweets (puddings) and vegetables. She had lived in Italy and France, and the cuisines of these countries are represented by many dishes, as is Anglo-Indian cooking with a section called "Curries". (Full article...) -
Image 3Madonnaland: And Other Detours in Fame and Fandom is a non-fiction book written by American essayist and musician Alina Simone. It is a biography of American singer Madonna, as well the author's own analysis of music and pop culture. Upon its release on March 3, 2016 by University of Texas Press, Madonnaland received positive reviews from critics, who praised her writing and bold subject choice. Rolling Stone magazine listed it as one of the 10 Best Music Books released in 2016.
Consisting of six chapters, Madonnaland finds Simone visiting Madonna's birthplace, Bay City, Michigan, where she spoke with the local people about the singer. The book also analyses Madonna's career and fame, with the author delving into her own music career and obscure Bay City bands. Simone had been initially commissioned to write a new biography about the singer. However, due to already available excess content on her, the author felt she would not be able to find anything new. Instead, she ended up writing Madonnaland about her own failure to create a Madonna biography, why Bay City did not have any commemoration for the singer, as well as unknown music bands, pop culture and celebrity life. (Full article...) -
Image 4The Diamond Smugglers is a non-fiction work by Ian Fleming that was first published in 1957 in the United Kingdom and in 1958 in the United States. The book is based on two weeks of interviews Fleming undertook with John Collard, a member of the International Diamond Security Organisation (IDSO), which was headed by Sir Percy Sillitoe, the ex-chief of MI5 who worked for the diamond company De Beers.
The IDSO was formed by Sillitoe to combat the smuggling of diamonds from Africa, where, it was estimated, £10 million (£304,531,779 in 2024 pounds) worth of gems were being smuggled every year out of South Africa alone. The book expands upon articles Fleming wrote for The Sunday Times in 1957. (Full article...) -
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The Cèllere Codex (officially, Del Viaggio del Verrazzano Nobile Fiorentino al Servizio di Francesco I, Ri de Francia, fatto nel 1524 all'America Settentrionale, also Morgan MS. MA. 776) is one of three surviving copies of a manuscript originally created in 1524. This manuscript was a letter sent by Giovanni da Verrazzano (1481–1528) to King Francis I of France describing the former's navigation of the East Coast of the United States. Verrazzano was an Italian who lived in France, and he undertook his voyage in Francis' service. The King, prompted by the French mercantile community, charged Verrazzano to discover whether there was a direct passage from the Atlantic to China and Japan. These were important trading partners—particularly in silks and spices— for most European nations.
The Codex is considered by scholars to be the most important of the three copies, although there is debate as to how much weight should be given to some of the detail it provides. Over twelve pages, the Codex describes how Verrazzano sailed due west from Madeira in December 1523, and in little more than a month had arrived at North Carolina. From there they journeyed south, towards Florida. This direction was not without danger, as Florida represented the northerly point of the Spanish Empire, and Spanish warships patrolled the sea. Verrazzano then turned northwards again and, hugging the coast, passed Virginia, New Jersey, and eventually New York, where he anchored in what is now New York Harbor. He then continued north around New England, to Newfoundland, where, with provisions running low, he turned eastwards. Verrazzano and crew returned to Dieppe in July 1524. The Codex describes Verrazzano's journey in a far greater degree of detail than the other versions of his letter, which may be because it was originally transcribed by Verrazzano's brother, and then further annotated by Verrazzano himself. It was sent via a series of letters to colleagues of Verrazzano in France and then to Italy, where it then remained undiscovered in a Viterbo library until the early twentieth century. Until its discovery there had been some doubt as to whether Verrazzano had ever made the voyage at all. (Full article...) -
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The Malay Archipelago is a book by the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace which chronicles his scientific exploration, during the eight-year period 1854 to 1862, of the southern portion of the Malay Archipelago including Malaysia, Singapore, the islands of Indonesia, then known as the Dutch East Indies, and the island of New Guinea. It was published in two volumes in 1869, delayed by Wallace's ill health and the work needed to describe the many specimens he brought home. The book went through ten editions in the nineteenth century; it has been reprinted many times since, and has been translated into at least twelve languages.
