Portal:Books

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The Books Portal

Johannes Trithemius'Polygraphiae (1518)

A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, mostly of writing and images. Modern books are typically composed of many pages bound together and protected by a cover, what is known as the codex format; older formats include the scroll and the tablet.

As a conceptual object, a book often refers to a written work of substantial length by one or more authors, which may also be distributed digitally as an electronic book (ebook). These kinds of works can be broadly classified into fiction (containing invented content, often narratives) and non-fiction (containing content intended as factual truth). But a physical book may not contain a written work: for example, it may contain only drawings, engravings, photographs, sheet music, puzzles, or removable content like paper dolls.

The modern book industry has seen several major changes due to new technologies, including ebooks and audiobooks (recordings of books being read aloud). Awareness of the needs of print-disabled people has led to a rise in formats designed for greater accessibility such as braille printing and large-print editions.

Google Books estimated in 2010 that approximately 130 million total unique books had been published. The book publishing process is the series of steps involved in book creation and dissemination. Books are sold at both regular stores and specialized bookstores, as well as online (for delivery), 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. Related items, also broadly categorized as "books", are left empty for personal use: as in the case of account books, appointment books, autograph books, notebooks, diaries and sketchbooks. (Full article...)

Featured articles -

  Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

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  Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies is a music reference book by American music journalist and essayist Robert Christgau. It was first published in October 1981 by Ticknor & Fields. The book compiles approximately 3,000 of Christgau's capsule album reviews, most of which were originally written for his "Consumer Guide" column in The Village Voice throughout the 1970s. The entries feature annotated details about each record's release and cover a variety of genres related to rock music.
  
  Christgau's reviews are informed by an interest in the aesthetic and political dimensions of popular music, a belief that it could be consumed intelligently, and a desire to communicate his ideas to readers in an entertaining, provocative, and compact way. Many of the older reviews were rewritten for the guide to reflect his changed perspective and matured stylistic approach. He undertook an intense preparation process for the book during 1979 and 1980, which temporarily hindered both his awareness of current music and his marriage to fellow writer Carola Dibbell, whom he later credited as an influence on his work. (Full article...)
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  True at First Light is a book by American writer Ernest Hemingway about his 1953–54 safari in Kenya with his fourth wife Mary. It was released posthumously in his centennial year in 1999. In the book, which blends memoir and fiction, Hemingway explores conflict within a marriage, the conflict between the European and native cultures in Africa, and the fear a writer feels when his work becomes impossible. True at First Light includes descriptions of his earlier friendships with other writers and digressive ruminations on the nature of writing.
  
  Hemingway began writing the book after he and his wife were involved in two plane crashes in the African bush in a two-day period in January 1954. He spent much of the next two years in Havana, recuperating and writing the manuscript of what he called "the Africa book", which remained unfinished at the time of his suicide in July 1961. Hemingway's son Patrick edited the work to half its original length to strengthen the underlying storyline and emphasize the fictional aspects. (Full article...)
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  Wordless novels flourished in Germany in the 1920s and typically were made using woodcut or similar techniques in an Expressionist style. (Frans Masereel, 25 Images of a Man's Passion, 1918)

  
  
  The wordless novel is a narrative genre that uses sequences of captionless pictures to tell a story. As artists have often made such books using woodcut and other relief printing techniques, the terms woodcut novel or novel in woodcuts are also used. The genre flourished primarily in the 1920s and 1930s and was most popular in Germany.
  
  The wordless novel has its origin in the German Expressionist movement of the early 20th century. The typically socialist work drew inspiration from medieval woodcuts and used the awkward look of that medium to express angst and frustration at social injustice. The first such book was the Belgian Frans Masereel's 25 Images of a Man's Passion, published in 1918. The German Otto Nückel and other artists followed Masereel's example. Lynd Ward brought the genre to the United States in 1929 when he produced Gods' Man, which inspired other American wordless novels and a parody in 1930 by cartoonist Milt Gross with He Done Her Wrong. Following an early-1930s peak in production and popularity, the genre waned in the face of competition from sound films and anti-socialist censorship in Nazi Germany and the US. (Full article...)
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  Literary Hall, viewed from the south, facing West Main Street in Romney

  
  Literary Hall is a mid-19th-century brick library, building and museum located in Romney, a city in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is located at the intersection of North High Street (West Virginia Route 28) and West Main Street (U.S. Route 50). Literary Hall was constructed between 1869 and 1870 by the Romney Literary Society.
  
