Book
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.[1] 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.
For other uses, see Book (disambiguation).
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.[2] However, printed books still largely outsell eBooks, and many people have a preference for print.[3][4][5][6] The 21st century has also seen a rapid rise in the popularity of audiobooks, which are recordings of books being read aloud.[7] 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.[8]
Etymology
The word book comes from Old English bōc, which in turn comes from the Germanic root *bōk-, cognate to 'beech'.[9] In Slavic languages like Russian, Bulgarian, Macedonian буква bukva—'letter' is cognate with 'beech'. In Russian, Serbian and Macedonian, the word букварь (bukvar') or буквар (bukvar) refers to a primary school textbook that helps young children master the techniques of reading and writing. It is thus conjectured that the earliest Indo-European writings may have been carved on beech wood.[10] The Latin word codex, meaning a book in the modern sense (bound and with separate leaves), originally meant 'block of wood'.[11]
An avid reader or collector of books is a bibliophile, or colloquially a "bookworm".[12]
Definitions
In its modern incarnation, a physical book is typically a collection of pages (most commonly of paper, parchment, or vellum) that are bound together and protected by a cover. By extension, 'book' may refer to a physical book's written, printed, or graphic contents.[1]
A single part or division of a longer written work may also be called a book, especially for some works composed in antiquity: each part of Aristotle's Physics, for example, is a book.[13]
It is difficult to create an exact definition of books that clearly delineates them from other kinds of written material across time and culture. Many physical mediums for communication have existed throughout history, and the question of whether a particular object is a book may be subjective and contentious (as in the case of eBooks). Historian of books James Raven has suggested that when studying how books have been used to communicate, they should be defined in a broadly inclusive way as "portable, durable, replicable and legible" means of recording and disseminating information, rather than by physical or contextual features. This would include, for example, eBooks, newspapers, and quipus (a form of knot-based recording historically used by cultures in Andean South America), but not objects fixed in place such as inscribed monuments.[14][15]
Stricter definitions appear in other specialized contexts. For the purpose of recording national statistics on book production, UNESCO recommended that a book be defined as "a non-periodical printed publication of at least 49 pages, exclusive of the cover pages, published in the country and made available to the public", distinguishing them from other written material such as pamphlets.[1][16]
Although in academic language a monograph is understood to be a specialist work on a single subject, in library and information science the term is sometimes used more broadly to mean any non-serial publication complete in one volume (a physical book) or a definite number of volumes (such as a multi-volume novel), in contrast to serial or periodical publications.[1][13]