The book describes each island that he visited in turn, giving a detailed account of its physical and human geography, its volcanoes, and the variety of animals and plants that he found and collected. At the same time, he describes his experiences, the difficulties of travel, and the help he received from the different peoples that he met. The preface notes that he travelled over 14,000 miles and collected 125,660 natural history specimens, mostly of insects though also thousands of molluscs, birds, mammals and reptiles. (Full article...) -
Image 7Terrorist Recognition Handbook: A Practitioner's Manual for Predicting and Identifying Terrorist Activities is a non-fiction book about counterterrorism strategies, written by U.S. Navy retired cryptology analyst Malcolm Nance. The book is intended to help law enforcement and intelligence officials with the professional practice of behavior analysis and criminal psychology of anticipating potential terrorists before they commit criminal acts. Nance draws from the field of traditional criminal analysis to posit that detecting domestic criminals is similar to determining which individuals are likely to commit acts of terrorism. The book provides resources for the law enforcement official including descriptions of devices used for possible bombs, a database of terrorist networks, and a list of references used. Nance gives the reader background on Al-Qaeda tactics, clandestine cell systems and sleeper agents, and terrorist communication methods.
Terrorist Recognition Handbook received two separate book reviews in the academic journal Perspectives on Terrorism. The journal placed the book on its "Top 150 Books on Terrorism and Counterterrorism". Its second review of the book wrote that the Terrorist Recognition Handbook "provides a comprehensive and detailed treatment of terrorism and counter-terrorism." A review published by RSA Conference called it "required reading", and "a must-read for anyone tasked with or interested in anti-terrorism activities." Midwest Book Review rated it "highly recommended for those in charge of security and community library military collections." (Full article...) -
Image 8Mission: Earth, Voyage to the Home Planet is a children's literature book by science writer June A. English and astronaut Thomas David Jones that was published in 1996 by Scholastic. Jones was among the crew members of the Space Shuttle Endeavour during an eleven-day mission in space, which was launched in April 1994 to study the ecological well-being of Earth using specialized radar technology. The book, which is illustrated with radar images and picturesque photographs, chronicles the mission and Jones' experiences of it.
Mission: Earth, Voyage to the Home Planet received a generally favorable reception in media coverage and book reviewers. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said, "The authors convey the awe and wonderment of seeing Earth from space and the intricate delicacy of the Earth's ecology". The Dallas Morning News said, "The astronaut's descriptions are vivid". A review in Booklist was more critical; it said, "The authors try to cover too much in so few pages, and the narrative, with several focal points, becomes simplified at times". School Library Journal wrote, "It provides a unique look at a new method of research and an opportunity for youngsters to read one scientist's account of what it's like to engage in this exciting field of endeavor". The book was selected for inclusion in books Best Books for Children, and Adventuring With Books, or educating youths about history by using children's literature works. (Full article...) -
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Ars Conjectandi (Latin for "The Art of Conjecturing") is a book on combinatorics and mathematical probability written by Jacob Bernoulli and published in 1713, eight years after his death, by his nephew, Niklaus Bernoulli. The seminal work consolidated, apart from many combinatorial topics, many central ideas in probability theory, such as the very first version of the law of large numbers: indeed, it is widely regarded as the founding work of that subject. It also addressed problems that today are classified in the twelvefold way and added to the subjects; consequently, it has been dubbed an important historical landmark in not only probability but all combinatorics by a plethora of mathematical historians. The importance of this early work had a large impact on both contemporary and later mathematicians; for example, Abraham de Moivre.
Bernoulli wrote the text between 1684 and 1689, including the work of mathematicians such as Christiaan Huygens, Gerolamo Cardano, Pierre de Fermat, and Blaise Pascal. He incorporated fundamental combinatorial topics such as his theory of permutations and combinations (the aforementioned problems from the twelvefold way) as well as those more distantly connected to the burgeoning subject: the derivation and properties of the eponymous Bernoulli numbers, for instance. Core topics from probability, such as expected value, were also a significant portion of this important work. (Full article...) -
Image 10Yakov and the Seven Thieves is a picture book written by American entertainer Madonna. It was released on June 21, 2004, by Callaway Arts & Entertainment in over 110 countries and 38 different languages, including a Braille edition. The book contains a moral tale and was inspired by a 300-year-old story by rabbi Baal Shem Tov, that Madonna had heard from her Kabbalah teacher. The premise was set in a small, 18th century town in Eastern Europe, and the story talks about how everyone has the ability to open the gates of heaven, however unworthy one is deemed to be.