  Founded in 1819, the Romney Literary Society was the first literary organization of its kind in the present-day state of West Virginia, and one of the first in the United States. In 1846, the society constructed a building which housed the Romney Classical Institute and its library. The Romney Literary Society and the Romney Classical Institute both flourished and continued to grow in importance and influence until the onset of the American Civil War in 1861. (Full article...)
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  The 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...)
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  The hardcover version

  
  Mom & Me & Mom (2013) is the seventh and final book in author Maya Angelou's series of autobiographies. The book was published shortly before Mother's Day and Angelou's 85th birthday. It focuses, for the first time in her books, on Angelou's relationship with her mother, Vivian Baxter. The book explains Baxter's behavior, especially Baxter's abandonment of Angelou and Angelou's older brother when they were young children, and fills in "what are possibly the final blanks in Angelou's eventful life". The book also chronicles Angelou's reunion and reconciliation with Baxter.
  
  Mom & Me & Mom is an overview of Angelou's life and revisits many of the same anecdotes she relates in her previous books. The first section, entitled "Mom & Me", centers on Angelou's early years, before the age of 17, and her transition from resentment and distrust of her mother to acceptance, support, and love towards her. After Baxter helps her through the birth of her son, Angelou goes from calling Baxter "Lady" to "Mom". In the book's second section, entitled "Me & Mom", Angelou chronicles the unconditional love, support, and assistance they gave to each other, as Baxter helps her through single motherhood, a failed marriage, and career ups and downs. As she had begun to do in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, and continued throughout her series, Angelou upheld the long traditions of African-American autobiography. At the same time she made a deliberate attempt to challenge the usual structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing, and expanding the genre. She had become recognized and highly respected as a spokesperson for Blacks and women. Angelou was, as scholar Joanne Braxton has stated, "without a doubt, ... America's most visible black woman autobiographer". She had also become "a major autobiographical voice of the time". (Full article...)
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  A Song Flung Up to Heaven is the sixth book in author Maya Angelou's series of autobiographies. Set between 1965 and 1968, it begins where Angelou's previous book All God's Children Need Traveling Shoes ends, with Angelou's trip from Accra, Ghana, where she had lived for the past four years, back to the United States. Two "calamitous events" frame the beginning and end of the book—the assassinations of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Angelou describes how she dealt with these events and the sweeping changes in both the country and in her personal life, and how she coped with her return home to the U.S. The book ends with Angelou at "the threshold of her literary career", writing the opening lines to her first autobiography, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
  
  As she had begun to do in Caged Bird, and continued throughout her series, Angelou upheld the long tradition of African-American autobiography. At the same time she made a deliberate attempt to challenge the usual structure of the autobiography by critiquing, changing, and expanding the genre. Most reviewers agreed that the book was made up of a series of vignettes. By the time Song was written in 2002, sixteen years after her previous autobiography, Angelou had experienced great fame and recognition as an author and poet. She recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton in 1993, becoming the first poet to make an inaugural recitation since Robert Frost at John F. Kennedy's in 1961. She had become recognized and highly respected as a spokesperson for Blacks and women. Angelou was, as scholar Joanne Braxton has stated, "without a doubt, ... America's most visible black woman autobiographer". She had also become, as reviewer Richard Long stated, "a major autobiographical voice of the time". (Full article...)
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  First edition

  
  The Autobiography of Malcolm X is an autobiography written by American minister Malcolm X in collaboration with American journalist Alex Haley. It was released posthumously on October 29, 1965, nine months after his assassination. Haley coauthored the autobiography based on a series of in-depth interviews he conducted between 1963 and 1965. The Autobiography is a spiritual conversion narrative that outlines Malcolm X's philosophy of black pride, black nationalism, and pan-Africanism. After the leader was killed, Haley wrote the book's epilogue. He described their collaborative process and the events at the end of Malcolm X's life.
  
