Portal:Books
The Books Portal
| Literature | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||||
| Oral literature | ||||||
| Major written forms | ||||||
|
||||||
| Prose genres | ||||||
|
||||||
| Poetry genres | ||||||
|
||||||
| Dramatic genres | ||||||
| History | ||||||
| Lists and outlines | ||||||
| Theory and criticism | ||||||
 Literature portal | ||||||
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.-
Mary Shelley wrote of the Simplon Pass: "There was a majestic simplicity that inspired awe; the naked bones of a gigantic world were here."
Rambles in Germany and Italy, in 1840, 1842, and 1843 is a travel narrative by the British Romantic author Mary Shelley. Issued in 1844, it is her last published work. Published in two volumes, the text describes two European trips that Mary Shelley took with her son, Percy Florence Shelley, and several of his university friends. Mary Shelley had lived in Italy with her husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, between 1818 and 1823. For her, Italy was associated with both joy and grief: she had written much while there but she had also lost her husband and two of her children. Thus, although she was anxious to return, the trip was tinged with sorrow. Shelley describes her journey as a pilgrimage, which will help cure her depression.
At the end of the second trip, Mary Shelley spent time in Paris and associated herself with the "Young Italy" movement, Italian exiles who were in favour of Italian independence and unification. One revolutionary in particular attracted her: Ferdinando Gatteschi. To assist him financially, Shelley decided to publish Rambles. However, Gatteschi became discontented with Shelley's assistance and tried to blackmail her. She was forced to obtain her personal letters from Gatteschi through the intervention of the French police. (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...) -
The Bread-Winners: A Social Study is an 1883 novel by John Hay, former secretary to Abraham Lincoln who in 1898 became U.S. Secretary of State. The book takes an anti-organized labor stance, and when published anonymously sold well and provoked considerable public interest in determining who the author was.
The plot of the book revolves around former army captain Arthur Farnham, a wealthy resident of Buffland (an analog of Cleveland). He organizes Civil War veterans to keep the peace when the Bread-winners, a group of lazy and malcontented workers, call a violent general strike. He is sought in marriage by the ambitious Maud Matchin, daughter of a carpenter, but instead weds a woman of his own class. (Full article...) -
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...) -
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...) -
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...) -
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...) -
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...) -
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects , is a 1792 feminist essay written by British philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797), and is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the eighteenth century who did not believe women should receive a rational education. She argues that women ought to have an education commensurate with their position in society, claiming that women are essential to the nation because they educate its children and because they could be "companions" to their husbands, rather than mere wives. Instead of viewing women as ornaments to society or property to be traded in marriage, Wollstonecraft maintains that they are human beings deserving of the same fundamental rights as men.
Wollstonecraft was prompted to write the Rights of Woman after reading Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord's 1791 report to the French National Assembly, which stated that women should only receive domestic education. From her reaction to this specific event, she launched a broad attack against double standards, indicting men for encouraging women to indulge in excessive emotion. Wollstonecraft hurried to complete the work in direct response to ongoing events; she intended to write a more thoughtful second volume but died before completing it. (Full article...) -
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...) -
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...) -
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...) -
The Log from the Sea of Cortez is an English-language book written by American author John Steinbeck and published in 1951. It details a six-week (March 11 – April 20) marine specimen-collecting boat expedition he made in 1940 at various sites in the Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortez), with his friend, the marine biologist Ed Ricketts. It is regarded as one of Steinbeck's most important works of non-fiction chiefly because of the involvement of Ricketts, who shaped Steinbeck's thinking and provided the prototype for many of the pivotal characters in his fiction, and the insights it gives into the philosophies of the two men.
The Log from the Sea of Cortez is the narrative portion of an earlier work, Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research, which was published by Steinbeck and Ricketts shortly after their return from the Gulf of California, and combined the journals of the collecting expedition, reworked by Steinbeck, with Ricketts' species catalogue. After Ricketts' death in 1948, Steinbeck dropped the species catalogue from the earlier work and republished it with a eulogy to his friend added as a foreword. (Full article...) -
The initial page of the Peterborough Chronicle
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons.