The cover art and the images inside were painted by Russian illustrator Gennady Spirin who chose Baroque painting as inspiration for crafting the characters and the scenery. Like her previous endeavors, Madonna promoted the release by appearing on talk show and reading to children at a hospital in London. Critics gave mixed review of the book, with reviews being mostly negative about Madonna's writing but praised Spirin's illustrations. Three weeks after its release, Yakov and the Seven Thieves debuted at number seven on The New York Times Best Seller list in the category for Children's Picture books. (Full article...) -
Image 11The Origin of Birds is an early synopsis of bird evolution written in 1926 by Gerhard Heilmann, a Danish artist and amateur zoologist. The book was born from a series of articles published between 1913 and 1916 in Danish, and although republished as a book it received mainly criticism from established scientists and got little attention within Denmark. The English edition of 1926, however, became highly influential at the time due to the breadth of evidence synthesized as well as the artwork used to support its arguments. It was considered the last word on the subject of bird evolution for several decades after its publication.
Through the course of the research represented in the book, Heilmann considers and eventually rejects the possibility of all living and several extinct groups of reptiles as potential ancestors for modern birds, including crocodilians, pterosaurs and several groups of dinosaurs. Despite his acknowledgment that some of the smaller Jurassic theropods had many similarities to Archaeopteryx and modern birds, he determined that they were unlikely to be direct bird ancestors and that they were instead closely–related offshoots, and concluded that the similarities were a result of convergent evolution rather than direct ancestry. Based essentially on a process of elimination, Heilmann arrives at the conclusion that birds must be descended from thecodonts, a group of archosaurs that lived during the Permian and Triassic periods. Although this conclusion was later shown to be inaccurate, The Origin of Birds was regarded as a masterful piece of scholarship at the time and set the international agenda for research in bird evolution for nearly half a century, and much of its research remains of interest. (Full article...) -
Image 12Libris Mortis: The Book of Undead is a book which is an official supplement for the 3.5 edition of the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The book covers the fictional undead within the D&D universe and comprises seven chapters, introducing new content for Dungeon Masters and players, as well as providing general information about undead.
It was received positively by reviewers, with praise for its material for Dungeon Masters and its illustrations, but received criticism for its weak player-oriented content. The book was the second in the series of books about specific monster types, the first being Draconomicon. Similar books published since include Lords of Madness. Libris Mortis included content from older books, such as Tome and Blood and the Book of Vile Darkness, that had been reworked. (Full article...) -
Image 13Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975; 25th anniversary edition 2000) is a book by the biologist E. O. Wilson. It helped start the sociobiology debate, one of the great scientific controversies in biology of the 20th century and part of the wider debate about evolutionary psychology and the modern synthesis of evolutionary biology. Wilson popularized the term "sociobiology" as an attempt to explain the evolutionary mechanics behind social behaviour such as altruism, aggression, and the nurturing of the young. It formed a position within the long-running nature versus nurture debate. The fundamental principle guiding sociobiology is that an organism's evolutionary success is measured by the extent to which its genes are represented in the next generation.
The book was generally well-reviewed in biological journals. It received a much more mixed reaction among sociologists, mainly triggered by the brief coverage of the implications of sociobiology for human society in the first and last chapters of the book; the body of the text was largely welcomed. Such was the level of interest in the debate that a review reached the front page of the New York Times. The sociologist Gerhard Lenski, admitting that sociologists needed to look further into non-human societies, agreed that human society was founded on biology but denied both biological reductionism and determinism. Lenski observed that since the nature-nurture dichotomy was false, there was no reason for sociologists and biologists to disagree. Other sociologists objected in particular to the final chapter, on "Man": Devra G. Kleiman called Wilson's attempt to extend his thesis to humans weak and premature, and noted that he had largely overlooked the importance of co-operative behaviour and females in mammalian societies. (Full article...) -
Image 14My Story (or Mon histoire) is a tell-all memoir by Canadian Julie Couillard. It was first written in French, then during summer 2008, translated into English. Both versions were published across Canada in October 2008.
Couillard first appeared in the national media when she then dated the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maxime Bernier. The incident began in May 2008 over a NATO-related dossier at Couillard's house. (Full article...) -
Image 15Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate is a 2002 book by Canadian journalist Naomi Klein and editor Debra Ann Levy. The book is a collection of newspaper articles, mostly from The Globe and Mail, with a few magazine articles from The Nation and speech transcripts. The articles and speeches were all written by Klein in the 30 months after the publication of her first book, No Logo (1999), from December 1999 to March 2002. The articles focus upon the anti-globalization movement, including protest events and responses by law enforcement. The book was published in North America and the United Kingdom in October 2002.