  While Malcolm X and scholars contemporary to the book's publication regarded Haley as the book's ghostwriter, modern scholars tend to regard him as an essential collaborator who intentionally muted his authorial voice to create the effect of Malcolm X speaking directly to readers. Haley influenced some of Malcolm X's literary choices. For example, Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam during the period when he was working on the book with Haley. Rather than rewriting earlier chapters as a polemic against the Nation which Malcolm X had rejected, Haley persuaded him to favor a style of "suspense and drama". According to Manning Marable, "Haley was particularly worried about what he viewed as Malcolm X's anti-Semitism" and he rewrote material to eliminate it. (Full article...)
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  Office of the Dead, folios 121v–122r; the manuscript's closing leaves

  
  The Black Hours, MS M.493 (or the Morgan Black Hours) is an illuminated book of hours completed in Bruges between 1460 and 1475. It consists of 121 pages (leaves) with Latin text written in Gothic minuscule script. The words are arranged in rows of fourteen lines and follow the Roman version of the texts. The lettering is inscribed in silver and gold and placed within borders ornamented with flowers, foliage and grotesques, on pages dyed a deep blueish black; hence its designation as a Black books of hours. The book contains fourteen full-page miniatures and opens with the months of the liturgical calendar (folios 3 verso – 14 recto), followed by the Hours of the Virgin, and ends with the Office of the Dead (folio 121v).
  
  MS M.493 has been in the collection of the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, since 1912. It is one of seven surviving black books of hours, all originating from Bruges and dated to the mid-to-late 15th century. They are so named for their unusual dark blueish appearance, a colourisation achieved through the expensive process of dyeing the vellum with iron gall ink. This dye is very corrosive and the surviving examples are mostly badly decomposed; MS M.493 is in relatively good condition due to its very thick parchment. (Full article...)
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  Freedom for the Thought That We Hate: A Biography of the First Amendment is a 2007 non-fiction book by journalist Anthony Lewis about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of thought, and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The book starts by quoting the First Amendment, which prohibits the U.S. Congress from creating legislation which limits free speech or freedom of the press. Lewis traces the evolution of civil liberties in the U.S. through key historical events. He provides an overview of important free speech case law, including U.S. Supreme Court opinions in Schenck v. United States (1919), Whitney v. California (1927), United States v. Schwimmer (1929), New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), and New York Times Co. v. United States (1971).
  
  The title of the book is drawn from the dissenting opinion by Supreme Court Associate Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in United States v. Schwimmer. Holmes wrote that "if there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other, it is the principle of free thought—not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate." Lewis warns the reader against the potential for government to take advantage of periods of fear and upheaval in a post-9/11 society to suppress freedom of speech and criticism by citizens. (Full article...)
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  Title page from the second volume of Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of France (1838)

  
  
  The Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men comprised ten volumes of Dionysius Lardner's 133-volume Cabinet Cyclopaedia (1829–1846). Aimed at the self-educating middle class, this encyclopedia was written during the 19th-century literary revolution in Britain that encouraged more people to read.
  
  The Lives formed part of the Cabinet of Biography in the Cabinet Cyclopaedia. Within the set of ten, the three-volume Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy, Spain and Portugal (1835–37) and the two-volume Lives of the Most Eminent Literary and Scientific Men of France (1838–39) consist of biographies of important writers and thinkers of the 14th to 18th centuries. Most of them were written by the Romantic writer Mary Shelley. Shelley's biographies reveal her as a professional woman of letters, contracted to produce several volumes of works and paid well to do so. Her extensive knowledge of history and languages, her ability to tell a gripping biographical narrative, and her interest in the burgeoning field of feminist historiography are reflected in these works. (Full article...)
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  The Playboy is a graphic novel by the Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown, serialized in 1990 in Brown's comic book Yummy Fur and collected in different revised book editions in 1992 and 2013. It deals with Brown's guilt and anxiety over his obsessive masturbation to Playboy Playmate models.
  