The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the ninth century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of King Alfred the Great (r. 871–899). Its content, which incorporated sources now otherwise lost dating from as early as the seventh century, is known as the "Common Stock" of the Chronicle. Multiple copies were made of that one original and then distributed to monasteries across England, where they were updated, partly independently. These manuscripts collectively are known as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Almost all of the material in the Chronicle is in the form of annals, by year; the earliest is dated at 60 BC (the annals' date for Julius Caesar's invasions of Britain). In one case, the Chronicle was still being actively updated in 1154. (Full article...) -
The Liber Eliensis is a 12th-century English chronicle and history, written in Latin. Composed in three books, it was written at Ely Abbey on the island of Ely in the fenlands of eastern Cambridgeshire. Ely Abbey became the cathedral of a newly formed bishopric in 1109. Traditionally the author of the anonymous work has been given as Richard or Thomas, two monks at Ely, one of whom, Richard, has been identified with an official of the monastery, but some historians hold that neither Richard nor Thomas was the author.
The Liber covers the period from the founding of the abbey in 673 until the middle of the 12th century, building on earlier historical works. It incorporates documents and stories of saints' lives. The work typifies a type of local history produced during the latter part of the 12th century. Similar books were written at other English monasteries. The longest of the contemporary local histories, the Liber chronicles the devastation that the Anarchy caused during the reign of King Stephen. It also documents the career of Nigel, the Bishop of Ely from 1133 to 1169, and his disputes with King Stephen. Other themes include the miracles worked by the monastery's patron saint, Æthelthryth, and gifts of land to Ely. (Full article...)
_-_Cover.jpg)
Selected picture
Credit: Diliff
The Library of Congress is the de facto national library of the United States and the research arm of the United States Congress. Located in Washington, D.C., it is the largest by shelf space and one of the most important libraries in the world.
More Did you know (auto generated)
- ... that physicist Sabine Hossenfelder's book Existential Physics discusses whether free will, the multiverse, the existence of God, and the meaning of life are topics that science can answer?
- ... that the 1982 book Bitter Legacy by historian Richard C. Lukas describes how in the early Cold War years America lost influence over Poland, which became a part of the Soviet empire?
- ... that journalist Jacques Poitras spent a month repeatedly crossing the "Imaginary Line" separating New Brunswick and Maine in order to publish a book about it?
- ... that a book about Mormon polygamy claims that polygamy was an early form of feminism?
- ... that nine-year-old Muskan Ahirwar started a library for the children in her slum that now contains more than 3,000 books?
- ... that Tina Leung dressed as her comic book alter ego when accepting an award for the House of Slay?
Books topics
- For a topical guide of this subject, see Outline of books
Select [►] to view subcategories
| Production | |
|---|---|
| Consumption | |
| By country | |
| Other |
|
| Related | |
Related portals
Good article -
This is a Good article, an article that meets a core set of high editorial standards.
-
Gnomes, originally published in Dutch in 1976 as Leven en werken van de kabouter (lit. 'Life and work of the gnomes'), then released in English in 1977, is a fiction book written by Wil Huygen and illustrated by Rien Poortvliet. The book explains the life and habitat of gnomes in an in-universe fashion, much as a biology book would do, complete with illustrations and textbook notes.
The book was well received by critics. Huygen's writing, which mixed physiology with fiction, and Poortvliet's drawings, which used a natural style and watercolor, were both praised. Gnomes sold almost a million units after its first year of being published in the United States. Its financial success led to the creation of several spin-off books about the same fictional creatures, as well as many other products, such as toys, clothing and games. (Full article...) -
The Official Razzie Movie Guide: Enjoying the Best of Hollywood's Worst is a 2005 book about the booby prize award show the Golden Raspberry Awards (Razzies), written by John J. B. Wilson, founder of the awards ceremony. The book was published in 2005 by Warner Books, the same year as the 25th Golden Raspberry Awards.
The book includes an introduction by Rolling Stone film critic Peter Travers, a brief history of the Golden Raspberry Awards, and entries on films organized thematically which include plot summaries and reviews by Wilson. Wilson comments on and discusses his picks for the worst films of all time. It was on the Los Angeles Times best-seller list. (Full article...) -
The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy is a 2010 non-fiction book written by The New York Times media reporter Bill Carter. It chronicles the 2010 conflict surrounding the American late-night talk show The Tonight Show involving Conan O'Brien and Jay Leno. It is a sequel to Carter's 1994 book The Late Shift, which detailed the struggle for the hosting spot on The Tonight Show between David Letterman and Jay Leno in the early 1990s following the retirement of Johnny Carson. It was first published on November 4, 2010, by Viking Press.
