Portal:Books
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A book is a written work of substantial length created by one or more authors. They can be distributed in various forms such as printed books, audiobooks, and electronic books (ebooks). Books are broadly classified into fiction, containing invented narrative or other imaginary content; and non-fiction, containing content intended as factual truth.
The term may also refer to the physical or electronic object containing such a work. Modern books are typically printed in a codex format, composed of many pages bound together and protected by a cover. Before the wide adoption of the modern printing press, codices were used to create handwritten manuscripts. Older writing mediums include scrolls and clay tablets.
The book publishing process is the series of steps involved in their creation and dissemination, often undertaken in modern times by a commercial publishing company. The publishing industry has recently seen major changes due to new technologies, including ebooks and audiobooks (recordings of books read aloud). Awareness of the needs of people with print disabilities has led to a rise in accessible publishing formats such as braille printing and large-print editions. Google Books estimated in 2010 that roughly 130 million total unique books have been published.
Books are sold at general retail stores and specialized bookstores, as well as online, and can be borrowed from libraries or public bookcases. The reception of books has led to a number of social consequences, including censorship.
Books are sometimes contrasted with periodical literature, such as newspapers or magazines, where new editions are published according to a regular schedule. Some objects broadly described as "books" are left empty for personal use, such as notebooks, diaries, sketchbooks, account books, and autograph books. (Full article...)
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Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.-
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...) -
The Halo Graphic Novel is a graphic novel anthology published by Marvel Comics in partnership with Bungie, set in the universe of the science fiction franchise Halo. 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...) -
Ace Books is a publisher of science fiction (SF) and fantasy books founded in New York City in 1952 by Aaron A. Wyn. It began as a genre publisher of mysteries and westerns, and soon branched out into other genres, publishing its first science fiction title in 1953. This was successful, and science fiction titles outnumbered both mysteries and westerns within a few years. Other genres also made an appearance, including nonfiction, gothic novels, media tie-in novelizations, and romances. Ace became known for the tête-bêche binding format used for many of its early books, although it did not originate the format. Most of the early titles were published in this "Ace Double" format, and Ace continued to issue books in varied genres, bound tête-bêche, until 1973.
Ace, along with Ballantine Books, was one of the leading science fiction publishers for its first ten years of operation. The death of owner A. A. Wyn in 1967 set the stage for a later decline in the publisher's fortunes. Two leading editors, Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr, left in 1971, and in 1972 Ace was sold to Grosset & Dunlap. Despite financial troubles, there were further successes, particularly with the third Ace Science Fiction Specials series, for which Carr came back as editor. Further mergers and acquisitions resulted in the company becoming absorbed by Berkley Books. Ace later became an imprint of Penguin Group (USA). (Full article...) -
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...) -
Cover of the anonymous play, The True Tragedy of Richard III (1594), which was "to be sold by William Barley, at his shop in Newgate Market"
William Barley (1565?–1614) was an English bookseller and publisher. He completed an apprenticeship as a draper in 1587, but was soon working in the London book trade. As a freeman of the Drapers' Company, he was embroiled in a dispute between it and the Stationers' Company over the rights of drapers to function as publishers and booksellers. He found himself in legal tangles throughout his life.
Barley's role in Elizabethan music publishing has proved to be a contentious issue among scholars. The assessments of him range from "a man of energy, determination, and ambition", to "somewhat remarkable", to "surely to some extent a rather nefarious figure". His contemporaries harshly criticised the quality of two of the first works of music that he published, but he was also influential in his field. (Full article...) -
Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution is a book written by Stephen Knight first published in 1976. It proposed a solution to five murders in Victorian London that were blamed on an unidentified serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper".
Knight presented an elaborate conspiracy theory involving the British royal family, freemasonry and the painter Walter Sickert. He concluded that the victims were murdered to cover up a secret marriage between the second-in-line to the throne, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, and working class girl Annie Elizabeth Crook, and that the killer was physician William Gull, aided by coachman John Netley. There are many facts that contradict Knight's theory, and his main source, Joseph Gorman (also known as Joseph Sickert), later retracted the story and admitted to the press that it was a hoax. (Full article...) -
Title page from History of a Six Weeks' Tour (1817), Thomas Hookham, Jr. and Charles and James Ollier, London.