  The story begins with Brown's first purchase of an issue of Playboy as a teenager. His obsessive masturbation gives him great guilt and anxiety, and out of fear of being caught he repeatedly rids himself of copies of the magazine, only to retrieve them later. His conflicting emotions follow him into adulthood until he purges them by revealing himself through his comics. The free, organic arrangement of odd-shaped panels of simple, expressive artwork contrasts with Brown's more detailed grid-like pages in his 1980s work, such as Ed the Happy Clown. (Full article...)
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  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...)
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  Beginning of the text

  
  The St Cuthbert Gospel, also known as the Stonyhurst Gospel or the St Cuthbert Gospel of St John, is an early 8th-century pocket gospel book, written in Latin. Its finely decorated leather binding is the earliest known Western bookbinding to survive, and both the 94 vellum folios and the binding are in outstanding condition for a book of this age. With a page size of only 138 by 92 millimetres (5.4 in × 3.6 in), the St Cuthbert Gospel is one of the smallest surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The essentially undecorated text is the Gospel of John in Latin, written in a script that has been regarded as a model of elegant simplicity.
  
  The book takes its name from Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne, North East England, in whose tomb it was placed, probably a few years after his death in 687. Although it was long regarded as Cuthbert's personal copy of the Gospel, to which there are early references, and so a relic of the saint, the book is now thought to date from shortly after Cuthbert's death. It was probably a gift from Monkwearmouth–Jarrow Abbey, where it was written, intended to be placed in St Cuthbert's coffin in the few decades after this was placed behind the altar at Lindisfarne in 698. It presumably remained in the coffin through its long travels after 875, forced by Viking invasions, ending at Durham Cathedral. The book was found inside the coffin and removed in 1104 when the burial was once again moved within the cathedral. It was kept there with other relics, and important visitors were able to wear the book in a leather bag around their necks. It is thought that after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England by Henry VIII between 1536 and 1541, the book passed to collectors. It was eventually given to Stonyhurst College, the Jesuit school in Lancashire. (Full article...)
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  Title page from the first English edition of Part I

  
  The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology is a work by English and American political activist Thomas Paine, arguing for the philosophical position of deism. It follows in the tradition of 18th-century British deism, and challenges institutionalized religion and the legitimacy of the Bible. It was published in three parts in 1794, 1795, and 1807.
  
  It was a best-seller in the United States, where it caused a deistic revival. British audiences, fearing increased political radicalism as a result of the French Revolution, received it with more hostility. The Age of Reason presents common deistic arguments; for example, it highlights what Paine saw as corruption of the Christian Church and criticizes its efforts to acquire political power. Paine advocates reason in the place of revelation, leading him to reject miracles and to view the Bible as an ordinary piece of literature, rather than a divinely-inspired text. In The Age of Reason, he promotes natural religion and argues for the existence of a creator god. (Full article...)

Selected picture

Upper cover of the Felbrigge Psalter.

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 The Scarecrow, considered the first collection of Chinese fairy tales, has parallels with the works of Andersen, Pushkin, and Wilde?
• ... that Marie Catharine Neal, an expert on Hawaiian plants, authored the acclaimed book In Gardens of Hawaii in 1948, which described more than 2,000 species with detailed scientific information and illustrations?
• ... that Margaret Pargeter published 49 books in eleven years, with another book following eleven years later?
• ... that Rick Suder was bumped from the NCAA record book by JJ Redick and Gerry McNamara?
• ... that Brian Stableford blamed the cancellation of the follow-up to his 2006 book Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia on the availability of information online?
• ... that the journalist Wendell Steavenson's book Circling the Square covers the events of the 2011–2013 Egyptian crisis, which were centered around Cairo's Tahrir Square?

Books topics

For a topical guide of this subject, see Outline of books

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• Bibliophilia
• Book burning
• Book collecting
• Book review
• Pulitzer Prize winners

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  Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients is a book by the British physician and academic Ben Goldacre about the pharmaceutical industry, its relationship with the medical profession, and the extent to which it controls academic research into its own products. It was published in the UK in September 2012 by the Fourth Estate imprint of HarperCollins, and in the United States in February 2013 by Faber and Faber.
  