The book received a generally favorable reception from reviewers including Associated Press, BusinessWeek, The Buffalo News, New York Magazine, Star Tribune, The Hollywood Reporter, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, New York Post, Los Angeles Times, Time, and ABC News. The Las Vegas Review-Journal said, "The War for Late Night ... offers an exhaustive, eye-opening, how-could-he-possibly-know-that look at the late-night feud that ultimately was a muddled victory for Leno: He won back The Tonight Show, but his ratings have fallen below O'Brien's." (Full article...) -
Theory of Literature is a book on literary scholarship by René Wellek, of the structuralist Prague school, and Austin Warren, a self-described "old New Critic". The two met at the University of Iowa in the late 1930s, and by 1940 had begun writing the book; they wrote collaboratively, in a single voice over a period of three years. Its contents were based on their shared understandings of literature.
Originally consisting of twenty chapters – one was cut in later editions – Theory of Literature describes various aspects of literary theory, criticism, and history. After defining various aspects and relationships of literature in general, Wellek and Warren divide analysis of literature based on two approaches: extrinsic, relating to factors outside a work such as the author and society, and intrinsic, relating to factors within such as rhythm and meter. They stress the need to focus on the intrinsic elements of a work as the best way to truly understand it. In doing so they adapt the phenomenology used by Roman Ingarden. (Full article...) -
Dragonlance is a shared universe created by Laura and Tracy Hickman, and expanded by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis under the direction of TSR, Inc. into a series of fantasy novels. The Hickmans conceived Dragonlance while driving in their car on the way to TSR for a job interview. Tracy Hickman met his future writing partner Margaret Weis at TSR, and they gathered a group of associates to play the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The adventures during that game inspired a series of gaming modules, a series of novels, licensed products such as board games, and lead miniature figures.
In 1984, TSR published the first Dragonlance game module, Dragons of Despair, and the first novel, Dragons of Autumn Twilight. The novel began the Chronicles trilogy, a core element of the Dragonlance world. While the authoring team of Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis wrote the setting's central books, numerous other authors contributed novels, short stories and game supplements to the setting. Over 190 novels have used the Dragonlance setting; the Dragonlance campaign setting has also been used for multiple editions of Dungeons & Dragons and for the SAGA System. Following Wizards of the Coast's acquisition of TSR in 1997, Wizards licensed Dragonlance to Margaret Weis's company Sovereign Press to produce game materials; this licensing agreement ran from 2001 to 2007. Dragonlance returned in 2022 with a new adventure module and the start of a new novel trilogy. (Full article...) -
The Kampung Boy, also known as Lat, the Kampung Boy or simply Kampung Boy, is a graphic novel by Lat about a young boy's experience growing up in rural Perak in the 1950s. The book is an autobiographical account of the artist's life, telling of his adventures in the jungles and tin mines, his circumcision, family, and school life. It is also the basis for the eponymous animated series broadcast in 1999 and a musical theatre staging in 2011. First published in 1979 by Berita Publishing, The Kampung Boy was a commercial and critical success; its first printing (of at least 60,000 copies, 16 times) was sold out within four months of its release. Narrated in English with a smattering of Malay, the work has been translated into other languages, such as Japanese and French, and sold abroad.
The book made Lat an international figure and a highly regarded cartoonist in Malaysia. It won several awards when released as Kampung Boy in the United States, such as Outstanding International Book for 2007 and the Children's Book Council and Booklist Editor's Choice for 2006. The Kampung Boy became a franchise, with the characters of The Kampung Boy decorating calendars, stamps, and aeroplanes. A Malaysian theme park is scheduled to open in 2012 with the fictional characters as part of its attractions. The Kampung Boy is very popular in Southeast Asia and has gone through 18 reprints. A sequel, Town Boy, which followed the protagonist in his teenage years in the city, was published in 1981 and a spin-off, Kampung Boy: Yesterday and Today, in 1993. The latter reused the setting of The Kampung Boy to compare and contrast the differences between Malaysian childhood experiences in the 1950s and 1980s. (Full article...) -
The Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus (Paris, National Library of France, Greek 9) is a manuscript of the Greek Bible, written on parchment. It is designated by the siglum C or 04 in the Gregory-Aland numbering of New Testament manuscripts, and δ 3 (in the von Soden numbering of New Testament manuscripts. It contains most of the New Testament and some Old Testament books, with sizeable portions missing. It is one of the four great uncials (these being manuscripts which originally contained the whole of both the Old and New Testaments). The manuscript is not intact: its current condition contains material from every New Testament book except 2 Thessalonians and 2 John; however, only six books of the Greek Old Testament are represented. It is not known whether 2 Thessalonians and 2 John were excluded on purpose, or whether no fragment of either epistle happened to survive.