The imagery of fences and windows appear throughout the work. The fences represent exclusion and barriers, while the windows are opportunities for expressing alternative ideas. The book garnered both positive and negative reviews. Two of the articles were singled out as exceptional by several reviewers: "America is not a Hamburger" discusses the US State Department's attempt to re-brand America's image overseas; "The Brutal Calculus of Suffering" discusses media portrayals of war. (Full article...)
Selected quote
“ | Gutenberg, your printing press has been violated by this evil book, Mein Kampf! | ” |
— Friedrich Kellner |
Did you know
- ...that by 2007, the Bible was translated into 429 languages, with portions of it translated in 2,426 languages?(Pictured)
- ...that Muslims believe that the Qur’ān is the book of divine guidance and direction for mankind?
- ...that the Rig Veda is one of the oldest religious texts?
General images
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Image 2European output of manuscripts 500–1500 (from History of books)
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Image 5The 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)
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Image 6An author portrait of Jean Miélot writing his compilation of the Miracles of Our Lady, one of his many popular works. (from History of books)
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Image 7Folio from the Shah Jahan Album, c. 1620, depicting the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (from History of books)
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Image 8A 15th-century Incunable. Notice the blind-tooled cover, corner bosses, and clasps. (from History of books)
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Image 9Rebacking saving original spine, showing one volume finished and one untouched (from Bookbinding)
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Image 10Page spread with J. A. van de Graaf's construction of classical text area (print space) and margin proportions (from Book design)
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Image 11The 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)
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Image 12Woman holding wax tablets in the form of the codex. Wall painting from Pompeii, before 79 CE. (from History of books)
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Image 14Three books with different titling orientations:
(left) ascending
(middle) descending
(right) upright (from Bookbinding) -
Image 15Hardbound book spine stitching (from Bookbinding)
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Image 16A 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
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Image 17Example of blind tooling a book binding with exquisite detail (from Bookbinding)
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Image 18A traditional bookbinder at work (from Bookbinding)
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Image 19Page from the Blue Quran manuscript, ca. 9th or 10th century CE (from History of books)
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Image 20European output of printed books c. 1450–1800 (from History of books)
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Image 21Decorative binding with figurehead of the 12th century manuscript Liber Landavensis (from Bookbinding)
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Image 22Design by Hans Holbein the Younger for a metalwork book cover (or treasure binding) (from Book design)
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Image 23Hardbound book with half leather binding (spine and corners) and marbled boards (from Bookbinding)
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Image 25Cloth book cover with attached paper panel, mimicking half leather binding (from Bookbinding)
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Image 27Modern book spine designs (from Bookbinding)
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Image 28The Book of the Dead of Hunefer, c. 1275 BCE, ink and pigments on papyrus, in the British Museum (London) (from History of books)
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Image 29A Chinese bamboo book (from History of books)
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Image 31Early medieval bookcase containing about ten codices depicted in the Codex Amiatinus (c. 700) (from Bookbinding)
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Image 3212-metre-high (40 ft) stack of books sculpture at the Berlin Walk of Ideas, commemorating the invention of modern book printing (from History of books)
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Image 33European output of books 500–1800 (from History of books)
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Image 34Bookbinder's type holder (from Bookbinding)
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Image 35Scheme of common book design(from Bookbinding)
- Belly band
- Flap
- Endpaper
- Book cover
- Head
- Fore edge
- Tail
- Right page, recto
- Left page, verso
- Gutter
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Image 36Traditionally sewn book opened flat (from Bookbinding)
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Image 37Sammelband of three alchemical treatises, bound in Strasbourg by Samuel Emmel c. 1568, showing metal clasps and leather covering of boards (from Bookbinding)
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Image 38Jikji, 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)
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Image 40Book conservators at the State Library of New South Wales, 1943 (from Bookbinding)
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Image 41Photograph of a printing press in Egypt, c. 1922 (from History of books)
Books lists
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Web resources
- Bookbinding and the Conservation of books, A Dictionary of Descriptive Terminology, 1982 by Matt T. Roberts and Don Etherington
- IOBA glossary of book terms
- Project Gutenberg - Free e-Books
- Words at Large: The best in books from CBC.ca
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