  Goldacre argues in the book that "the whole edifice of medicine is broken", because the evidence on which it is based is systematically distorted by the pharmaceutical industry. He writes that the industry finances most of the clinical trials into its own products and much of doctors' continuing education, that clinical trials are often conducted on small groups of unrepresentative subjects and negative data is routinely withheld, and that apparently independent academic papers may be planned and even ghostwritten by pharmaceutical companies or their contractors, without disclosure. Describing the situation as a "murderous disaster", he makes suggestions for action by patients' groups, physicians, academics and the industry itself. (Full article...)
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  The Fate of Fausto: A Painted Fable is a 2019 children's picture book written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers. Inspired by the German legend of Faust, the book follows the arrogant titular character Fausto, who wants to own every natural worldly possession. It addresses themes of greed, colonialism, power, and environmentalism.
  
  The pages were illustrated using traditional lithographic printmaking techniques, making use of coloured-pencil style figures and saturated shades over expanses of white spaces. Reviewers praised the book for its sparse narrative, illustrations and appeal to the audience. The book featured on the year-end lists by publications such as The Guardian and Time. (Full article...)
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  Lady of the Forest: A Novel of Sherwood is a 1992 historical fiction novel by American author Jennifer Roberson. A re-telling of the Robin Hood legend from the perspective of twelve characters associated with the legend, the story centers around English noblewoman Lady Marian FitzWalter's encounters with Lord Robert of Locksley and his scheming rival the Sheriff of Nottingham amid the backdrop of Prince John's schemes – he aims to increase his own wealth and power at the expense of post-Conquest England and his brother, King Richard.
  
  Roberson wrote her novel as a prequel to the known legend. Understanding that Robin Hood lacked a single origin story, she decided to create an original narrative that depicted how "seven very different people from a rigidly stratified social structure came to join together to fight the inequities of medieval England." Roberson spent a year researching and writing the story, and sought to combine fact and legend in developing the motivations for certain characters. (Full article...)
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  Not in Front of the Children: "Indecency," Censorship, and the Innocence of Youth is a non-fiction book by attorney and civil libertarian, Marjorie Heins about freedom of speech and the relationship between censorship and the "think of the children" argument. The book presents a chronological history of censorship from Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome and the Middle Ages to the present. It discusses notable censored works, including Ulysses by James Joyce, Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence and the seven dirty words monologue by comedian George Carlin. Heins discusses censorship aimed at youth in the United States through legislation including the Children's Internet Protection Act and the Communications Decency Act.
  
  The author explores the question of whether children and adolescents are negatively impacted by exposure to media deemed inappropriate by adults (including violence and pornography), arguing that youths are not endangered by sexually explicit material. Heins asserts that there is no simple tactic by which the government can censor material from children without violating rights guaranteed to adults by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. She points out that although the view of sexually explicit material's negative impact on children is unproven, the fear of its impact is used to support morality-based arguments; appeals to morality should not be a basis for censorship. Not in Front of the Children concludes that censorship under the auspices of protecting youth actually has the unintended consequence of harming them. (Full article...)
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  Title page of first edition

  
  The Ornithological Dictionary; or Alphabetical Synopsis of British Birds was written by the English naturalist and army officer George Montagu, and first published by J. White of Fleet Street, London in 1802.
  
  It was one of the texts, along with Thomas Bewick's contemporaneous A History of British Birds (2 volumes, 1797 and 1804) that made ornithology popular in Britain, and, with the 1676 Ornithologia libri tres of Francis Willughby and John Ray, helped to make it the object of serious study. The book includes a description of the cirl bunting, discovered by Montagu in 1800 near his home in Kingsbridge, Devon. (Full article...)
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  Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming is a 2010 non-fiction book by American historians of science Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway. It identifies parallels between the global warming controversy and earlier controversies over tobacco smoking, acid rain, DDT, and the hole in the ozone layer. Oreskes and Conway write that in each case "keeping the controversy alive" by spreading doubt and confusion after a scientific consensus had been reached was the basic strategy of those opposing action. In particular, they show that Fred Seitz, Fred Singer, and a few other contrarian scientists joined forces with conservative think tanks and private corporations to challenge the scientific consensus on many contemporary issues.
  