The manuscript is a palimpsest, with the pages being washed of their original text, and reused in the 12th century for the Greek translations of 38 treatises composed by Ephrem the Syrian, from whence it gets its name Ephraemi Rescriptus. (Full article...) -
Bacon: A Love Story, A Salty Survey of Everybody's Favorite Meat is a 2009 non-fiction book about bacon, written by American writer Heather Lauer. It describes curing and cooking bacon, gives over 20 bacon recipes, and analyzes the impact of bacon on popular culture. The text is interspersed with facts about bacon and bacon-related quips from comedian Jim Gaffigan. (Full article...)
-
Magic, Witchcraft and the Otherworld: An Anthropology is an anthropological study of contemporary Pagan and ceremonial magic groups that practiced magic in London, England, during the 1990s. It was written by English anthropologist Susan Greenwood based upon her doctoral research undertaken at Goldsmiths' College, a part of the University of London, and first published in 2000 by Berg Publishers.
Greenwood became involved in the esoteric movement during the 1980s as a practitioner of a feminist form of Wicca. Devoting her doctorate to the subject, her research led her to join Kabbalistic orders and two Wiccan covens, during which she emphasised that she was both an "insider" (a practising occultist) and an "outsider" (an anthropological observer). Reacting against the work of Tanya Luhrmann, who had authored the primary anthropological study of the London occult scene, Persuasions of the Witch's Craft (1989), Greenwood argued against studying magical beliefs from a western rationalist perspective, instead adopting a theoretical approach informed by phenomenology and relativism. Greenwood's research focused on Pagan and magical conceptions of the "otherworld". The book's first chapter summarises the Pagan magical conception of the otherworld, and subsequent chapters detail Greenwood's experiences with Kabbalistic magic and Wicca. The work goes on to discuss issues of psychotherapy and healing, gender and sexuality, and morality and ethics within London's esoteric community, and the manner in which the community's members' views on these issues are influenced by their beliefs regarding an otherworld. (Full article...) -
The Adventures of Abdi is a picture book written by American entertainer Madonna. It was released on November 8, 2004, by Callaway Arts & Entertainment. The book is a moral tale inspired from a 300 year-old story by rabbi Baal Shem Tov, that Madonna had heard from her Kabbalah teacher. It tells the story of Abdi who was given the task of delivering a precious necklace to the queen. Madonna was inspired to write The Adventures of Abdi by the settings in "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves" and other folk stories from One Thousand and One Nights. Published in a 32-page jacketed hardcover format, the book was illustrated by Russian painters Olga Dugina and Andrej Dugin. Madonna promoted the release by appearing for book signing events as well as on television shows. The Adventures of Abdi was criticized for being Orientalist and promoting Kabbalah to children; its illustrations received positive feedback. (Full article...)
-
After This is a 2006 novel by award-winning American author Alice McDermott. The novel follows a working-class American family who reside on Long Island, New York and their four children, who are enduring their own experiences during the times of the sexual revolution. It is set during the mid-20th century, a time after the end of World War II, through to the presidency of Richard Nixon.
The book received many positive reviews from critics, often commenting on the writing styles of McDermott. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette commented that the storyline is "sophisticated in design, spare like an elegant entrée at a fine restaurant." The book was highlighted among the 100 Notable Books of the Year of The New York Times. (Full article...) -
Outliers: The Story of Success is a non-fiction book written by Malcolm Gladwell and published by Little, Brown and Company on November 18, 2008. In Outliers, Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success. To support his thesis, he examines why the majority of Canadian ice hockey players are born in the first few months of the calendar year, how Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates achieved his extreme wealth, how the Beatles became one of the most successful musical acts in human history, how two people with exceptional intelligence—Christopher Langan and J. Robert Oppenheimer—end up with such vastly different fortunes, how Joseph Flom built Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom into one of the most successful law firms in the world, and how cultural differences play a large part in perceived intelligence and rational decision-making.
Throughout the book, Gladwell repeatedly mentions the "10,000-Hour Rule", claiming that the key to achieving world-class expertise in any skill, is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing the correct way, for a total of around 10,000 hours, though the authors of the original study have disputed Gladwell's usage. (Full article...) -
Ethnic Identity and the State in Iran is a 2013 book by Alam Saleh in which the author examines inter-ethnic tension and the politicization of ethnic identity in Iran. He suggests that problems with ethnicity and nationality in Iran, as in other countries of the Middle East, has not been so much the result of ethnic identity formation, but the product of the securitization of ethnic issues. The book has received positive reviews in the Middle East Journal, Review of Middle East Studies, Iranian Studies, the British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, and Nations and Nationalism. (Full article...)
