Portal:Books
The Books Portal
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images. Books are typically composed of many pages, bound together and protected by a cover. Modern bound books were preceded by many other written mediums, such as the codex and the scroll. The book publishing process is the series of steps involved in their creation and dissemination.
As a conceptual object, a book typically refers to a written work of substantial length, which may be distributed either physically or in digital forms like ebooks. These works are broadly classified into fiction (containing imaginary content) and non-fiction (containing content representing truths). Many smaller categories exist within these, such as children's literature meant to match the reading level and interests of children, or reference works that gather collections of non-fiction. Books are traded at both regular stores and specialized bookstores, and people can borrow them from libraries. The reception of books has led to a number of social consequences, including censorship.
A physical book does not need to contain written works: for example, it may contain only drawings, engravings, photographs, puzzles, or removable content like paper dolls. Physical books may be left empty to be used for writing or drawing, such as account books, appointment books, autograph books, notebooks, diaries and sketchbooks.
The contemporary book industry has seen several major changes due to new technologies. In some markets, the sale of printed books has decreased due to the increased use of eBooks. However, printed books still largely outsell eBooks, and many people have a preference for print. The 21st century has also seen a rapid rise in the popularity of audiobooks, which are recordings of books being read aloud. Additionally, awareness of the needs of people who can't access print media due to limitations like visual impairment has led to a rise in formats designed for greater accessibility, such as braille printing or formats supporting text-to-voice. Google Books estimated that as of 2010, approximately 130,000,000 unique books had been published. (Full article...)
Featured articles -
Selected picture
Credit: Diliff
More Did you know (auto generated)
- ... that Liz Truss's rise to power went from "astonishing" to "explosive" a day before she resigned as prime minister?
- ... that the only proposal from the 1749 book Free and Candid Disquisitions to be implemented by the Church of England was a prayer "for the ceasing of the distemper" of cattle?
- ... that Bulkboeken ('bulk books') were cheap reprints of Dutch literary classics, published from 1971 to the late 1990s, and again from 2007?
- ... that in his book The Creative Gene, Hideo Kojima revealed that he would sacrifice his position as a game designer to go to outer space?
- ... that according to the book Price of the Modi Years, the popularity of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi does not depend on his performance?
- ... that decades after resigning from his pulpit, rabbi Mitchell Fisher published a book titled Rebel, O Jews! And Other Prayers?
Books topics
Related portals
Selected quote
“ | An ordinary man can...surround himself with two thousand books..and thenceforward have at least one place in the world in which it is possible to be happy. | ” |
— Augustine Birrell |
Did you know
- ...that in English language works the table of contents is at the beginning of a book, but in French and Spanish ones it is at the back, by the index?
- ...that print space determines the effective area on the paper of a book, journal or other press work, and is limited by the surrounding borders?
- ...that the craft of bookbinding may have originated around the 1st century A.D.?
General images
Books lists
WikiProjects
Categories
Things you can do
- 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:
- Add {{WPBooks}} to the Talk pages of articles about notable books – but try to add an initial Assessment from the Wikipedia:WikiProject_Books
- Add
{{Portal|Books}}
to appropriate articles within the subject
- 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!
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikispecies
Directory of species -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wikivoyage
Free travel guide -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus
- ^ Hagen 1997, p. 95.