History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland; with Letters Descriptive of a Sail Round the Lake of Geneva and of the Glaciers of Chamouni is a travel narrative by the English Romantic authors Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Published anonymously in 1817, it describes two trips taken by Mary, Percy, and Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont: one across Europe in 1814, and one to Lake Geneva in 1816. Divided into three sections, the text consists of a journal, four letters, and Percy Shelley's poem "Mont Blanc". Apart from the poem, preface, and two letters, the text was primarily written and organised by Mary Shelley. In 1840 she revised the journal and the letters, republishing them in a collection of Percy Shelley's writings.
Part of the new genre of the Romantic travel narrative, History of a Six Weeks' Tour exudes spontaneity and enthusiasm; the authors demonstrate their desire to develop a sense of taste and distinguish themselves from those around them. The romantic elements of the work would have hinted at the text's radical politics to nineteenth-century readers. However, the text's frank discussion of politics, including positive references to the French Revolution and praise of Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, was unusual for a travel narrative at the time, particularly one authored primarily by a woman. (Full article...) -
The Heart of a Woman (1981) is an autobiography by American writer Maya Angelou. The book is the fourth installment in Angelou's series of seven autobiographies. The Heart of a Woman recounts events in Angelou's life between 1957 and 1962 and follows her travels to California, New York City, Cairo, and Ghana as she raises her teenage son, becomes a published author, becomes active in the civil rights movement, and becomes romantically involved with a South African anti-apartheid fighter. One of the most important themes of The Heart of a Woman is motherhood, as Angelou continues to raise her son. The book ends with her son leaving for college and Angelou looking forward to newfound independence and freedom.
Like Angelou's previous volumes, the book has been described as autobiographical fiction, though most critics, as well as Angelou, have characterized it as autobiography. Although most critics consider Angelou's first autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings more favorably, The Heart of a Woman has received positive reviews. It was chosen as an Oprah's Book Club selection in 1997. (Full article...) -
Lemurs of Madagascar is a reference work and field guide for the lemurs of Madagascar with descriptions and biogeographic data for the known species. The primary contributor is Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International, and the cover art and illustrations are drawn by Stephen D. Nash. Currently in its fifth edition published in 2023, the book provides details about all known lemur species, general information about lemurs and their history, and tips for identifying species. Four related pocket field guides have also been released, containing color illustrations of each species, miniature range maps, and species checklists.
The first edition was published in 1994 and was reviewed favorably in the International Journal of Primatology, Conservation Biology, and Lemur News. Reviewers, including Alison Jolly, praised the book for its depth of coverage, illustrations, and discussion of topics including conservation, evolution, and the recently extinct subfossil lemurs. Each agreed that the book was an excellent resource for a wide audience, including ecotourists and lemur researchers. A lengthy review of the second edition was published in the American Journal of Primatology, where it received similar favorable comments. The third edition was reviewed favorably in Lemur News; the reviewer praised the expanded content of the book but was concerned that the edition was not as portable as its predecessors. (Full article...) -
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...) -
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...) -
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...) -
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 media on August 11, 1945, and 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. According to historian Rebecca Press Schwartz, this would ultimately give a false impression that the Manhattan Project was all about physics. (Full article...) -
Epiphanius of Salamis' book the Panarion is the main source of information regarding the Gospel of the Ebionites.
The Gospel of the Ebionites is the conventional name given by scholars to an apocryphal gospel extant only as seven brief quotations in a heresiology known as the Panarion, by Epiphanius of Salamis; he misidentified it as the "Hebrew" gospel, believing it to be a truncated and modified version of the Gospel of Matthew. The quotations were embedded in a polemic to point out inconsistencies in the beliefs and practices of a Jewish Christian sect known as the Ebionites relative to Nicene orthodoxy.