-
Educating the Disfranchised and Disinherited is a 1999 biography of American General Samuel Chapman Armstrong and his associated normal school for freedmen, Hampton Institute, written by Robert Francis Engs and published by the University of Tennessee Press. The first full biography of its kind, the book portrays Armstrong as a complex politician and administrator in the postbellum period who balanced the needs of opposed parties surrounding the Virginia school: its African American students, Southern white neighbors, and Northern philanthropist funders. Previous works presented Armstrong in a polarized fashion, as either a savior or handicap for freedmen. The book emphasizes Armstrong's upbringing as a missionary in Hawaii in the development of his educational philosophy.
Reviewers complimented the book's balanced presentation of Armstrong, grounded use of the period's thought, and contribution to the historiography of industrial education. They felt the book lacked community and state historical context, as well as recent scholarship on Native Americans at Hampton. (Full article...) -
Panzer Aces is an English-language book series by the German author Franz Kurowski. Originally released in 1992 by J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing, a Canadian publisher of military literature, it was licensed in 2002 by the firm to American publishers Ballantine Books and Stackpole Books. The series' books were a commercial success and enjoyed a wide readership among the American public.
In their 2008 book The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi–Soviet War in American Popular Culture, historians Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies criticise Panzer Aces as ahistorical and misleading, presenting a picture of the German soldiers "without flaws or character defects". According to the authors, Kurowski's accounts, including Panzer Aces, are intended "to act as a memorial to these men". (Full article...)
.jpg)
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 Celsus Library was built in 135 A.D. and could house around 12,000 scrolls?(Pictured)
- ...that following the advice of minister Li Si, Emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered the burning of all philosophy books and history books from states other than Qin — beginning in 213 BC?
- ...that according to the Torah in the fourth year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah the prophet Jeremiah dictated the words of the Lord to Baruch, who wrote them in ink upon a roll of a book?
General images
The following are images from various book-related articles on Wikipedia.
-
Chinese Bookseller, illustration, c. 1824 (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) -
European output of printed books c. 1450–1800 (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) -
Scheme of common book design(from Bookbinding)- Belly band
- Flap
- Endpaper
- Book cover
- Head
- Fore edge
- Tail
- Right page, recto
- Left page, verso
- Gutter
-
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) -
Page 49 of the Dresden Codex (from History of books) -
Modern paperback spines (from Bookbinding) -
European output of manuscripts 500–1500 (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) -
Cloth book cover with attached paper panel, mimicking half leather binding (from Bookbinding) -
Early medieval bookcase containing about ten codices depicted in the Codex Amiatinus (c. 700) (from Bookbinding) -
9th-century Qur'an in Reza Abbasi Museum (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) -
A Chinese bamboo book, The Art of War, commissioned by the Qianlong Emperor in 18th-century China (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) -
Book conservators at the State Library of New South Wales, 1943 (from Bookbinding) -
Design by Hans Holbein the Younger for a metalwork book cover (or treasure binding) (from Book design) -
Illustration from the Codex Manesse, a German book from the Middle Ages (from History of books) -
Decorative binding with figurehead of the 12th century manuscript Liber Landavensis (from Bookbinding) -
Page spread with J. A. van de Graaf's construction of classical text area (print space) and margin proportions (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) -
Folio from the Shah Jahan Album, c. 1620, depicting the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (from History of books) -
A 15th-century Incunable. Notice the blind-tooled cover, corner bosses, and clasps. (from History of books) -
Marbled book board from a book published in London in 1872 (from Bookbinding) -
Page from a Jain manuscript depicting the birth of Mahavira, c. 1400 (from History of books) -
Modern book spine designs (from Bookbinding) -
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)
-
Three books with different titling orientations:
ascending (left); descending (middle); upright (right) (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 -
Rebacking saving original spine, showing one volume finished and one untouched (from Bookbinding) -
-
Bookbinder's type holder (from Bookbinding) -
Hardbound book with half leather binding (spine and corners) and marbled boards (from Bookbinding) -
European output of books 500–1800 (from History of books) -
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) -
Photograph of a printing press in Egypt, c. 1922 (from History of books) -
Hardbound book spine stitching (from Bookbinding) -
Traditionally sewn book opened flat (from Bookbinding) -
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) -
Example of blind tooling a book binding with exquisite detail (from Bookbinding)
.jpg)
.jpg)
_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg)
Books lists
WikiProjects
Categories
Full category tree
Select [►] to view subcategories
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
Discover Wikipedia using portals