  Some of the book's subjects have been critical of the book, but most reviewers received it favorably. It was made into a film, Merchants of Doubt, directed by Robert Kenner, released in 2014. (Full article...)
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  Cover of first edition

  
  Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom: An Exposition of the Laws of Disguise Through Color and Pattern; Being a Summary of Abbott H. Thayer's Discoveries is a book published ostensibly by Gerald H. Thayer in 1909, and revised in 1918, but in fact a collaboration with and completion of his father Abbott Handerson Thayer's major work.
  
  The book, illustrated artistically by Abbott Thayer, sets out the controversial thesis that all animal coloration has the evolutionary purpose of camouflage. Thayer rejected Charles Darwin's theory of sexual selection, arguing in words and paintings that even such conspicuous animal features as the peacock's tail or the brilliant pink of flamingoes or roseate spoonbills were effective as camouflage in the right light. (Full article...)
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  The Psychology of The Simpsons: D'oh! is a non-fiction book analyzing psychology themes in the television series The Simpsons. It contains content from several contributors, including psychologists, counselors and school therapists. The book was edited by Alan S. Brown, Ph.D., and Chris Logan, and was published on March 1, 2006, by BenBella Books. It has praise from reviewers. (Full article...)
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  Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids is a non-fiction book by Maia Szalavitz analyzing the controversy surrounding the troubled teen industry. The book was published February 16, 2006, by Riverhead Books. Szalavitz focuses on four programs: Straight, Incorporated, a copy of the Straight Inc. program called KIDS, North Star wilderness boot camp, and the World Wide Association of Specialty Programs and Schools. She discusses the background, history and methodology of the troubled-teen industry, including techniques drawn from attack therapy and Synanon. She uses first-person accounts and court testimony in her research, and states that no evidence exists proving that these programs are effective. The book also includes advice for parents and an appendix with additional resources on how to get responsible help for teenagers.
  
  The book received positive reviews in academic journals, literary journals, and in the media. Psychologist Steve K. D. Eichel reviewed the book for Cultic Studies Review and called it a "must read", psychologist and psychiatrist Robert John McAllister described it as "an excellent and informative book on the subject of the 'troubled-teen industry' " in his book Emotions: Mystery Or Madness, and a review in Psychology Today described Szalavitz's work as "a meticulously reported and thoughtful investigation". The book also received positive reviews in Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Newsday. The book later led to an investigation into the troubled-teen industry by the United States House Committee on Education and Labor of the United States House of Representatives, and Representative George Miller held hearings on the matter in October 2007 and April 2008. (Full article...)
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  Yoga Makaranda (Sanskrit: योग मकरन्द​), meaning "Essence of Yoga", is a 1934 book on hatha yoga by the influential pioneer of yoga as exercise, Tirumalai Krishnamacharya. Most of the text is a description of 42 asanas accompanied by 95 photographs of Krishnamacharya and his students executing the poses. There is a brief account of practices other than asanas, which form just one of the eight limbs of classical yoga, that Krishnamacharya "did not instruct his students to practice".
  
  The yoga scholar Mark Singleton notes that the book is almost legendary among Pattabhi Jois's students, though "very few have actually seen it". Singleton notes, too, that the book was "experimental". The yoga scholar Norman Sjoman criticises the book's "padded academic bibliography" full of irrelevant works, and the perfunctory and ill-informed coverage of yoga practices other than asanas, while another yoga scholar, Elliott Goldberg, comments that the photographs serve to demystify the asanas of their spiritual content, and that Krishnamacharya was falsely claiming an ancient origin for his dynamic vinyasa system of yoga. (Full article...)
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  Any Human Heart: The Intimate Journals of Logan Mountstuart is a 2002 novel by William Boyd, a British writer. It is written as a lifelong series of journals kept by the fictional character Mountstuart, a writer whose life (1906–1991) spanned the defining episodes of the 20th century, crossed several continents and included a convoluted sequence of relationships and literary endeavours. Boyd uses the diary form to explore how public events impinge on individual consciousness, so that Mountstuart's journal alludes almost casually to the war, the death of a prime minister, or the abdication of the king. Boyd plays ironically on the theme of literary celebrity, introducing his protagonist to several real writers who are included as characters.
  