The surviving fragments derive from a gospel harmony of the Synoptic Gospels, composed in Greek with various expansions and abridgments reflecting the theology of the writer. Distinctive features include the absence of the virgin birth and of the genealogy of Jesus; an Adoptionist Christology, in which Jesus is chosen to be God's Son at the time of his Baptism; the abolition of the Jewish sacrifices by Jesus; and an advocacy of vegetarianism. (Full article...) -
Night 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 (Yiddish: און די װעלט האט געשװיגן, lit. '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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Credit: Anne de Felbrigge
The Felbrigge Psalter is an illuminated manuscript Psalter from mid-thirteenth century England that has an embroidered bookbinding which probably dates to the early fourteenth century.
More Did you know (auto generated)
- ... that two books of photos and drawings by Margot Dias were called "among the best-illustrated anthropological volumes ever produced"?
- ... that the novel Lady Jennifer sometimes came with a book of advice promoting John Strange Winter Toilet Preparations?
- ... that Kirkus Reviews called Jenny Price's environmentalist book Stop Saving the Planet! a "fun introduction to a serious topic"?
- ... that Margaret Pargeter published 49 books in eleven years, with another book following eleven years later?
- ... that The Oceanic Languages is so ubiquitous among scholars of the Oceanic languages that it is known simply as "the blue book"?
- ... that Lewis Worthington Smith received royalties from his textbook The Mechanism of English Style for 20 years?
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My 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 Maxime Bernier, who at that time was Minister of Foreign Affairs. The incident began in May 2008 over a NATO-related dossier which Bernier forgot at Couillard's house. (Full article...) -
Ursula K. Le Guin, the author, in 2004.
"Coming of Age in Karhide" is a science fiction short story by Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in 1995. The story is set on the fictional planet of Gethen, the same as Le Guin's 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness, and is a part of Le Guin's Hainish cycle. The story explores themes of growing into adulthood on a planet where individuals have no fixed biological sex. Reviewers stated that the story went further than Left Hand in its exploration of biological sex and sexuality, and was a "quietly feminist" work. It was also described as lacking the "dizzying impact" of Left Hand. In 2002, it was anthologized in the volume The Birthday of the World, along with many other stories exploring marriage and sexual relationships. (Full article...) -
The Charles Scribner's Sons Building, also known as 597 Fifth Avenue, is a commercial structure in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, on Fifth Avenue between 48th and 49th Streets. Designed by Ernest Flagg in a Beaux Arts style, it was built from 1912 to 1913 for the Scribner's Bookstore.
The Fifth Avenue facade contains a glass-and-iron storefront on its lowest two stories with black and gold decoration. On the third through ninth stories, the facade is subdivided into five limestone bays, while at the tenth story is a mansard roof. Among the facade's details are vertical piers with four medallions containing busts of printers: Benjamin Franklin, William Caxton, Johann Gutenberg, and Aldus Manutius. The interior of the first two stories contains a retail space that initially served as a location of the Scribner's Bookstore. The upper stories contain offices, including some space that was initially used by the Scribner's publishing company. (Full article...) -
Betelguese, a Trip Through Hell is a 1908 lyrical poem book written by Jean Louis De Esque. The publication includes a preface by the author with two poetic works, "When I am Gone" and "Betelguese." The latter poem has been called a "classic" work that utilized off-beat language, considered to be a delight to the philologist. It has been compared to the poetic works of George Sterling and Kenneth Patchen.
The book was published during the height of the nature fakers controversy, and it has been suggested that De Esque elected to release Betelguese, a Trip Through Hell while Theodore Roosevelt was on a trip to Africa in an effort to avoid potential conflict that might have resulted from Roosevelt's awareness of its content. (Full article...) -
The Anarchist Cookbook, first published in 1971, is a book containing instructions for the manufacture of explosives, rudimentary telecommunications phreaking devices, and related weapons, as well as instructions for the home manufacture of illicit drugs, including LSD. It was written by William Powell at the apex of the counterculture era to protest against the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War. Powell converted to Anglicanism in 1976 and later attempted to have the book removed from circulation. However, the copyright belonged to the publisher, who continued circulating the book until the company was bought out in 1991. Its legality has been questioned in several jurisdictions. (Full article...) -
Title page from The Botanic Garden (1791)
The Botanic Garden (1791) is a set of two poems, The Economy of Vegetation and The Loves of the Plants, by the British poet and naturalist Erasmus Darwin. The Economy of Vegetation celebrates technological innovation and scientific discovery and offers theories concerning contemporary scientific questions, such as the history of the cosmos. The more popular Loves of the Plants promotes, revises and illustrates Linnaeus's classification scheme for plants.
The intent of The Botanic Garden, one of the first popular science books, is to pique readers' interest in science while educating them at the same time. By embracing Linnaeus's sexualized language, which anthropomorphizes plants, Darwin intended to make botany interesting and relevant to the readers of his time. Darwin emphasizes the connections between humanity and plants, arguing that they are all part of the same natural world and that sexual reproduction is at the heart of evolution (ideas that his grandson, Charles Darwin, would later turn into a full-fledged theory of evolution). This evolutionary theme continues in The Economy of Vegetation, which contends that scientific progress is part of evolution and urges its readers to celebrate inventors and scientific discoveries in a language usually reserved for heroes or artistic geniuses. Darwin's attempt to popularize science and to convey the wonders of scientific discovery and technological innovation through poetry helped initiate a tradition of popular science writing that continues to the present day. (Full article...) -
Oh Pray My Wings Are Gonna Fit Me Well is a book of poems by American author Maya Angelou, published by Random House in 1975. It is Angelou's second volume of poetry, written after her first two autobiographies and first volume of poetry were published. 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. Although her poetry collections have been best-sellers, they have not received serious critical attention.
Oh Pray is divided into five parts and consists of 36 poems. The volume is dedicated to "Paul". Like many of Angelou's poems, the poetry in the volume has been characterized as light verse. They contain identifications with ordinary objects and universal identifications. Oh Pray has received mixed reviews from critics. The poems in Oh Pray focus on themes of love, insight, and tension, and on overcoming difficulties. Angelou writes about ordinary objects and experiences about a variety of racial themes and concerns. (Full article...) -
Dwellers of the Forbidden City is an adventure module, or pre-packaged adventure booklet, ready for use by Dungeon Masters in the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) fantasy role-playing game. The adventure was first used as a module for tournament play at the 1980 Origins Game Fair, and was later published by TSR in 1981 for use with the first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules. The module was written by game designer David "Zeb" Cook, who partly ascribes his hiring by TSR to his work on this module. In the adventure, the characters are hired to recover a stolen object from a hidden oriental-style city ruled by a snake-worshipping cult of yuan-ti and their mongrelmen and tasloi servants.
The module was ranked as the 13th greatest Dungeons & Dragons adventure of all time by Dungeon magazine for the 30th anniversary of the Dungeons & Dragons game in 2004. (Full article...) -
The 'divine fire flying crow' (shen huo fei ya), an aerodynamic winged rocket bomb from the Huolongjing
The Huolongjing (traditional Chinese: 火龍經; simplified Chinese: 火龙经; pinyin: Huǒ Lóng Jīng; Wade-Giles: Huo Lung Ching; rendered in English as Fire Drake Manual or Fire Dragon Manual), also known as Huoqitu (“Firearm Illustrations”), is a Chinese military treatise compiled and edited by Jiao Yu and Liu Bowen of the early Ming dynasty (1368–1683) during the 14th century. The Huolongjing is primarily based on the text known as Huolong Shenqi Tufa (Illustrations of Divine Fire Dragon Engines), which no longer exists. (Full article...) -
Song Without Words: A Book of Engravings on Wood is a 1936 wordless novel by American artist Lynd Ward (1905–1985). Executed in twenty-one wood engravings, it was the fifth and shortest of the six wordless novels Ward completed, produced while working on the last and longest, Vertigo (1937). The story concerns the anxiety an expectant mother feels over bringing a child into a world under the threat of fascism—anxieties Ward and writer May McNeer were then feeling over McNeer's pregnancy with the couple's second child. (Full article...)
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The Valley Library is the primary library of Oregon State University and is located at the school's main campus in Corvallis in the U.S. state of Oregon. Established in 1887, the library was placed in its own building for the first time in 1918, what is now Kidder Hall. The current building opened in 1963 as the William Jasper Kerr Library and was expanded and renamed in 1999 as The Valley Library. The library is named for philanthropist F. Wayne Valley, who played football for Oregon State.