  The journal style of the novel, with its gaps, false starts and contradictions, reinforces the theme of the changing self in the novel. Many plot points simply fade away. The novel received mixed reviews from critics on publication, but has sold well and has become one of the best known of Boyd's works. It is the second of Boyd's 'whole-life' novels which follow a protagonist through all, or at least most, of his or her life interspersing real and imagined events and people. Other such novels include The New Confessions (1987), Sweet Caress (2015) and The Romantic (2022). (Full article...)
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  Food in England is a 1954 book by the social historian Dorothy Hartley. It is both a cookery book and a history of English cuisine. It was acclaimed on publication; the contemporary critic Harold Nicolson described the book as a classic. It has remained in print ever since.
  
  The book provides what has been called an idiosyncratic and a combative take on the history of English cooking. The book is unusual as a history in not citing its sources, serving more as an oral social history from Hartley's own experiences as she travelled England as a journalist for the Daily Sketch, interviewing "the last generation to have had countryside lives sharing something in common with the Tudors." The book strikes some readers as principally a history, but it consists mainly of recipes. Some of these such as stargazey pie are old-fashioned, but all are practical recipes that can be cooked. (Full article...)
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  Fifty Years of Freedom: A Study of the Development of the Ideas of A. S. Neill is a 1972 intellectual biography of the British pedagogue A. S. Neill by Ray Hemmings. It traces how Homer Lane, Wilhelm Reich, Sigmund Freud and others influenced Neill as he developed the "Summerhill idea", the philosophy of child autonomy behind his Summerhill School. The book follows Neill's early life and career in rural, Calvinist Scotland and continues through the influence of his mentors, Lane and Reich, and the origins of Summerhill after World War I. Written fifty years from Summerhill's founding, Fifty Years is a sociological and historical analysis of Neill's ideas in the context of intellectual and educational trends both during Neill's life and at the time of publication. Hemmings also surveyed progressive school leaders about Neill's impact on the field and reported their perception of influence on teacher–pupil relations. Fifty Years was first published in England in 1972 by George Allen and Unwin and was later renamed Children's Freedom: A. S. Neill and the Evolution of the Summerhill Idea for its 1973 American publication by Schocken Books.
  
  Contemporary reviewers considered Fifty Years to be the best available biography of Neill. They largely praised its clarity and biographical detail and insight but found the book's philosophical sections comparatively weak and the author biased, as a former teacher from the school. (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Book cover

  
  Free Speech, "The People's Darling Privilege": Struggles for Freedom of Expression in American History is a non-fiction book about the history of freedom of speech in the United States, written by Michael Kent Curtis and published in 2000 by Duke University Press. The book discusses the evolution of free speech in the U.S. within the context of actions of individuals and how they affected change. The author writes that protests and actions by citizens helped to evolve the notions surrounding free speech in the U.S. before definitive statements on the matter from U.S. courts. Curtis writes that free speech rights were first developed in "the forum of public opinion," and that, "The history of free speech shows the need for broadly protective free speech rules applied generally and equally."
  
  For his work on Free Speech, "The People's Darling Privilege," Curtis received the Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award and the Mayflower Cup Award. Critics gave the book a positive reception. A review in Columbia Journalism Review called it a "rich and original study," and The Journal of American History said that it includes "fine analytic discussions." Perspectives on Political Science called the book "an extremely valuable contribution to the literature addressing the history of free speech in America." Timothy C. Shiell of the University of Wisconsin–Stout reviewed it for The Historian and wrote, "Michael Kent Curtis offers a major contribution to the scholarship of both that era and of free speech." (Full article...)
• 
  
  

  

  Frontispiece to volume 1 by Josiah Wood Whymper, entitled "Adventure with Curl-Crested Toucans". The image is misleading as Bates was not carrying a gun when he encountered the birds.

  
  The Naturalist on the River Amazons, subtitled A Record of the Adventures, Habits of Animals, Sketches of Brazilian and Indian Life, and Aspects of Nature under the Equator, during Eleven Years of Travel, is an 1863 book by the British naturalist Henry Walter Bates about his expedition to the Amazon basin. Bates and his friend Alfred Russel Wallace set out to obtain new species and new evidence for evolution by natural selection, as well as exotic specimens to sell. He explored thousands of miles of the Amazon and its tributaries, and collected over 14,000 species, of which 8,000 were new to science. His observations of the coloration of butterflies led him to discover Batesian mimicry.
  