One of three libraries for Oregon State, The Valley Library stores more than 1.4 million volumes, 14,000 serials, and more than 500,000 maps and government documents. It is designated as a Federal Depository Library and is also a repository for state documents. The six-story library building is of a contemporary, neoclassical style with a red-brick exterior highlighted by white sections along the top and on part of the eastern side. The eastern side includes a white-faced rotunda that features a two-story atrium on the main floor. (Full article...) -
Theophrastus's Enquiry into Plants or Historia Plantarum (Ancient Greek: Περὶ φυτῶν ἱστορία, Peri phyton historia) was, along with his mentor Aristotle's History of Animals, Pliny the Elder's Natural History and Dioscorides's De materia medica, one of the most important books of natural history written in ancient times, and like them it was influential in the Renaissance. Theophrastus looks at plant structure, reproduction and growth; the varieties of plant around the world; wood; wild and cultivated plants; and their uses. Book 9 in particular, on the medicinal uses of plants, is one of the first herbals, describing juices, gums and resins extracted from plants, and how to gather them.
Historia Plantarum was written some time between c. 350 BC and c. 287 BC in ten volumes, of which nine survive. In the book, Theophrastus described plants by their uses, and attempted a biological classification based on how plants reproduced, a first in the history of botany. He continually revised the manuscript, and it remained in an unfinished state on his death. The condensed style of the text, with its many lists of examples, indicate that Theophrastus used the manuscript as the working notes for lectures to his students, rather than intending it to be read as a book. (Full article...) -
Junji Ito's Cat Diary: Yon & Mu (Japanese: 伊藤潤二の猫日記 よん&むー, Hepburn: Itō Junji no Neko Nikki: Yon & Mū) is an autobiographical manga written and illustrated by Junji Ito. Appearing as a serial in Kodansha's seinen manga magazine Monthly Magazine Z from November 2007 to December 2008, it follows the adventures of J-kun, a horror manga artist as he adjusts to life with cats: Yon, whom his fiancėe brings along to their new house, and Mu, a Norwegian Forest cat whom the couple adopts as a kitten. Junji Ito's Cat Diary draws on autobiographical elements of Ito's personal experience with cats. Publisher Kodansha compiled the ten installments of the manga into a bound volume and released it in March 2009.
Kodansha Comics USA published an English-language translation of Junji Ito's Cat Diary in October 2015, which also included the contributions of Ito and his wife to the 2011 collection Teach Me, Michael! A Textbook in Support of Feline Disaster Victims. Upon publication, the manga received a favorable critical and commercial response, debuting in The New York Times's weekly list of the ten best-selling manga volumes. It received generally positive reviews from critics, who enjoyed it as a cat-centered manga whose humor was derived from the emphasis on the behavior of the cat caretaker, rather than the cat. Critical discussions have centered around Ito's use of realism and exaggerated horror to elicit moments of comedy, the manga's relationship to previous works by Ito, and how the artwork depicts the relationship between cats and their caregivers. (Full article...) -
Unearthed Arcana (abbreviated UA) is the title shared by two hardback books published for different editions of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy role-playing game. Both were designed as supplements to the core rulebooks, containing material that expanded upon other rules.
The original Unearthed Arcana was written primarily by Gary Gygax, and published by game publisher TSR in 1985 for use with the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition rules. The book consisted mostly of material previously published in magazines, and included new races, classes, and other material to expand the rules in the Dungeon Masters Guide and Players Handbook. The book was notorious for its considerable number of errors, and was received negatively by the gaming press whose criticisms targeted the over-powered races and classes, among other issues. Gygax intended to use the book's content for a planned second edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons; however, much of the book's content was not reused in the second edition, which went into development shortly after Gygax's departure from TSR. (Full article...) -
Codex Mutinensis graecus 122 is a 15th-century codex written in Greek, today stored in the Biblioteca Estense in Modena, Italy. The designation Mutinensis gr. 122 is modern and the codex itself bears the title Epitome of Histories (Greek: Ἐπιτομὴ Ἱστοριῶν) as the bulk of its content is made up of a copy of large parts of the 12th-century Byzantine historian Joannes Zonaras's Epitome of Histories.
In addition to Zonaras's work (a chronicle of the history of the Roman Empire from its foundation to the end of the reign of the Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos in the early 12th century), the codex also features an original introduction, content extending it to cover history up until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, as well as various shorter lists and accounts, for instance pertaining to court officials, church officials and imperial tombs. The codex was first created c. 1425 as a copy of Zonaras's work, and then expanded, with the new content added, by a second scribe working at some point after 1453. It is possible that the Fall of Constantinople was the event that motivated the second scribe to preserve and expand the work, as an effort to preserve the memory of the lost empire. (Full article...)
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Selected quote
| “ | A book is a garden you can carry in your pocket. | ” |
| — Arabian proverb | ||
Did you know
- ...that Black Beauty was banned in South Africa because of the use of the word 'black' in the title?(Pictured)
- ...that in December 1936, George Orwell went to Spain as a fighter for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War ?
- ...that Epigraphia Carnatica, compiled by Benjamin L. Rice, contains a study of about 9000 inscriptions found in the Old Mysore region of India?
General images
The following are images from various book-related articles on Wikipedia.
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A twentieth-century copyright imprint from McLoughlin Bros that features three rams and the copyright year, 1903 (from History of books) -
Book conservators at the State Library of New South Wales, 1943 (from Bookbinding) -
Page 49 of the Dresden Codex (from History of books) -
European output of printed books c. 1450–1800 (from History of books) -
Modern paperback spines (from Bookbinding) -
Hardbound book with half leather binding (spine and corners) and marbled boards (from Bookbinding) -
The intricate frontispiece of the Diamond Sutra from Tang dynasty China, i.e. 868 CE, the oldest known dated printed book in the world (British Library) (from History of books) -
Marbled book board from a book published in London in 1872 (from Bookbinding) -
Page spread with J. A. van de Graaf's construction of classical text area (print space) and margin proportions (from Book design) -
Scheme 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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Decorative binding with figurehead of the 12th century manuscript Liber Landavensis (from Bookbinding) -
A Chinese bamboo book, The Art of War, commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor in 18th-century China (from History of books) -
12-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) -
Sammelband of three alchemical treatises, bound in Strasbourg by Samuel Emmel c. 1568, showing metal clasps and leather covering of boards (from Bookbinding) -
An author portrait of Jean Miélot writing his compilation of the Miracles of Our Lady, one of his many popular works. (from History of books) -
Modern book spine designs (from Bookbinding) -
The 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) -
Hardbound book spine stitching (from Bookbinding) -
Illustration from the Codex Manesse, a German book from the Middle Ages (from History of books) -
The 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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Three books with different titling orientations:
ascending (left); descending (middle); upright (right) (from Bookbinding) -
Cloth book cover with attached paper panel, mimicking half leather binding (from Bookbinding) -
Example of blind tooling a book binding with exquisite detail (from Bookbinding) -
European output of books 500–1800 (from History of books) -
Page from a Jain manuscript depicting the birth of Mahavira, c. 1400 (from History of books) -
Design by Hans Holbein the Younger for a metalwork book cover (or treasure binding) (from Book design) -
Bookbinder's type holder (from Bookbinding) -
A 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 -
A 15th-century incunable. Notice the blind-tooled cover, corner bosses, and clasps. (from History of books) -
Folio from the Shah Jahan Album, c. 1620, depicting the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (from History of books) -
Woman holding wax tablets in the form of the codex. Wall painting from Pompeii, before 79 CE. (from History of books) -
Jikji, 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) -
Chinese Bookseller, illustration, c. 1824 (from History of books) -
European output of manuscripts 500–1500 (from History of books) -
The 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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Photograph of a printing press in Egypt, c. 1922 (from History of books) -
Rebacking saving original spine, showing one volume finished and one untouched (from Bookbinding) -
Traditionally sewn book opened flat (from Bookbinding) -
Early medieval bookcase containing about ten codices depicted in the Codex Amiatinus (c. 700) (from Bookbinding) -
A traditional bookbinder at work (from Bookbinding) -
Three books with different titling orientations:
ascending (left); descending (middle); upright (right) (from Book design) -
9th-century Qur'an in Reza Abbasi Museum (from Bookbinding)
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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
- please add more!
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