  The book contains an evenly distributed mixture of natural history, travel, and observation of human societies, including the towns with their Catholic processions. Only the most remarkable discoveries of animals and plants are described, and theories such as evolution and mimicry are barely mentioned. Bates remarks that finding a new species is only the start; he also describes animal behaviour, sometimes in detail, as for the army ants. He constantly relates the wildlife to the people, explaining how the people hunt, what they eat and what they use as medicines. The book is illustrated with drawings by leading artists including E. W. Robinson, Josiah Wood Whymper, Joseph Wolf and Johann Baptist Zwecker. (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

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

• 
  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)
• 
  Decorative binding with figurehead of the 12th century manuscript Liber Landavensis (from Bookbinding)
• 
  Marbled book board from a book published in London in 1872 (from Bookbinding)
• 
  A 15th-century Incunable. Notice the blind-tooled cover, corner bosses, and clasps. (from History of books)
• 
  Early medieval bookcase containing about ten codices depicted in the Codex Amiatinus (c. 700) (from Bookbinding)
• 
  Hardbound book spine stitching (from Bookbinding)
• 
  Initial on the opening page of a book printed by the Kelmscott Press (from Book design)
• 
  Hardbound book with half leather binding (spine and corners) and marbled boards (from Bookbinding)
• 
  Folio from the Shah Jahan Album, c. 1620, depicting the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (from History of books)
• 
  A Chinese bamboo book, The Art of War, commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor in 18th century China (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)
• 
  European output of manuscripts 500–1500 (from History of books)
• 
  European output of books 500–1800 (from History of books)
• 
  European output of printed books c. 1450–1800 (from History of books)
• 
  Illustration from the Codex Manesse, a German book from the Middle Ages (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)
• 
  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)
• 
  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
• 
  Book conservators at the State Library of New South Wales, 1943 (from Bookbinding)
• 
  Example of blind tooling a book binding with exquisite detail (from Bookbinding)
• 
  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)
• 
  Dresden Codex (page 49) (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)
• 
  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)
• 
  A traditional bookbinder at work (from Bookbinding)
• 
  9th-century Qur'an in Reza Abbasi Museum (from Bookbinding)
• 
  Traditionally sewn book opened flat (from Bookbinding)
• 
  Woman holding wax tablets in the form of the codex. Wall painting from Pompeii, before 79 CE. (from History of books)
• 
  A twentieth-century copyright imprint from McLoughlin Bros that features three rams and the copyright year, 1903 (from History of books)
• 
  Rebacking saving original spine, showing one volume finished and one untouched (from Bookbinding)
• 
  The Book of the Dead of Hunefer, c. 1275 BCE, ink and pigments on papyrus, in the British Museum (London) (from History of books)
• 
  Page spread with J. A. van de Graaf's construction of classical text area (print space) and margin proportions (from Book design)
• 
  Cloth book cover with attached paper panel, mimicking half leather binding (from Bookbinding)
• 
  Modern paperback spines (from Bookbinding)
• 
  Scheme of common book design

  1. Belly band
  2. Flap
  3. Endpaper
  4. Book cover
  5. Head
  6. Fore edge
  7. Tail
  8. Right page, recto
  9. Left page, verso
  10. Gutter

  (from Bookbinding)
• 
  Chinese Bookseller, illustration, c. 1824 (from History of books)
• 
  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)
• 
  Bookbinder's type holder (from Bookbinding)
• 
  Modern book spine designs (from Bookbinding)
• 
  Photograph of a printing press in Egypt, c. 1922 (from History of books)
• 
  Three books with different titling orientations:
  ascending (left); descending (middle); upright (right) (from Bookbinding)

Books lists

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• Find news articles regarding notable books and add them to the "In the news" section.
• Expand this portal and book-related articles: List of Jamaican books
• Create new articles: Lists of books provides a comprehensive list of notable books, many of which have no articles.
• Add references: List of CEO books, List of anonymously published works
• Make this portal more complete:
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• Anything else you can think of doing.

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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